I am an engineering student,I got into engineering in a purely conventional manner just like many other students of our country. I managed to score well in Higher secondary (10th grade) thanks to the limitless cram work I had done in the entire one year. I passed off the exam with a decent 88.8 percentage of marks,decent enough to get me into the science stream,I had a special interest for economics apart from mathematics and physics,but I decided to opt for science.
As I got into 11th,I was not sure in how to approach the subjects. I took wrong coaching and I screwed up almost the first six months with poor marks in the unit and terminal exams. I changed my coaching classes,and things did change,the new sir,a chemistry teacher mentored my progress,teaching me enough of chemistry to bring about any sort of conversion. I did fairly well with the organic part and slowly bucked up in the other two parts of it namely inorganic and physical chemistry.
Mathematics was a total failure in 11th,I didn't get a proper approach to calculus and I screwed up with the differential calculus (which later has become one of my favorite subject) . I surely got weak with the mathematics part. Nothing bright happened with physics either,with me lacking in the conceptual part of Newtonian Mechanics and oscillations. Textbook were appearing boring and I never fared off well. 11th grade was bad at personal level too. I suffered a lot of embarrassment from my classmates,thanks to the weak links which earned me the tag of a failed crammer who crammed in 10th to get into science,probably it was enough to get me into a doubt on whether I did justice to myself in opting for science.
The only good thing for which I would remember 11th is for the computer science part. Our school teacher taught us from the root level and I worked hard to get the fundamentals of programming right. We had C and C++ in our portion and I did well in both of them,thanks to clear concepts. (Please note: The fundamental to programming is clear logic,be clear on the how to approach a problem and then code it in the given language,you need to get the commands right,but logic should be clear before you proceed)
With a bad approach,I scored some 78 % in my 11th grade's final exam and I had left all the hopes of getting an admission into a good engineering college. The vacation between 11th and 12th was short,and the immediate step I decided to take is change my coaching in physics and mathematics. The beginning of 12th wasn't so rocking. More of personal embarrassment I suffered,and I became completely demoralized. There was a vacation in may before the school finally resumed. This vacation was the turning point for me,I read 'The monk who sold his Ferrari' by Robin Sharma and I finally realized where I was going wrong. I read 'The Greatness Guide' by the same author. Both these books made me believe in myself and I realized everything was getting screwed up because I had lost faith in myself.
After the vacation,I was determined to proceed. I scored 68% in the unit test,but I took this score as a benchmark and I worked hard in school,coaching and then at home to grab all the concepts and
do well. Within two months,my physical and inorganic chemistry improved,physics was fair,I covered both electrostatics and magnetism and there wasn't any problem. The real hard work I made was in mathematics,where my new teacher patiently solved all my doubts and got my concepts clear. I grasped the integral calculus and spent time revising the differential calculus. I suffered more of demoralizing from my classmates but I decided to ignore their comments and alienated from them. In pure solitary,I worked hard with my aim clear.
After two months in the first terminal exam,I got the results of my hard work,scoring 10% more than the unit exam,getting 78%. I worked with my concepts in the succeeding exams but could score only 68% and 72% in the two prelims,however the exams were tough and I found myself doing better than most of my classmates! Finally it was board exam time,with my aim entirely fixed at doing well at boards. The exams went off well,but my parents had already decided to get me into a B.Sc college for a majors,thanks to my poor scoring. But I didn't lose hope.
Apart from board,I had appeared for the National Defence Academy, Gujarat Common Entrance Test and The All India Engineering Entrance Exam, the first two went off well but I hadn't really prepared anything for the third one.
Finally,the month of may arrived and it was result time. One after the other,results were out. I was confident that I'll score decently,but my parents didn't feel the same and somewhere back in my mind,I was a bit discouraged due to the same. Okay,now coming back to results, I scored 88.2 in my board,with 84 in physics,88 in chemistry and 95 in mathematics. I stood 9th best student overall in the class. I got 341 rank in the Guj-CET and I cracked the NDA exams as well,getting a walk-in interview in navy (executive part). I got 122 out of 360 in AIEEE exam. I brought smile to my parents,meanwhile proving them wrong.
Unfortunately due to my extraordinary height of 5 feet 5 inches and a whopping weight of 80 Kgs,I didn't get an admission in the NDA. AIEEE score wan't high enough to get me into a National Institute of Technology or the IIIT (Not IIT). I got Shri Swami Atmanad Saraswati Institute of Technology in my Guj-CET counselling and I grabbed the opportunity. A bit of disappointment was faced in the successive one month. I didn't appear for the re-counselling and then after the final list was out,I came to know that I could have easily got an admission to any of the best institute in the State with my rank. Doors were closed,and I seriously found myself in a place where I had got into,but personally I always felt that I deserved something better. I tried to focus on the engineering thing and in two months I was over the depression!
Now my only aim is to get better points in my semesters and then get a job with handsome salary or to directly go for MBA and this time,I won't make the same mistake,I'll prepare for the entrance exams in a more disciplined way. My only aim now is to get my life in such a position that after 10 years, I don't repent that I made mistakes when I shouldn't have made. I want to get a clear aim now and I don't want to be distracted by the distractions that students of my age find. I am getting aggressively active in Social Media and I want to explore all it's possibilities,sort of an out-of academics interest I have decided to pursue. But my main focus will always remain the same,to perform fairly in the academics part.
