Failure in academics made me embrace depression and find self awareness

This is a sincere heart spill and a story of how acknowledging one of my biggest weaknesses made me stronger. There might be plenty of stories like what I am sharing here but there are never enough. Friends, friends of friends and strangers still go into depression when faced with failure. We need to talk and share more. Here’s my attempt.

BITS Pilani is one of the premier science and engineering institutes in India. I graduated from BITS in 2012 and this is the story of how and why I am not an engineer or a science graduate today.

I got admission in BITS to pursue MSc Chemistry. But truth be told I never got to ‘pursuing’ it. I was just in the middle of a path made by thousands before me. It was the way things were supposed to be.

My ‘awakening’ was initiated when I was attending the second class in my first week as a new student. It was a Probability and Statistics lecture. As the instructor was ranting off a rehearsed lecture, my hand went up. I had a sincere question (as ignorant or naive it may have sounded then). I asked “In 60 years of research in core mathematical models, there has to be a way by which we can make faster calculations and improve accuracy. Is there one? If not, why not?”

All I got was a blank stare and a wave of hand asking me to sit down. He ignored me like I was not present and carried on. I obliged. But I never attended any of his classes again.

Not just that, I decided that I would never attend any class if I didn’t build respect for the instructor or his/her approach to the subject. I will admit, it was an aggressive take on learning and how to approach a teacher but that’s how I laid it out.

I decided that I shall never confuse respect with blind obedience.

A bit of context to the way I think. Since childhood, I have found myself asking a lot of ‘Why’ questions. It’s the way my parents have brought me up. I had managed to score upwards of 95% till 6th grade and my questioning nature never clashed with my academically sincere side.

It was in 7th grade that I first asked the really tough ‘Why’ (for myself atleast):

“Why do I need to study something I am not passionate about?”

I was unable to find a convincing enough answer. I remember some of the more common answers given by people close to me:

“One needs to study to score and measure progress”
“Study just enough to get a respectable score. Nobody’s expecting magic from you”
“Passion and studies don’t always go together.”
“You have your whole life ahead to live your passion. For now just focus on studies — even the subjects that don’t appeal to you”

People were right in their own ways — those were their answers. But not my answer. I didn’t get any answers after joining BITS as well and that made me cross a thin red line. I came to a realization that unless I am convinced on the reason of an action, I don’t need to take that action.

Ok, back to the central story now; As one might expect, CGPA matters in top colleges and it does in BITS as well. It is a way for the system to classify and categorize students. After 4 semesters, my CGPA was 4.2/10.

To understand how fucked up my situation was, here’s a section straight from the Education Policy from BITS:

Minimum Academic Requirements:

B.Tech. programmes, the student should obtain a minimum CGPA of 4.50 and no E grade in any course.

Failure to meet the minimum academic requirements will bring the student under the purview of Academic Monitoring Board (AMB) - previously known as Academic Counselling Board (ACB), which will prescribe a suitable course package for the student and monitor his/her progress and academic performance closely.

I had consistently scored 2 E Grades every semester and thanks to the above rule, I was enrolled into the ACB. I consoled myself and used to feel proud knowing that it’s by choice and not by accident or the order of things.

At first, I used to have loud verbal fights with my parents on my approach to academics. I remember how hard it was for them to get through to me. They initially failed to understand why my immense potential was not reflecting in my efforts. But they slowly realized that the rebel in me was not listening (for good or bad).

Life changed. I lost some of the best friends I thought I had. They had a notion that minimum academic performance is expected and not meeting such minimum standards is a reflection of your capabilities to become a productive member of society. I disagreed. I was not alone. There were more than a dozen like me who were enrolled into ACB every semester.

The experiences with ACB tested my patience. Some of the professors treated us like we didn’t belong in the system. Sometimes it felt like they would derive pleasure in ridiculing our underperformance. It was not easy. I often cried my heart out in washrooms.

