Karanvir Gupta
By this time results would be out and the next session would have begun. You must be jostling between school and pacing up coaching classes. Before I start giving advice, ‘gyaan’ (in your language), I would like to remind you that “There is no failure like not learning from your mistakes and there is no foolishness as being complacent about your success”. If failure is the stepping stone to success, success itself should act as means of improvising rather than being over-confident. So being at either extremes is equally harmful. But whatsoever, let bygone be bygone. And start afresh without putting off till tomorrow. Remember Time is now and Tomorrow never comes.
The REALITY BITES: I can absolutely understand the pressure you would be passing through be it from teachers, parents, tutors and some self inflicted. But you can’t apprehend the pressure that will be mounting on you some days from now if you do not make the right moves and keep on the right track from now itself. Seems so early to get serious, right? No, it is not early. Just to remind you that not only class XII course needs to be completed, class XI needs to be revisited too. So if it is generally tough to complete one year’s syllabus in a session, imagine completing two years’ course in one. My point is NOT to discourage you but to make you acquainted with the reality. Sooner the better!
HEALTH IS WEALTH: Everyone knows the shuttle you have to do from early morning to school and then to tuition in the afternoon. It definitely makes up for a hectic and tiresome day. Many of you might be complaining about headache, backache or other weakness related ailments. But then all this can’t be taken as an excuse. Firstly there are approximately 15lakh students undergoing same hardships and even more than that you undergo. Secondly this time wont come again. I am not asking you to neglect your health but to take care of it. Summers are on. Take good amount of water rather than fizzed/synthetic drinks. Eat fruits, they keep you fresh, active and healthy. They take away lethargy from you. Heavy, oil rich food should be avoided. Instead of having one time heavy meal, it is preferred to have intermittent light meal. It gets digested fast and provides a kick. So it will be good if you can keep a snacker/biscuit or something like that in your bags along with home-made drink like shikanjhvi, nimboo paani, etc. They prevent you from dehydration and falling sick. You do not have any other option instead of taking care of your health.
NOTHING BEATS PRACTICE : Coming to the academics, I would like to tell you the more you run away from a subject/topic, the more it will haunt you. Face it up! Identify your strengths and weaknesses. Accordingly you should distribute your time among them. Generally it goes like more time for your weakness and less time for your strength. But under no circumstances, leave your strength untouched. Subjects like Physics, Maths, Accounts demand lot of practice and understanding of concepts. One without other is incomplete preparation for any of them. Subjects like chemistry need rote learning when dealing with inorganic chemistry, mathematical understanding when handling physical chemistry and conceptual understanding when dealing with organic chemistry. For other subjects such as History, Hindi, PE it is good if you can draw some pattern and then learn it. Being a mere ‘mugpot’ won’t help much. After all it is also important to reproduce what you have learned. But all said and done nothing compensates as practice and continual efforts.
DON’T BE an ESCAPIST : You might be going through different topics in school and in tuition, so strike a balance between them. Most of the coaching classes have weekly tests. You should not bunk them in any case. They give you a very good opportunity to study the topics done last week. In fact I would suggest if it is possible and your school doesn’t have problem with you being absent a day, please take a day off prior to that test. But if you go by my personal experience, the best you can do is to go through all what has been done in a day on the very same day. This helps you register things fast in your brain and you can also make out what all part/section you couldn’t understand well. You must have heard of the adage “jisne ki sharam, uske foote karam”, so never hesitate to ask doubts in the class. You might be gauged as a fool for the moment but wiser in the long run. Asking doubts is like social service. Wondering how? There are always certain kids who are shy and introvert by nature so if you are not among them please ask doubts, it will help solve their problems too.
Too many cooks spoil the broth, so try one by one! One problem you all would be facing is what to study from where. Take my words, nothing beats NCERT. They are little tough to comprehend but wherever you get stuck, refer another book. Even if you are not following NCERT, I would always advice to finish a topic from one book. And then jump to another. At the same time I would say just doing from one book won’t suffice. You need to be exhaustive at this time without pressurising yourselves. So better finish off a topic from one then after a gap of few days, do it from another book. It would help you revising and at the same type covering number of different problems.
BE DISCIPLINED : The other major problem that students face is time management and the want to live in all the worlds. You want to party, attend birthdays too, want to go on a gedi (roaming around) also, you definitely do not want to miss on the matches too. As a matter of fact, the number of hours since time immemorial has been 24, it never increased. So you really need to prioritize things. And this is absolutely your call. And for students who are actively involved with some club either in school or society, be it dancing/theater/debate or any other such activity or are involved in sports, you really need to plan your time well. A word which we generally despise is ‘discipline’ but is unfortunately has the key to all the problems. In today’s world another major deterrent is social media. I wish these technologies were smart enough to shut themselves down when one enters such a crucial phase of life.
I will stop here as I know you have paucity of time. All what I want to say is realise the importance of time. Do not get bogged down, have your share of fun. But you should be wise enough to draw the line. I know, you know; it was terrific fun in XI. But it is time to get serious. No school and no tuition can teach you unless you are willing to learn. You have chosen your subjects so do not unnecessarily make an issue out of it. Make the best of what you have. As the time passes by, you would have more stuff to do from completing your files, filling up college forms and definitely studying.
Last but not the least, have faith in yourself. Have an aim and stay focused. Hard Work and Perseverance are seeds that definitely reap fruits-sweet fruits. While you do all this buddies, always remember to stay calm and poised. And whenever you face any problem in studies or personally, it is always good to open up to your parents. No one can guide you like them. You might call it a generation gap but they have ‘sanjeevani booty’ hidden in the experience of life they have. Exploit it. I have no doubts about the credibility of today’s genX. It is faster, smarter and cleverer than before. You guys just ROCK!! \m/ Keep Rocking! All The Best!
(The writer is a Software Engineer by profession in Chennai)
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