Choices to make

In the beginning, some students have a strong inclination towards the medical field. Some may not have, and they obviously choose a different discipline to pursue their career. The choice is not confined to one stream only, as everyone has to decide individually whether to enter the medical field or pursue any other course. It is certainly believed that choosing the right career in one’s life is half the success.

Over the couple of years, our school-going students have become too obsessed with top-level exams, particularly NEET, which I feel is tremendously appreciable. After completing their 10th board exams, they opt for the medical stream. I am of the opinion that many choose the medical field because some of their relatives are already working as doctors, and they receive guidance at an early stage and gradually excel in the filed.

We can’t deny this fact that each stream has its scope and value, but more importantly, what matters is the subject of interest which leads our students into different streams. The current statistics show an upward graph indicating that NEET aspirants are growing increasingly with each passing year.

Presently,  parents also want their children to qualify for the NEET exam in the future as others do. If X’s son qualifies for this prestigious exam in my village, why not mine? My son or daughter has to qualify as well. Parents should care for their children in career-making, not imposing anything forcibly upon them. We are quite familiar with the different realms of knowledge and fields through information and technology, but some acts are very strange in some crucial areas that would backlash only.

NEET is considered the second toughest exam after UPSC, and lakhs of aspirants appear for the test all   over India. This exam is conducted by NTA annually at the national level. Many aspirants clear this exam in the first attempt and some remain away with little margin and subsequently may cross the line in the second or third attempt.

This exam itself is so worthy and has a great significance when compared to other exams. It is not easy to crack it in the first attempt, but it takes years of hard work to cross the benchmark. Why do we become so selective in some cases? I don’t know which philosophy compels us to exaggerate things beyond a limit.

Interest in a profession is not artificially carved out, but it is naturally placed in everyone. One can only strengthen weaknesses but not interest. Isn’t something going wrong in the system? Or has it become a compulsion now that our children will have to become doctors only? If the medical profession is the only perfect one, who will teach our kids tomorrow in schools? Each profession evolves from teachers as they ignite children and guide them at the school level, but still, the choice is theirs for what they want to become tomorrow.

Professions should be realistically choice-based and eventually it bears sweet fruits. Everyone has self-interest in entering the profession that suits them better, and he/she becomes quite successful in that. To become a doctor is not anything special, but to choose this profession due to some compulsions is lethal damage to the aspirations of our children. Some are positively interested in other fields, but the fixation on behalf of the family detaches them from the field they want to pursue.

Let our children decide what they want to become in future; there is no dearth of professions in our country, and each profession is suitably valued. Our moral values have been altered somewhere owing to a few factors that have generated this negative cycle in us. We made things so complex to think about them rationally and socially and unable to decide what is good for our children.

Choice-based profession leverages your potential gradually whichever profession you choose remains a name only until you are naturally interested in it. To finish it with this line; let our children be given a free choice of what they want to become: doctors, engineers, teachers, or entrprenuers. The only aim is to settle in life and serve society.

The writer is a civil service aspirant