By Shobhit Agarwal:
After completing three years of engineering, the type of questions that one would expect to arise impromptu are —“How can I make this world a better place technically?”, “What form of technology is going to determine the future in the coming generations?”
On probing, plenty of students will outright deny the notion that they are as much into engineering or as good in technical knowledge as Rakhi Sawant is in keeping her mouth shut or Mallika Sherawat in keeping her clothes on. But deep down inside, they very well know that sometime in the not-so-distant future, they are going to look back at their college life and say, “Boss! I wasted four years of my life.”
There’s no denying that there are a bunch of students who were born to be engineers. They are among the rare breed of kids, who in their childhood would tear open their toys to understand their structure and operation rather than hold them in their arms while sleeping at night. But what about the other end of the spectrum? What about the majority, whose course books bite the dust on the study table until one day before the examination; who are still busy trying to figure out the difference between a micro-controller and a micro-processor even in the fourth year of their engineering? They are too timid to accept that engineering is not their cup of tea due to the fear of parental outburst or society’s malign.
I have absolutely no interest in engineering. I accept that. I am a late bloomer; it took me a couple of years into engineering to realise that I wasn’t meant to be an engineer. But at least I am not living in the illusion that someday out of nowhere Santa Claus will come and reignite the long dead engineering neurons in my brain. I have realised that my passion lies somewhere else which has got nothing to do with technical knowledge. And the best part is that this realisation has been more of a boon than a curse. How?
Simple! What 70% of my fellow colleagues are going to realise 4 years after completing their engineering — when life would seem nothing but a never ending monotonous cycle, or when they are being fired from their jobs, I have already realised it now and am working towards rectifying it. Rather than switching to a new career at the age of 30, when my creativity and sharpness will be on the decline, I am prepared to take the risk of switching fields in my early twenties, with my mind as sharp as ever and determination as solid as a rock. I have taken up a number of activities which interests me — writing being one of them. Thus, when I look back into my engineering life sometime in the future, not all of it will appear gloomy.
I just want to convey the message to the ones who are still living in the illusion — “Folks, it is time to wake up and smell the coffee. Rather than using engineering as an excuse of not being able to do things that you love, use it as a catalyst in speeding up the process of daring to chase your dreams. You may crash and burn in engineering but there are thousand other things you are good at. And the flipside to all of it — even if you fail to achieve your goals, you will always have an engineering degree to rely on.”