The dilemma of the youth-engineering

                   It's been three years I've been into Engineering. The first year students were from every walk of life and everyone had a personality. The personalities varied from the rich to the poor, the booster and the boaster, the over-confident and the under-confident,the introvert and the extrovert. Name a personality and you'll find them near you. There were many who repented their choice, cried and cursed their parents for not letting them do what they wanted to. Some were forced to choose and others had no option to(like me!). The crying and cursing lasted for an year or so.

              All this while, I was busy figuring out as to why I chose Engineering. Waking up in the middle of the night and taking a decision about life was not a joke. I heard people sulking about Engineering and repenting their decision and advising the younger generation not to do so under pressure. All they said were these two quotes that I heard from my teenage "Follow your heart", "Follow your passion" which gave us the inspiration to choose what's right and what's not. Now, these quotes remain as quotes on the wall. Everytime I look at it a sense of regret prevails within me. To overcome this regret, I started giving a reason, rather an excuse- I feel this way because the quotes are just quotes and are not applicable in real life or may be I heard too many stories(mostly sad ones) why they had to choose Engineering. Back in my mind, I was searching for the reasons why I hated Engineering and Computer Science all these years. What was the reason for my aversion? At the end of six months, I felt it was just a waste of time pondering over questions whose answers will make no sense now. Even after the first semester, I wasn't convinced of why I chose Engineering. Going back to do medicine was now only an option and no more a passion. One day I heard someone saying "If it's still in your mind, then it's worth taking risk". This seemed to be a superficial quote like the previous one and quite unimpressive(to me!).

              Then suddenly I thought why not. Why not Engineering? All these months I tried to find out an answer to the question why and not why not. Had I thought about it earlier I would have got the answer. These years, it was just an imagination and story that I made up in my mind that I hated Engineering. But it was never so because I never knew what Engineering was and I simply judged about it based on what others said. It was their perspective and not mine. Then I closed my eyes a told myself "Trust the process. Just go for it". At the end of the first year,there was a sense of self-satisfaction . There were no more regrets. No more searching answers for the questions that didn't make sense. With the satisfaction that I got, passion came into existence. A passion towards my goal. A passion towards Engineering, passion to learn and trust in the process of learning.

           By the end of next six months, everyone tried to give in their best of what they're taught and learn. And what looked like daydream to the parents who forced their kids into Engineering now could hear it say "And darling I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream". This is because they realised how hard their kids have to work to keep their dreams going. And by now, the end of third year, all of us knew that nightmares don't last long. No, they don't.

         Hassling throughout the year with assignments, projects,internals,externals etc etc I am entering into a new phase of Engineering called the final year. "The Placement phase- that decides your fate"(is what they say. But I don't believe in it ). Now not many of us have regrets, we don't lament and curse for the choice because we're now Engineer-in the making. I do not regret my choice. It's just because this choice and trust in the process I have come to this stage in my life.

    Now looking at the first one week of the college where there were many personalities around me, now I can spot only two of them- one is passion and the other is profession. Some of us will continue Engineering as a passion and some as a profession. Here I come into category-1. I now choose Engineering as my passion because it's now I realise that the zeal I have towards Engineering is way more than Medicine.

     Engineering what I mentioned earlier as a process is the process of learning. Learning every aspect of life, not just to breathe but to live.

P.S.- And this is my story.