But while in ACB, the part of me that asks ‘Why’ had finally found its place. With each class I bunked, my mind broadened. I started watching world cinema. I found my passion in video editing thanks to the CCTV department (a student club built around film making and animation).

But I still had one side of me which was insecure and jealous of the high performers in the batch. There would be times when I would try to study hard to score enough in core science courses — enough just to be part of the system. I never thought about accepting failure and looking at an alternative path for myself.

That is when a mentor showed me the hard reality. The conventional mentor in ACB tries to motivate students to start studying hard and perform better. My mentor was not conventional.

In one mentoring session, he told me that I was self defeating in my pursuit to be like the academically sound batchmates of mine. He asked me how I was expecting to do better than average when I know that I have not sincerely put effort and time into the art of study like they have! He mentioned how I would be better off by accepting my inherent weakness and see how I can play to my strengths. Don’t think about results for now he said. I needed to start by finding my strengths.

A series of such conversations helped me come out of depths of depression. But even with such small wins, I was losing the larger war. Other than few language and science courses, I was still getting D and E grades in some key courses. My CGPA failed to get out of the abyss. The stubborn side of me was still not ready to accept failure.

Things changed by the end of 2nd year. It was in the middle of my summer internship in a remote town in Andhra Pradesh. I got a call from dad and it was around the time we used to get our grade cards at home. He asked me “Can you guess your grades?”. I replied with a arrogant smile “I might have got 2 E grades.” He went silent for few seconds and replied “you got 3”. It was sad satire at its best. I cut the call and cried. I felt a sense of failure like never before. I didn’t call him back for some hours. The next time we talked for more than a couple of minutes was in Hyderabad. Dad had flown down within a day or two with an intent to counsel me.

My dad took out a set of papers from his bag and handed them over. It was to request a transfer from Msc. Chemistry to MSc (Tech.) General Studies — a non engineering, non science stream . It was a stream with the flexibility to choose any electives across humanities, art, sociology etc. But since it’s not a well known degree, it is not recognized by any good company or industry coming for campus interviews.

I remember the conversation with dad vividly though. I remember his resolve that he will make sure that his son does justice to his talent and he would give the needful push. I suddenly identified my strengths and creative inclination towards humanities, art and cinema. I counted my trump cards. My mom was my pillar of strength and my brother was the one who reminded me of my capabilities. But changing between the 2 streams in BITS Pilani after 2 years is like being relegated from the Premiere League to Championship (any football fans?).

But tell you what, humanities courses in top engineering campuses in India are some of the most under-recognized courses in India (if not the world). General Studies in BITS is a stream which lets you select the courses you want — no compulsory package of courses.

After a deep dive into my mind, I decided to make the switch. I took electives across the expanse of my passion areas. Some of my favourite were around mass media, design, short film-making and public administration.

The degree transfer brought with it 1 year of backlog as I had to study some courses afresh. But the fact that I was one year behind the “scheduled” graduation never occurred to me. As I neared my last semester on campus, I had built my core skills around communication, video editing, design and film making. All the skills that I use in my professional life now.

I built friendships that I still treasure — with rebels, nuts, misfits and teachers who were outliers. By the time I graduated in 2012 my CGPA was 6.4

Due to the way things are though, I was not eligible to attend any good campus interviews. No good MNC recognizes a humanities degree from a top science/engineering institute. Thanks to a broadened mind, I didn’t want a job in one anyways and didn’t fill any placements forms — why bother.

In my last semester before graduation, I got exposure to entrepreneurship and startups. Now that’s a whole different story on it’s own (comment below if you are interesting to read about it). By the time I graduated, I had learnt to embrace failure and play to my strengths — even against the most strictest of systems.

If you have made it this far, a sincere thanks. For your time and understanding.

If you felt the story was relatable, hit the recommend button and share. I wrote this with an intent to embrace people who are in similar situations, facing depression or failure. So your comments and shares are not just welcome - they are required.