Adorning the sorting hat for admission to college
It’s that time of the year when I’m reminded of the sorting hat from the movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The enchanted hat sits smugly on the heads of the novice wizards and witches and allocates them school houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin and Hufflepuff. The analogy fits aptly to the current academic scenario in which young minds, freshly plucked from the safe haven of schools, are made to wear the sorting hat and choose subjects that would define their career choices.
The young aspirants are made to choose between engineering, medical, commerce and arts amid mounting pressure from both parents and society. Many a time, the choices they make are a reflection of the parents’ aspirations with little or no say from the child, who given a choice would love to pursue a career less lucrative monetarily, but one that would definitely give a vent to his innermost passion.
Last year, we too, were on a similar trail, on the lookout for a suitable engineering college for our daughter. On a visit to a reputed college, we came across old friends on a similar mission for the admission of their son. While we encouraged our daughter to go around and have a feel of the college environment, the other couple took upon itself the cudgels to enquire everything about the college right from the fee structure to campus facilities to placements. The boy quietly tagged behind the zealous parents.
He not only seemed indifferent but also shabbily dressed for the occasion. In a few minutes, the couple started listing the pros and cons of the institute compared to some of the other. The father was obsessed with the idea that the world now belonged to only two fields of study: artificial intelligence and deep learning. Nothing else mattered and anything else was not worth a mention. The mother had done her homework so well that she had on her fingertips the number of seats of each and every IIT and NIT in the country. I listened to them for 15 minutes before I slowly started mentally disconnecting myself from the conversation.
While I was tuned into an inner world, a meek voice spoke up. “Auntie, are you a housewife or working?” I looked back in the direction of the voice and realised it came from the boy. I tuned into the outer world before responding. The father at this point was analysing the packages being doled out to Silicon Valley employees and for the benefit of his listeners was converting the dollars into rupees. Irritated, I blurted out a sarcastic response to the boy’s query. “I’m a gareeb professor of English in a college.” The boy’s eyes lit up. “You teach English! Do you teach Shakespeare? I’ve read all his plays. Can you suggest some good English novels? I love to….”
The boy’s enthusiasm was cut short as his parents asked him to tag along to check out the number of systems installed in the computer lab. Amid the cacophony of raining dollars and euros, I heard what his parents could not. Don’t they say, “If speech is silver, silence is gold”.
THE BOY’S ENTHUSIASM WAS CUT SHORT AS HIS PARENTS ASKED HIM TO TAG ALONG TO CHECK OUT THE SYSTEMS IN THE COMPUTER LAB