Failing in JEE - An Ultimate Inspiration

When does it starts? 

So, it all started when I was this normal guy, who thought who was in love with Computers and technology, an avid quora reader, had just passed 10th standard  and had managed to score a good GPA, was on the seventh cloud of happiness and determined to be a something tech related and then someone comes in and gives a blatant blow: software engineering - that's for you. But what's next - what to do now, this was when someone told me that there are IIT's and they are the best institutes in India and that people go to Kota(A place in Rajasthan, India)  for preparation. I took this seriously and told my parents the same, they resisted a bit first but thinking that my carrier was on stake, they decided of giving it a go - but after going there dad somehow knew that it wasn't not gonna make a difference. But , I had something different going on in my mind -  Looking at all those skyscrapers and grand buildings of coaching centres, I was attracted to Kota and also the thought of living away from parents on my own, managing things on my own sort of gave an orgasmic feeling( Boy, I was 15 back then ), so I desperately pleaded to dad that let me live over here and prepare, but he strictly said a no. I was a bit  furious at first, but that was all. I had cleared an exam for AMU -  (Aligarh Muslim University - A central govt. university which I guess is a good thing. ) and joined a local coaching centre for preparation and delved full heartedly in JEE preparation.

For Kota issue, Dad had this to say in his favour of argument:

• Inside Kota engineering factory: A girl again commits suicide  
•  Pressure and anxiety on Kota students leads to nightmares and abnormal mental state 
•  You already have cleared AMU entrance examination - why would someone leave an opportunity like this? (Because people already studying in university have some reserved seats in undergrad courses)

So,' THE' JEE

So, first let's talk about JEE - the central examination conducted in India for admission in engineering (Please visit the wiki page here), one of the toughest competitions to crack globally, stands on three pillars - Physics (Most difficult - theoretical and impossible cases given with almost no significant role in engineering physics and covered in the drape of "BASICS". Ok, let's live with that), and then comes that beautiful Mathematics (Difficult but necessary and can be utmost used with nearly all engineering subjects.) and then arrives Chemistry (Oh! - I always thought why does a software engineer would need to study chemistry and why on earth would he ever had to know that benzene has 6 carbons , but since it was a basic science subject - I finally made peace with the subject, but I couldn't really make any progress with it as I couldn't really relate it with anything I would ever like to do.)
Exams like JEE and other state engineering examinations - they could have been planned in a better way. For instance - there are exams where you have to attempt a particular subject but since it does not really relates to some field, it is not taken in for evaluation, as we have in SAT - Chemistry is asked there too! - but if you apply for some University/college and you have scored relatively low in chemistry, you still stand a chance for CS. All in all I just wanted that people should be judged on case by case bases and not merely looked upon for their marks.

Oh, Boy let's come back to reality!

I once even thought of tweeting it to @narendramodi that JEE should conduct a completely different exam for admission to CS undergrad courses, but yes I know that India is not yet ready for such a change in it's education system..

But, hey! that was just me and my thoughts - CS was my passion and my life and I really couldn't have managed in any other core branch, and by introspection and quora feedback- I knew that I can score a rank which would have got me a branch like Petroleum/Material Science, but I I still didn't loose any hope and ran in the race that every other guy was running in my country, I so wanted to study at an IIT .

The ERA of awareness

But again after some time, I started to cram sh*t for chemistry and every subject which wasn't even remotely related to what I was gonna do, but only this time I was aware - Lately, I had been following  people like Ashish Kedia and Anudeep Nekkanti, who were themselves from Tier - 2 colleges and were on par with programming skills on an international level. And, then came the big news - Satya Nadella proved that being from a less reputed college does not hinders your path to success, It's you and your talent which matters in the long run, yes , I am talking about the Microsoft CEO - Satya Narayana Nadella. That was the time, when I realised how foolish have I been to run like sheep for that IITian tag and suddenly the feeling of wanting to get selected at an IIT was gone, all I wanted was to start learning something productive.

And then I started a search conquest on how do I start learning to program, where Ashish Kedia's answers on Quora were of real help, I came to know about MOOCs and some really good books. I finally started learning Python. I started a MOOC on coursera - Introduction to Interactive Programming with Python and it was really good. I felt so proud the day I made my first useful computer program (a fancy word for a single python script) which was to correct the subtitle files - It just had to look for symbols and number combination like (*89&) and replace it with (-->) and then the subtitle file would work and then I really felt in love with Computer Science. I was fascinated by it's power. 

The Vicious cycle of frustration

But this wasn't just the happy ending one would expect, I was in India and I had to complete my education - what college would take me? All these thoughts wouldn't just let me sit in front of the computer - so, halfheartedly, I would still go to my coaching classes and I would still solve some of the JEE questions, but all the time craving for time when I would devote all my time to learn python and not on "Why Hard water doesn't lathers with soap? "

That was a really difficult time - all I could do was - think that I cannot concentrate on anything and that feeling was so frustrating that I would go grab my laptop and start watching some lecture on python and after some time I would feel guilty as if I had done something wrong and I would again go back to frustration - The Vicious cycle of frustration. But somehow, I continued to study or rather say mugging..

The BIG day!!!

And then here my class 12th board examinations ended, which went really well and there came JEE Mains, I was somewhat confident and nervous at the same time. Even before I could react, JEE mains paper was in my hand and I was busy saying to myself that I can do all the questions and knowing somewhere deep that I can just as well poop in my pants, but somehow I managed to solve some questions, satisfied myself  with the thought that I might have a score of around 150 and that feeling was sad back then, but as the time passed by minute by minute, I was coming in face with the truth that I had screwed up and I was scoring around 95 - 100 and then feeling of even getting 150 was achieving.

I don't belong there !!

