Meera Nair, 18. Student of psychology who’s waiting for her 12th Boards results; is passionate about pursuing a career in psychology.
A career: I am also interested in English literature, but I don’t see many opportunities in that field. As much as I would like to major in English as well, it is not viable. If it was up to me, I’d do a double major in psychology and literature…. Most of my friends are either inclined to commerce, or they want to take up advertising or BMM… One or two of my friends, even though they didn’t want to, they took up science. One of my friends was afraid of not having a job. She thought science is the only option if she wanted a job…. After she said it, I was like, “Oh! That is a thing.”
Having options: One of my friends wants to pursue travel blogging and culinary arts…. I think most people [in my age group, and in humanities] take BMM because if you are confused, it has a wide variety of options on what you can do. We now know a lot of different career options that maybe our parents didn’t even think of. But pursuing those sorts of careers is difficult [because they are unheard of in my parents’ generation]. While we have the knowledge that these kinds of careers exist, most of us won’t have the option to pursue them because our parents fear that no one has even heard of this, how will you pursue it, what if something fails?
In the next 5 years I don’t imagine much change—except for things being more expensive. Progress in our country is pretty slow. Maybe in 10 years there will be a little bit of change. Because it seems to me that since I was a kid, up to now, there hasn’t been much change in these 18 years.
A balanced and fair education system: I wish for change in the education system. I wish that in 10 years we’ll have a different curriculum and a different approach to education altogether… For the last 10-15 years syllabus hasn’t changed. We sometimes learn the same things our parents learnt in school. That’s a bit unfair. Math and science are given so much importance. I’m pretty weak in those subjects but my creative subjects are pretty good. And yet, when I am just a student, I am judged on the basis of how weak or strong I am in science or mathematics…. Colleges should give preference to my subjects of interest.
The system should give more importance to other subjects as well. The kind of importance and weightage that math and science receive, it should also be shown for other creative subjects… Even today when someone asks what you are doing in college, [they ask], what are you doing, science or commerce?
One of my friends scored 95% but chose Arts….She has an elder brother who explained that there are more interesting options to choose from—a wider variety, something that she will enjoy.
Tolerance for our diverse heritage: [I wish we don’t lose] our connect to our culture. There are so many different cultures in our country. We should try to actively stay in touch with them and not drift away… People should build up their tolerance level…. For us the pandemic was like a two-year break. But it also put a lot of things in perspective—things that are not good for a lot of people… we should be grateful for what we have, rather than use it as an excuse to be insensitive.
Freedom to set my own pace: I imagine two futures for myself. In one I am successful therapist. In the second, I am a best-selling author. For the therapist, if I get all the resources that I want. And a little bit of patience from the education system as well. The competition we have now is cutthroat. You feel like you can’t take a break. [I’d like to get] the space I need to become good at it. And not be forced by the milestones other people have set.
Health of natural resources: You see article like how not much is going to be left for future generations, because of the capitalist nature of our economy. We are consuming, consuming, consuming, more than we are contributing. It’s scary to think that what we take for granted now, like free water, may become scarce. There’s that feeling of impending doom.
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