CHOOSING A COLLEGE: THE STRUGGLE AND JOURNEY BEHIND CHOOSING YOUR DREAM COLLEGE

 

Landing your dream college is a whole journey of its own. And if you were particularly choosy like me, you would have started your college hunt right from middle school. As did I. It is a long and tedious journey indeed, which becomes slightly less so if you know what you are going to major in. For most of us, this question has been posed to us right from our childhood, when all kinds of different people assume the role of a temporary guidance counselor and set the stage for more serious discussions in our futures. And while we could have blurted out creative responses like princess or cowboy when we were 5, people tend to expect a more erudite answer as we grow up. Many of us reply with an "Engineer" or "Doctor" because that is what most of the adult population around us wanted us to be. I bet that if you are from India, at least one of the adults around you posed you a, "So what are you going to be? Engineer or doctor?" question. I still get a few frowns and blank stares when I tell a person I want to pursue psychology. Well, I at least have it better than my friend who wants to be a dancer.

 Now coming on to people who have no clue what to do and how to proceed. This usually happens just after your class 10 examinations and you have to choose your preferred stream. As I previously said I am an incredibly picky person with a genetic predisposition towards anxiety and hence started my career hunt very early on. As early as 6th grade, I started to make mini maps in my mind about how my life would be. That was the stage in my life when the general motto around me was to "do what you love" and a lot of films and stories were being released regarding the same. I wanted to be a writer. As you would have guessed I didn't know much about income and finance back then. It took me a long time to learn how to balance the various factors that would amount to why I chose psychology as my career. In short, this is what I did;

 This could be a very basic idea to start off with if you are feeling completely overwhelmed. My suggestion is to keep things flexible. You have to accept the fact that not everything is perfect and you can't get the best of all worlds. And if you really are passionate about something, you should totally go for it.

 It took me a very long while to choose psychology and I can only say that the more I learn about it, the more I fall in love with it. So there is no going back for me. I unfortunately could not take this subject up when I was in 11th grade as the option was not available for me and as a result, I ended up choosing commerce, dropping it, and then settling on pure science in the end. The bottom line is, you're allowed to make mistakes and be lost for a while, but don't let your mistakes become regrets. Correct them as soon as you can and try to avoid repeating them.

 When it comes to picking a college, I'm afraid I've not perfected that part yet. But there being a plethora of options to choose from and the ever-changing hurdles life keeps throwing at us, this decision might be a little more difficult to make. One example is the coronavirus. The board exams have been canceled but as we cross one hurdle another pops up. What next? How are colleges supposed to choose students? What about the entrance exams? What will be the criterion for selection? Thousands of questions arise especially during these trying times and we are left with no answer. On one side we absolutely do not want to compromise our education but on the other, we don't know how to proceed. If you are completely and utterly lost and you don't know how to proceed, you could try listing your colleges based on this;

  This is a pretty basic idea and there might be a lot of other factors involved as well. You might have a cultural requirement from your college that I haven't listed above. My advice would be to keep various options open. And instead of leaning towards the two extremes of applying to only one college or applying to twenty, try to narrow your options down to 6 or 7 colleges so that you will have options and also so that you wouldn't need to juggle multiple offers of admission and lastly make a hasty decision.

 The process of choosing a college is lengthy and wearisome and my nails are in a very pitiful condition due to my excessive stress over the same. And I'm pretty sure my friends would pass out if they hear me say "I don't know what to do" another time. But it's a tough situation for all of us and the best we can do is help each other out of this mess together. If you have any questions you can mail them to me through the ID given in my About. I would also love to hear your feedback and any suggestions about what you might want to read next in the comments below. Till then, bonjour!