I was so determined to enter one of the top National Law Universities of the country, but now I felt like I didn’t have it in me to make it the top. I even thought that maybe, I wasn’t destined to becoming a lawyer in the long run.
The credits of this would go to the coaching center and its teachers. There was a teacher whose question I was unable to answer on my second day of coaching, and he yelled at me in front of 30 other students and asked me if I was serious about getting into an NLU. He also said a person like me would never get to enter any of the NLUs because I was dumb. Funny as it seemed, I had been to NLSIU for a junior debate a couple of days back, the “Dumb” word was all it took to dismantle the confidence and the zeal in me to reach the top.
A couple of classes later, another teacher mocked me for my inability to do well in the logical reasoning and Math section. He dared to tag my junior college and commented on it. His comment made me hate the place I was at. I was baffled and annoyed at him for doing so, but what could I have done? Had I been a master of these subjects, I wouldn’t have taken the classes in the first place. But coaching centers in our country fail to understand the reason behind the student not being able to solve questions. Instead of mocking and humiliating me in front of the class, if my teachers were more positive, I wouldn’t have had any issues in the first place. I probably would’ve been studying in an NLU today!
I soon started skipping classes every weekend because I felt like a loser in front of my peers at the coaching center. I felt discouraged every time a question was put forward to me. Not that I didn’t know the answers, I feared the consequences of it being wrong just in case.
I had missed a lot of classes, and this made my peers doubt my seriousness about joining a law school. I remember a classmate of mine at the coaching center telling me how I shouldn’t come to these classes as I am doing nothing and should take up an ordinary B.A course because I have taken up Arts anyway! So there it was another add-on to my list of doubts about myself.
Each class I attended, only bulldozed my conviction of making it to the top law universities of the country. With my class XII just about to end, I stopped going to the classes in its entirety, and there ended my stint of being an NLU aspirant. I no longer wanted to be a part of any of the NLUs.
I still don’t know why I felt that way, but I guess the rudeness of the teachers took over every possible rational decision of mine at that point. Nonetheless, I concentrated more on my board exams and gave in all the time I had exclusively to my boards. I even skipped all the mock law tests because I was scared to face failure and embarrassment. Here’s to one of the best law coaching tutorials in the country – sorry I failed you. 😊
Higher education in our country is so sacred that parents feel it is the end of the world if their child doesn’t get into a good college or get a good degree. A degree/college doesn’t really matter when the child has it in him to reach heights. But it’s the 21st century, and our society is still bound to come in terms of that. I didn’t know how coaching centers adversely impacted the student until I was a part of the same drill. Coaching centers are supposed to coach you to be able to reach where you want to. I don’t think a few thousand rupees give them the right to exploit or humiliate the student if he is unable to perform better.
My parents had no idea that I had stopped attending my classes. Every weekend, I would leave from home with a bag full of books to participate in the class, but I never attended any. I aimlessly roamed around at M.G. Road or watched a movie alone and would go back home at the same time my classes ended so my parents wouldn’t bat an eye to what I was up to. I was upset with myself for deceiving my parents, but I feared their reaction to it. I decided to choose law, I fought with them for myself, and now when they gave in to what I wanted, I had turned my back from everything they had done for me.
This one time, my driver got suspicious when he saw me roaming around at M.G at a very odd time, and he told my mother about how he hadn’t seen me enter my class for a lot of days.
That same day my mom and dad confronted me about what I was up to in the coaching class. I had no answer because I knew I had disappointed them already. I somehow gathered the courage to tell them what I was going through in the class, and surprisingly, there was no reaction to it from the other end. I was told to go to my room and study for board exams. I knew I had let them down again, and it felt like they did not have any expectations from me at all.
However, I was sure of making up for all the disappointments, right from the class X results till date by doing well in my class XII board exams. I meant it this time, and I made a schedule for myself and studied for about ten hours a day every day after that confrontation. That even shocked my mom because I soon turned into a ‘nerd’ she had never seen before.
For others, it may have seemed like I was going to be a loser for studying Social Sciences in class XII only to end up becoming nothing as I had given up on my law coaching classes too. But I guess the blueprint of my life had hidden plans for me, about which I had no idea yet!
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