I'm quite ashamed to say that as a judgemental brat, I took to looking down on non-scientific fields because of being into engineering and going grammar nazi on people for a while there. Thanks to several people & incidents over the years, I went from questioning that arrogant attitude, through cringing at its recollection, to sighing at the sight of many teenagers and adults alike rampantly shaming someone's intellect based on their English grammar, scoresheets or domain.
The rude awakening began one fine day when I was cribbing about the fat engineering text books I had to go through (while being secretly proud about it) and saw a medical student silently juggling a couple of gargantuan books in a corner, with no time to even be smug about it. Suffice it to say that going by my low grades during that year, had I been into medicine, I would've had an year drop for sure.
Then came along peers who couldn't string a proper statement together in English, which remarkably affected their scores as well. When I finally got the hang of their lingo, they blew my perception right out of the water. Not to mention that some of these brilliant minds were fluent in more than 5 languages. If at all, it was them who had more right than anyone else to look down their linguistic noses at people who knew barely a couple of languages besides English. But then they were rational enough to not treat their own language as the be all and end all.
Mingling with people of different nationalities was an eye-opening experience where I got to learn about fields beyond the glorified Indian educational quartet of engineering, medicine, CA & architecture. More than that, it was humbling to witness their genuine interest in, and most of all, respect for all fields alike.
There's nothing wrong with taking pride in your grades, domain or language, but think before looking down on someone through your gradient, field-distorted, grammar-tinted glasses. There are panoramic personalities out there that you wouldn't want to slip past your thumbnail of a vision.
Disclaimer: The Grammar Nazi bit is solely for the arrogant lot, not the well-meaning ones.
The rude awakening began one fine day when I was cribbing about the fat engineering text books I had to go through (while being secretly proud about it) and saw a medical student silently juggling a couple of gargantuan books in a corner, with no time to even be smug about it. Suffice it to say that going by my low grades during that year, had I been into medicine, I would've had an year drop for sure.
Then came along peers who couldn't string a proper statement together in English, which remarkably affected their scores as well. When I finally got the hang of their lingo, they blew my perception right out of the water. Not to mention that some of these brilliant minds were fluent in more than 5 languages. If at all, it was them who had more right than anyone else to look down their linguistic noses at people who knew barely a couple of languages besides English. But then they were rational enough to not treat their own language as the be all and end all.
Mingling with people of different nationalities was an eye-opening experience where I got to learn about fields beyond the glorified Indian educational quartet of engineering, medicine, CA & architecture. More than that, it was humbling to witness their genuine interest in, and most of all, respect for all fields alike.
There's nothing wrong with taking pride in your grades, domain or language, but think before looking down on someone through your gradient, field-distorted, grammar-tinted glasses. There are panoramic personalities out there that you wouldn't want to slip past your thumbnail of a vision.
Disclaimer: The Grammar Nazi bit is solely for the arrogant lot, not the well-meaning ones.