I don't know whether  JEE mains score was the reason, but I started believing one thing - IIT's aren't a place for me and it wasn't inferiority, it just felt natural, then came this answer by Ashish Kedia which cemented my belief and through which I realised that all I need to do is develop good friends with smart people, and start getting some real work done through my code. And that was easy - collaborating in this digital age - github is there and there were some really smart friends whom I met on different forums , so all in all I felt there was no need desperate, impatient and ruthless mugging, but build my skills and prepare myself for what lies forth.

Don't follow success, listen to your heart and develop your skills and success would be the first one to follow you!

(Ranchordas Shamaldas Chanchad (Aamir Khan in 3 idiots-

The BIG Question - Where now?

If JEE isn't then what is? 

Then it came to me - AMU and thank goodness and my dad that I already did take admission in AMU, so that the competition was easy - I had to score half the marks, so I could now cover up for lousy chemistry. I did everything - studied for 12 hrs a day, gave every test in my coaching , revised all of my notes, didn't touch my laptop (Well, that one was tough), etc. I gave my exam with utmost patience and calmness and that did yield fruitful results (I did score 20 marks more than previous year cut-off according to the answer key released) and now my attitude was F**k JEE,  all I will do is program.

        

Take a step FORWARD

I watched lectures for nearly 18 hours a day for the next couple of days - so you get it what was happening - not only did not giving a damn to JEE gave me some time to learn other things, It even gave me a push start because I knew I am not gonna be from tier 1 colleges so better be prepared to compete with them. But rightly said that if you are gonna do something different, you ought to face obstacles - in this case people, my mom or rather every single person around me forced me to prepare for JEE advanced. But I was determined that I am not gonna be sheepish anymore - I would do something innovative, I would prove that talent is above all and I  started to plan out things like - Lateral Entry programme for IIITH for it is so renowned for it's programmers and culture over there (I also respected their system because they took admissions on the basis of your programming sills), and how I can apply for GSoC next year, also started reading more and more on Quora on about how every intellectual person who has been through this had to say something similar - At the end of the day, it doesn't matters that which college you are from, but what do you have to showcase in your abilities,  and I learned it the hard way.

How your problems are never gonna end!

But, it wasn't the end - JEE Main answer keys were out, I calculated my marks to be 94 and definitely I thought that cut-off would be higher than that, and on the contrary to the normal I was too happy to believe that as it meant I could devote my full time to programming ,JEE Mains result day had come (I didn't told anyone that I had calculated my marks beforehand, I wanted the, to know directly off computer screen), I typed in my roll number and boom a score of 110 marks flashed and I was in utter shock - HOW on earth was that possible (which I came to know afterwards were bonus marks because JEE just can't get 90 questions right)- I double checked my roll number, name, etc but it was the truth - I did clear the cut-off of 100 marks and after that even more people tried to persuade me to try for JEE Advanced - My mom has something like this for her argument:

If you are not gonna prepare now, then you won't feel a thing now, but when you will see your friends getting selected here and there, you will feel guilty and I don't want you to feel guilty.

But how do I tell her that NO - I am ready to face any consequence I shall, and time was getting even tough because there was noon I could really talk to, but when I sat in front of my laptop, I almost forgot whatever the heck was going on. But somehow they persuaded me to at least appear in advanced, so I revised some of the math notes from Permutations and Combinations and other chapters which were necessary in algorithm course.

And then came 22nd June ( I even remember the date) - Advanced , it did consist of 2 3hr long papers and man - it was tough to even siting that room, but somehow I managed to solve more questions than I normally would have - (I think because I really didn't care. ) and the day I returned it was the most happiest of all days I had been through - I could completely do whatever I wanted to - program, program, code, coffee, code and then program and no one would say anything - that was truly a great time - I finished reading How to think like a Computer Scientist - Python, Dive into Python (again, a great book) and finished MIT 6.006 - Introduction to Algorithms (through MIT OCW) and a couple of small projects.

What it lead to?

I had a rank of 19k something and I am completely happy - I am in ZHCET, AMU and I am working with some awesome people: my mentor - Areeb Jamal (who is the nicest guy you have ever met and ever wiling to help you out, by going way out of his comfort zone), couple of my friends - they are awesome. I am getting enough time to learn just about anything and I am even writing this blog - I can help some of my friends who haven't have had as much experience with computers. People respect each other here and I have always got some of my seniors who would receive my call at 2 AM and answer my query. Though, there are people who wouldn't just let go of that IIT tag - do bear in mind that they are among that part of the society who laugh on jokes like "Narendra Modi won't have a chance to have a world tour afterwards, so he is doing that now" - seriously man! - so it doesn't really matters.

And I have some friends at different IIT's - I don't think there is much of a difference in opportunities you would get if you keep your eyes open - attend technical seminars, webinars, subscribe for some technical newsletters/magazines, actively take part in hackathons.

CONCLUSION:

Always bear one thing: failing in JEE is yet another thing which just happens in life and it cannot stop you from being what you can on the basis of your talent - You just need to be brave, persistent and above all - faithful to yourself, your passion - that would definitely get you somewhere - An examination of 3 hours consisting of PCM can't define you or rather can undermine your personality - so be cool and awesome every damn time.

"Yeah you would have to work even harder, but that would be totally worth it because again that won't be anything like learning how to draw structure of ethylene dichloro blah blah, but those would be the things that would help you in your future! - Start Freelancing - You can make easy money and can get equally benefitted by learning skills."

Disclaimer:

This post in no way is intended to undermine those people who have cracked JEE (except for those who have had strong reservations :) - they are easy), or people associated with JEE (except for the one who had the idea of  taking chemistry examination for software engineering courses.), neither does it do the job of detracting the students from preparing for JEE - It just shows them that JEE is not an end to this world - it's quite large enough!