Why The Gap Year?
They call me insane, obsessive, and stupid. To them my decision is the stupidest one possible, but i have always had a different mindset. I dream without thinking of a backup plan.
05/06/2012, a letter came. It was light, too light! I opened it to find a single sheet of recycled paper and on it i could just see two words, "not qualified". AKU, my dream university had rejected me. Was i shattered? Was i depressed? Was i relieved? No, no and definitely no! The last three months had not gone well because for some reason i had lost focus, i had lost the will to work. My A'Levels had not gone well and i had been unable to pass the entry test. I had always believed the task at hand, of clearing A levels and the AKU test was impossible in 3 months, so i had given up before even trying.And then I had to face the consequences of my actions.
From that point onwards, i had three choices.
1. Forget you dream, give the MCAT, end up in a private medical college
2. Try AKU again, but enter a college first
3. Gap year and try for AKU again.
Common sense and advice from all around said: "go for option number 2". It appealed to everyone because it contained a backup plan and minimal risk. But it lacked room for my dream. After all, i was getting average A'Levels grades, grades on which AKU would not hesitate to reject me again. More so, how dedicated will my attempt be the next year if i adapt to a new environment? I was lost for several days. i wondered if i would be happy to give up my dream without a fight. We all watch movies like "3 idiots" but never in real life do we follow its ideology, never do we follow our dreams. We are scared, we always want a back up plan!
As per so many wise people, in the end, the MBBS degree is all that matters. But after deep introspection i realised that this did not hold true for me. For me the most important part of the degree were the five years spent in attaining it. I do not just want to be a doctor, i want to enjoy the journey needed to become one. I realised; my dream is not so shallow that it be discarded because I fell astray for a couple of months. I put in 18 years of my life to get to a point where i can dream to get into one of the best universities in the subcontinent, i have studied in of the best institutes of Pakistan, and been exposed to the best in the business in all fields. Why? so that at the first sight of failure i throw out my dream, get subdued by society pressures and settle for mediocrity without even trying for greatness? NO!
I was inclined towards option 3, because not only did it give me a chance to have a full go at my dream, but also an automatic safeguard . If i study Fsc for a year i can hope to score well in the MCAT and perhaps end up in a good public medical college. So, against all advice and despite great opposition, i made my choice, I chose to follow my dream. I decided for option number 3.
BUT then the final question: what if i am rejected again next year?
Given that probability of admission into AKU is 0.01, i realise that i may be rejected again next year, but at least i will know that i did not give up without a fight, that my dream was not so unimpassioned that I abandoned it at the first possible exit. I shall have the comfort of knowing that at least once, I gave it my best!
