In this competitive age, the importance of exams such as AIEEE, IIT-JEE and the state Joint Exams need no elaboration. The students who pass these exams with good ranks get admitted to the best science colleges the country has to offer and are tagged the crème de la crème of the science students. But how many of these students are actual science students?
For that we must first define the phrase “actual science students”. Can a student who scores high marks in his exams and a high rank in the entrance exams be called a science student? No doubt he has worked hard, and he has all the concepts and formulae lodged tight in his brain, but how many of these are actually science lovers?
In my opinion, just high marks or high scores do not prove that a student loves science. He may be just another rat in this rat race. Reading science just due to the lucrative jobs which are up for grabs, or perhaps due to peer and parental pressure, going to numerous coachings and studying from numerous books.
In these so called ‘training institutes’, the students minds are filled with only one thought, “how to score in the exams”. He understands what he is taught, but he understands only the surface of the idea. Unless he loves what he is being taught, he can never know the core essence of the topic, and without that he can only proceed blindly, guided by what he has being taught and what he has read. He never stops to think about the matter on his own, whether what he has been told is right or wrong. He can only follow the path that has been made out for him, never looking around, ignoring all other ideas, alternatives and thoughts. Students who have been shaped like this no longer remain human. They do not think on their own, they are nodifferent from computers, which only do what they are taught to do. They are like worker ants or bees, following the central goal blindly, and without question. Abd it is these students on whom the future of the country lies. These drones who will never learn to think on their own. People who do that are termed as dreamers and idiots. A student of science must look at all possibilities before choosing the best one. These days the best choices are being packaged with a heavy price tag- pay up and know the truth, no thinking required. These students will in all possibility join some college and work their lives away on what they have blindly learned. Unless a student has imagination and an open mind he can never be a proper science student. He must have a logistic way of looking and understanding the world around him. Many students claim to be ignorant of some natural phenomenon, which the previous day he or she may have learnt about. They just can’t think on their own and relate what they have learnt to what they sense. A science student shouldn’t have any superstitions, which is why logistic thinking is important. Many students stop in their tracks when a cat crosses the road, waiting for someone else to cross and break the ‘spell’. Unless students can develop a love for science at an early age, there will be barely any progress of science in this country. Only learning like machines will only lead to good jobs. Without the will to challenge convention no student is a proper science student.
Somak Mitra
