Mystory@Tanay Vaidya: How I chose my course and career path - Challenges and learnings

Mystory@Tanay Vaidya

A series of fortunate clichés

Boy is good at Science in school. Boy assumes that it means he likes Science. Boy takes up Science after Class 10. Boy realizes he made a huge mistake. Boy decides he wants to pursue journalism halfway through Class 12. Boy is happy that he has to study just for HSC now, the pressure of JEE Mains is off his shoulders. Boy gets too complacent. Boy barely graduates HSC. Boy doesn’t get admission into a BMM college because of his terrible (and I really mean terrible) percentage. Boy feels guilty about the fact that he has to take a drop year, but goes ahead with it anyway. Best decision that stupid boy ever made. Everything works out in the end, because the force is with this boy, apparently. Sounds like a standard (albeit long-winded) journey right? There’s one key difference between this and every other story about someone quitting their field to pursue their passion. Those stories involved parental opposition. That’s not what happened in my case. My parents never forced me to become an engineer, but I decided to go down this path anyway because… Why not?

It worked out at the end, but all wasn’t quite well on the parental front throughout this process. The best thing my parents did throughout this whole charade was letting me quit engineering without any grief. My father stayed calm and collected as usual, only advising me to make sure that I was 100% certain about this new direction and that I couldn’t afford to go back on this decision. My mother on the other hand, was less nuanced in dealing with the situation. She never opposed my decision, but her concerns about what my future holds were overly exaggerated and, frankly, irritating, which led to plenty of arguments. The absence of a clear career path in the media industry terrified my mother, a fear she dealt with by yelling at me.

Lessons learnt

If you decide to change your field of education, brace for the impact, as the chances of things at home getting ugly are extremely high. Everyone (including you) is going to be lost, angry and confused. The only way you get through this safely is if you’re willing to run around and educate yourself with regard to everything related to your new field. Eventually, my mother and I calmed down with the bickering since both of us realized that it wasn’t helping. The point of mutual understanding should eventually arrive for everyone; all of this conflict arises from a genuine concern for your well-being after all. Despite the fact that you’ll be going down a pothole-ridden road for a long time, if you think you’re in the wrong field, get out.

About The Author:

I am pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Mass Communication from School Of Broadcasting and Communication and interning at Vamrr™. I was also a volunteer in the Welcoming Team at the Mumbai Film and Comics Convention in 2016.