The “yeh 4 saal bohat important hain” narrative is something almost all of us had to go through, the 4 years being the years of your higher education: O-levels/Matric and A-levels/F.Sc. Woh 4 saal when we either stop feeling or feel too much and have to block out most of our feelings just to be able to function normally. I remember mine so clearly (primarily because they were stretched to 5 and a half due to my gap year). To top that off, we have been taught to internalize these feelings of dread and not to share our experiences. This article is to honour all those who struggled through those 4 years. I asked a number of people to share their experiences with us:
“Oh my God you seriously want to talk about F.Sc? You know what’s worse than depression? Getting used to it! That is how F.Sc. starts. You are thrown into a very black and white gloomy scene of a very depressing film but what’s worse is that you start getting used to it. By the end of the 2 years there is absolutely no colour in your life. For me it started with my parents and my teachers pushing me for doing more, working harder and being better although I was already trying my best and throwing me into this hell of a place called Aslam foundation Academy very far away from my friends so that I would actually study and not have a life. So I ended up losing all my friends before the start of the Year and hence my will to go to school every day. It was not even the burden of studies. I was going through a phase change that every 16-17 year old is bound to go through and the time was moving too fast and the People were not very understanding. A friend tells me that her teacher would say “har koi bachay ko yeh to keh raha ha parho ya parha raha ha par koi parhne nai de raha” and I cannot agree more.
I reached out to my friends, I started talking and I started studying, I started getting a grip on things and I improved my marks, I improved my life until wait-for-it: THE GAP YEAR *drumfcknroll*!! Everybody started comparing me with the successful people in my family and they started telling me that I hadn’t tried my best and that I should take a gap year because there is absolutely no other option than being a doctor because you see all the other professions they aren’t really professions; there are only doctors on this earth because all the other careers they are just nothing and people who are not doctors are starving and dying and, my favourite, not respected lol. Seriously though take a moment and laugh out loud!”
-Amna Tayyab*
“F.Sc. ruined my life. I lost my self-confidence. I would cry myself to sleep every night. I mean my life was in shambles. I was a total mess and when i got into university with my zero confidence I had to start everything from a scratch. The only hope I had was the fact that i am going to study the subjects of my choice and that might make things better. And the day my result of part two came out I celebrated my freedom and started my university with a new zeal. Studying the subject of my choice gave me an insight into my inner self. It reinforced me in keeping up with the voracious reader inside me. Securing straights A’s, the writer and the orator in me leaped out and currently I am serving as the director of English society. I found myself two jobs in a row, I maintained my blog and I am working with an organization that works for the betterment of conditions in my beloved Pakistan and things did get better. I am not saying that these things define the success rate of your life but this hellish education system and very respectful asaataz e qaraam destroyed the two years of my life and left me to deal with its horrendous impact on my own.”
-Hajra Haroon*
“My O-level years weren’t hard for me, rather some might even call me an over achiever. My A-level subjects were chosen for me by the society and my good grades. That’s when the panic set in. Although I got into one of the more prestigious institutions for A-levels, I started loathing my life. I used to go park my car under a random tree in an abandoned park and spend my ‘college hours’ over there. Literally waiting in a car for 6 years felt more welcoming than going to study”
-Ayesha Asghar*
“I just relate to that guy in ‘3 idiots’ who ended up killing himself thanks to my A-levels physics teacher”
-Tayyab*
“For some of us F.Sc. was pretty normal but for some quite the opposite. I had to struggle an extra mile. The cherry on top was when the adults couldn’t understand how this was drowning me. I wanted to scream ‘HEYYY!! These three damn digits aren’t me!!!’ But the truth is those numbers did determine my whole damn future. Some of us don’t even know what the fuck we wanted cause all we thought about was marks kitnay hain.
My only request to my younger fellow citizens doing F.Sc. is to take it easy. It gets better. It teaches you a lot. Don’t let it take over you. Take control of it. Make good friends because good friends make all the difference in the world. Talk to your parents and your teachers.
For the teachers, every child is different. Every child has a different brain. As a teacher it is your responsibility to teach each kid the way they would understand best. Also, for god sakes allow gum in the class. Let us eat!!!!! Tell us good books to read and communicate with us instead of threatening us. We need better career counsellors so we can learn to respect each and every profession”
-Ali*
