How the ideal student ended up taking a break year after high school .

First is first. This is my first time blogging and my first post, so a big shout out to all those readers out there who are going to hopefully read my posts.

Well, it’s been 10 months since I passed out of my 12th standard. That's high school right! And where I live , that's in India (I think , it pretty much applies to every kid out of high school , anywhere in the world ) we are expected to know what we really want to pursue ahead ,proper "career" as they say. And as a matter of fact, I did!

All my school life, I've kind of been the ideal kid. Or at least I think that's what people saw me as. The overachiever as one of my friends mentioned. The know-it-all girl. To be honest, I liked all of it. I still do. But also I liked to think of myself as the all-rounder. I liked to try my hand at literally everything. And of course be extremely good at it. Some things did, some did not. But ultimately, I did succeed in being called the all-rounder at school. And I was really proud of myself for the person I had finally become. I am.

And like any ideal student. I had my career, ambition, goal sorted out perfectly. And I was pretty sure that I will get through it. And you know what my goal was? To join the Indian Air Force as a doctor, a medical officer in defense terms. It initially started out as doctor, but since I grew up in defense surroundings, this passion to join the forces engulfed me, especially the uniform, the rank; the whole aura of an officer just mesmerized me. And so when I got to know I could be a doctor and an IAF officer, damn I was over the moon. And just like they show those kids in movies that have a dream college, I did too. AFMC: Armed Forces Medical College. Wow.

So yes, I thought my life after school was sorted out properly. No worries eh.

But, then life just hit me one day and said no dear, you can't have all that and be happy.

My dad suffered from stroke which caused his paraplegia, that total right side paralysis. So well, that wasn't good news at all. This came up right when my 12th board exams were coming up which are really important apparently.

As any ideal student, I tried my best not to let any of it affect my studies. And I still want to believe they didn’t. Sure, things weren't the way I had planned. I couldn't study at my favorite study table which I was used to , nor study In my own room as it was used up for my dad's post stroke care. So yeah, things were a bit different not the way I wanted to study for my "boards”. But I stirred through all of it.

So the boards were over. What Next? All the entrance examinations! So obviously, there were the medical ones; AIPMT which then turned into NEET because someone thought it would be good idea to change the whole medical entrance system just weeks before the exam. Still I stirred through it. But turns out they wanted to do another NEET, for very elaborate reasons that might need another post. But the catch was, if we write the next NEET, our performance in the first won't be considered. And that was not good. But who doesn't like second chances, right? I had done fairly well in NEET 1 but like anyone else thought I could do better. So, I took the risk, thought it would not be harder than the first one. But it was, as if anything could possibly go the way I wanted.

And so we waited for the results.

Meanwhile, the results for my board examination came out. Aaaand ...The best news was I had got full 100 in biology! That was something. And my overall percentage was pretty good though I had aimed for more, but that year they had decided to make the mathematics paper freaking hard and this affected my percentage. Well, the thing is we are told so much that this examination is like the mother of all exams and you have to get the best Marks. Yes, it's true in a way that it's a finale to your school life , to test your knowledge and stuff. But when we look at the big picture, it has no important role. None of the examinations and selection criteria for medical includes 12th percentage (the same is for engineering and many other fields, but it does help if one wants to pursue a graduation degree course). The whole "marks" frenzy lasted for a few months after results. And now no one really cares about it. Sure, because of amazing results my school was highly praised, so that's good.

So coming back to the entrance exams, I had given the engineering ones too just for the sake of it. But really I have no interest in the field. But ironically, I cleared the exam with a pretty good score. I got a college. (EEE was the course), but then I had no idea what the subject was really about only that it provides good package after placement. And again, with no idea what kind of job one gets after that. Anyway, I thought if could get an engineering college this easily I guess I could definitely get a medical one. So, I left the engineering idea then and there.

Now, you must be wondering why I haven't talked about AFMC. Well, to get into AFMC one has to write NEET and get a certain cutoff marks. Again, it isn't easy. They have like 130 seats, out of which 25 are supposed to be filled by girl candidates. And yes, I am a girl. Also, the cutoff is higher for girls than boys by quite a high margin. Making it all the more difficult.

So when I wrote NEET 2 ( which I had mentioned had been a bit tricky ), some part of me told me that I might not get into AFMC but I didn't want to believe it . But then, this wasn't the only way to get into IAF as doctor. One can complete their MBBS from any proper medical college and then apply for the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS). So now, I was counting on low cutoffs for the other colleges.

It was a long wait, for the results to come out. The worse thing was that this process had been extended to half of the year, by then the admissions to other courses, colleges were over. So this was the only thing left now.

Then the results came in. And, well let's just say they weren't enough to get me a good college. I had missed the cut off by 40 marks that's equivalent to 8 questions. So, AFMC was obviously out of reach. I tried with other colleges, some private ones and was disgusted to see the amount of fees each of them charged. It was horrible. More because of the fact that people had actually joined them, people I knew. People who didn't score enough.

And so after a month long haul, it became clear I ain't gonna study MBBS this year, with 3 months to spare for the year 2016 to end. (Yes, it was 2016. And I hate that year. )

And that's how the ideal student ended up taking a break year.