Conscientious Reflections

When I was in school, fast approaching my 10 th standard boards, the discussion about choosing the right stream in college had already seeped into everyday conversations at home. I would hear stories about my cousins, seniors and friends of friends competing to get a seat in the best college as the competition was insane. I knew the names of almost every engineering and medical college in the city because that’s what everyone was talking about. All the stories I had heard about career and competition narrowed down to two streams, engineering and medicine. Naturally, I was not aware of any other stream that could be considered for a career. Even if I did, I was hardly aware of its scope, so I assumed it was imperative that my ambition be to become either an engineer or a doctor. But atypical as I am, I did not particularly have an interest in either of the fields. Nevertheless, I chose ‘Science’ in junior college because I did not know what I wanted to do. My sister was studying engi...