This topic is written for the
students of the Warriors Defence Academy, top air force institute in Lucknow,
but generally applies for the students from all over the streams preparing for
competitive exams all over India.
Whiles preparing for exams at WDA, a premier NDA institute in
Lucknow, you face certain challenges which test your confidence in yourself and
your patience. Sometimes, it happens that you fall prey to negativity and it
seems that you are making no progress at all. Let me explain, my experience
says that daily small progress may seem to you nothing but after few months you
will look back and find considerable progress, hence don`t lose your guts.
Now let me come to point why I have written this article. I
have written this article so that students may prevent disasters which may
happen if they are not careful while preparing exams their institute which is
also, by the way, top air force institute in Lucknow. Time and energy is of the
essence. Every second you stop and your competitor doesn`t makes him ahead of
you. The qualities I have mentioned here will let you compete with the best
version of yourself and in most of the cases your best version is capable of
doing tasks unimaginable for most of the persons.
1.
Be a good boy: What does it mean? You must have
heard this remark often from your parents when they want you do something you
are unwilling to do. Well, I also want you do something probably you are
unwilling. Wake up early either staying in the hostel in the campus of WDA, a premier NDA institute in Lucknow
or being a day scholar. You live in a world which is driven by desires rather
than responsibilities. You must not let yourself imitate other lazy students.
Waking up early gives you a control over the complete schedule of the day.Stay away from friends who glamorize laziness, their relationship status,
smoking, fighting to name a few. These people are
idiots and they certainly won`t qualify. Don`t let them dominate you. Always
believe that simplicity, frugality and discipline are the pillars of a student
life. Once you have become something there will be plenty of time and space in
your life to indulge. For the moment it is very important to work hard and keep
working hard to become what you want yourself to be in future.
2. Creative atmosphere: When I was preparing for my
engineering exams, I decided not to take any coaching classes and prepare on my
own. I was locked in a room and very far away from the students preparing for
the similar exams. I did qualify but the rank was certainly not a prestigious
one. Had I selected a coaching institute with positive and qualified students
as my batch mates I would have certainly fared better.
See, atmosphere is very important. You must
carefully avoid the students who keep spreading negativity and stay away from
them. They will drive your enthusiasm away and try to become your boss. Always
make friendship with those students who are objective and do not discuss
subject matters beyond the preparation. Be cheerful, jovial and crack jokes but
you need to be careful regarding the limit of the indulgence and banter.
3. Fashion, movies and other interests: I am not
against them. In fact, I am very much for them. A life without interest and
passion is a dull and unproductive life. You must wear simple and attractive
clothes, sometimes watch movies or visit some park.
The reason
I have mentioned this point here is that you must not press your efforts for
the preparation very hard so that your daily preparation experience becomes
prosaic and dull. But you must make sure that major part of your time in a day
goes to preparation. In this century, human life has become all about likings
and interests. You must not give too much attention to those interests which do
not help you in your preparation and divert your resources to unnecessary
channels.
4. Your role model: You will often see a
scarcity around you when you begin finding a role model. In a Sanskrit verse I
found on the internet few years ago, it is mentioned that meeting a wise man
and his company is one of the greatest fortune a man can have in his life. I
completely agree with this statement. Make somebody you know as a role model
for your life while you are preparing for your exams. If you ego does not allow
you to consider your fellow students superior, make some a role model from the
history, Swami Vivekanand, Babu Rajendra Prasad, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham
Lincoln, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar or our beloved Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
Explore the
lives of these great men and you will be impressed how they did in their
academic life. And you should learn from them. Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya`s
thoughts regarding the way a student should learn his topics are interesting.
5. Learn from your teachers: You must
have become somewhat dismissive of my abilities to write an article. Every
student knows this then why I am writing this point here. I must be insane. Wait
a second, am I? I have seen some of the students dismissing their teachers as
not qualified as soon they find some error on the part of their teachers and
start neglecting them. This is a dangerous attitude. It is an affirmation that
you are not humble enough. And without humility a student cannot learn hence
doomed to fail.
Everybody
has got some shortcomings but it does not mean that you would reject him
altogether. A teacher of Dr. Kalam, former Indian president, used to say that a
good student can learn more from a bad teacher than a bad student learns from a
good teacher. To learn
you must make yourself receptive like an empty bowl. You can fill an empty bowl
because it has the capacity to hold. You cannot store water in bowl which is
turned upside down. There are students whose attitude is similar to a bowl
turned upside down. They won`t assimilate anything and will start either giving
excuses, or start making fun of the teacher or try to prove themselves as over smart
in the class before the teacher or in the group of students.
Epilogue
You must be wondering about me. You might have come here to
find something really new and different but you have found same repetitive
points your parents, teachers have been telling you since ages. Remember, the
one who are successful do not have any secret talisman, or magic tricks. They
follow qualities listed here and make a niche for themselves.
The secret of their success is in proper implementation.
All the best for your exams.
