If You Have Been a Premed Student in Punjab

“Over 74,500 candidates including 48,472 female and 26,030 male, appeared in Medical and Dental Colleges' Admission Test (MDCAT) which was conducted by the University of Health Sciences (UHS) on Sunday, Aug 25, 2019.”

It all started with a dream. That white coat and that busy life…

In all honesty, I hate the system of BISE-Punjab. At first they make the students cram up and mug up the whole syllabuses starting from the matric level and absurdly taking it to Fsc level completely vacuuming out their creativity and then give ridiculously similar questions in the exam every year. Then they hire unemployed fresh graduates (who are also a product of this sick system) to check these exams. Now these poor souls are doing it for money so they do it at a super ultra human speed. As a result, they mess up…

What the system does is it makes a list of a handful of lucky souls who survived the chaotic checking and marks them as "laik".

But if, for some very obvious reasons, Someone who spent countless sleepless nights in the passion of turning their world upside down, got a stupid idiot to have their paper checked and wants to have it rechecked. Well, no can do sir! They’ll “zaleel” you up in the name of rechecking and then inside the rechecking room they’ll scream in your face to sign the darn paper that says "I am freaking satisfied with the service!"

And then the same system issues papers saying "God knows what is wrong with our youth… they are all in depression."

YUP… ONLY GOD KNOWS!

And don’t even get me started on the shit MDcats is in this country. These morons know that their system is as sick as a last stage corona patient but noooo they are gonna keep this sick system on the ventilator as long as possible cause "Ganda hai par dhanda hai na". So now they ask the students to give MDcats. And you being passionate, check the possibility of getting into a med school but the only way you see is by getting into a govt med school cause in the case of a private institute you’ll have your parents sell the car, the house, and even your dog ( totally fair, right?) Or sell both your kidneys (sweet).
So, you take in a deep breath and accept this challenge of crossing the gigantic merit of 91% (I forget the exact stupid personage) but if you were like me you’d have realized that the best way of doing this is by getting into an academy. Another darn mafia. Now you’ll pay them some 50k (or more if you had bad marks). But then another realization comes crashing down your shoulders that the system that had a solo mission of making you a crammer suddenly demands you to learn concepts… ABSURD!!! Now that the system is sick and tired of your existence it sends a list of the top superhumans who somehow survived this craziness and mayhem.

And TADA !!! at the bottom there is a note saying "sorry you’re not good enough to get in a govt. med school, try again next time. But you’ve crossed the line for private colleges (to make you feel even worse)."

The only people I've seen crossing this stupid personage are :

• Who are really really intellectual and have amazing memories as well (superhumans).
• Those who were on drugs.
• Those who do "kalla Jadu" and knew what'll be on the exam.

But for the rest of is, it's the same dammed fate. Either repeat till you get in or leave it and start a new life.

But, everyone in the universe demands you to go through this emotional hell again as a reporter! Again, if you're like me (and majority of others) you'll be too heartbroken to even look back again. And anyone who thinks that a broken dream is nothing, well guess what? It breaks your personality and heart as well. So you start writing sad poetry and send admissions in various universities, realizing that now you have a very limited choice because you studied premed. And then if you're a girl… bam! Half of the available options go down the gutter as well.

In the first year of university you feel numb, the world who adored a "future doctor" starts to criticize you. You act weirdly out of character. You try and it takes a lot of time and effort to get back up again, well at least partially ( don't look at me like that, a heartbreak changes you. There is no reverse reaction to this equation.)

But then there is a question that makes me even more numb... Will we become those unemployed fresh graduates who messed up while checking the paper? Or those govt teachers who try to vacuumed out creativity? Or the greedy teachers in the academy? Or the man in the rechecking room who yelled to sign the darn paper?