The Stinking System!!

Anyone who has read ‘Five Point Someone’ by Chetan Bhagat must have liked the character Ryan in the novel. For the ignorant lot who do not know what I’m referring to; well its about a novel which portrays the life of three ‘very-similar-to-us’ kind of students who fortunately or unfortunately ended up in the much hallowed Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). Of the 3, Ryan is the only brat who keeps on cribbing about the education system, and its flaws that leave no room for ‘Original Thinking’.

Come to think of it, we’re almost in the same situation here. Just think of it and you’ll realise how disgraceful it is for whom B.Com, B.B.A. and B.C.A. fell upon by chance than by choice. It’s quite startling but most of us select our future course of action at the form-filling desk than a few months earlier. We all are idiotic twerps that we enter a graduation course even before looking at the course contents and things like that. No wonder how ‘Follow the Herd’ theory came into existence!

“B.Com is easy! But B.B.A. sounds cool! Nah, too much hard work; and then what about B.C.A.? No-no too much computer oriented.”

Such are the conversations between you and your conscience. But to be frank, I don’t blame you. It’s because you’re a victim of the system. We’ve been hammered for 14 years so that we could have the aptitude to pursue further studies but not to have a mind of our own. There are few who have already decided their pathway and they follow it, religiously. Let’s just say that they were blessed with scholarly brains and have the ability to solve half of the world’s problems. For others, well, poor creatures, realisation dawns upon them a bit too late. Afterwards there’s no looking back. And such clangers happen simply because one is not aware of the plethora of options available.

Once a student in class was asked about his future plans. He immediately stood up and blurted, “Sir, MBA in IT”.

The professor asked, “MBA in Information Technology or Income Tax?” and the entire class burst into laughter. Amused but not astonished, the professor retorted, “I suppose you are not aware but there do exist specialised courses for areas like Income Tax.” And the class went numb.

Moral of the story – Crack the System; have an out of the box thinking approach. I’m not asking a Commerce student to be an astrophysicist but certainly he must have the vision to look beyond qualifications in capitalised letters.

And by the way, Ryan eventually does break the system in the novel by joining as a research assistant at IIT, Delhi. Now, does that inspire you?