Stop chasing impossible dreams

Academic stress and the inability to cope with it is increasingly leading to suicides in the student community, particularly among those pursuing professional courses like engineering, medicine and business management.

A week ago, Bengalureans woke up to the sickening news that a 19-year-old engineering student had jumped from the eighth floor of a college building, maybe distressed after he was accused of carrying a mobile phone with him into the exam hall.

The incident happened on July 17 at a prestigious city-based university. A blame game is now on with the parents targeting the institution for undue harassment of their son for no fault of his, claiming he had unintentionally carried the phone into the hall.

While it is for the cops to unravel the truth behind the incident, what is of serious concern in recent years is the huge stress and strain students face from all quarters – college officials, parents and peers – to perform better and outperform others.

During the Covid times, academic pressure was off students because of the online mode of teaching and flexible approach adopted by universities; now, the pressure is back – for good or bad – to achieve high marks that would make one eligible for a medical or engineering seat even if one was at best just average in studies.

And that’s making more and more students lose hope and look for an easy way out rather than being lampooned all the time. Just look at the figures from Kota in Rajasthan, considered the coaching capital of the country, and the sad story is there for all to see.

As many as 16 learners have killed themselves in the six months of 2023 till June; and there have been 150 student suicides in the town in the last 12 years.

There are many parents who despite being acutely aware that their ward just does not have the potential to make it big in academics and become a doctor or engineer, push them beyond their limits and finally leave them as mental wrecks, who do not know what to do next.

Colleges nowadays offer counselling sessions to students on how to handle academic stress, and it would be worthwhile to hold parallel sessions for parents too; they should be explained in detail the many career options students have other than engineering or medicine, which can rake in the big bucks in equal measure.

The prime question here is whether parents really consider their kid’s bent of mind while egging them to take up career courses that put them through unimaginable stress and make it a daily battle for them to cope with academics.

Being a textile designer, an artiste or even learning catering technology can be as lucrative as the more soughtafter professional courses provided of course one has the zeal and energy and finds the learning pleasant and a positive experience, and not an ordeal.

And there is always the satisfaction of engaging in what one is best at rather than chasing impossible dreams, which is what many students are forced to do for no fault of theirs.

Career counselling of the right kind, which guides students through the many choices before them and helps them pick the apt course that suits their intellectual ability, aptitude and temperament, can do wonders for a ward’s future.

It may not be easy for many parents to swallow their pride and give in to their kids’ career choice that may not necessarily be a professional course, but then what finally matters is the young one’s happiness. All that hammering to try and fit a square peg in a round hole will only end up bruising one’s ego and even force many over the precipice.