I RECEIVED a phone call recently from a student of mine who had been preparing for Medical and Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) for the last three years. She was a highly intelligent individual, and in her three attempts, she had scored well, but sadly could not make it to any public-sector medical college to pursue her dream.

She said that she had given up her dream of becoming a doctor, and had called me to seek some career advice. She sounded pretty low and frustrated. I told her if it was her dream to become a doctor, she should ask her father about the possibility of admission to some private college.

As it turned out, more than her own, it was the dream of her parents, and her father was already planning to get her admitted to a private medical college. However, the girl was not ready as the family’s plan involved selling the house they were living in.

I was pleasantly surprised by her sense of responsibility and the ability to understand financial constraints of her parents. I told her it was not for me to decide on her behalf, and that she should make a choice from the options available to her. She said she wanted to do Law, but she liked English Literature, too.

Just as she said that, all her intellectual maturity vanished into thin air as her career choices showed no clear direction. From Medicine to Law to English Literature, I found nothing common among them.

I have been teaching at the college level for the last several years in Buner. Each year I ask my fresh students what do they want to be in the future. Almost 99 per cent of them want to be a doctor. But when I ask them the reason for the choice, they have no clue why they want to be a doctor.

A few of them have told me over the years that Buner, being a traditional and patriarchal society, allows girls to only study further if they want to join the medical profession. Some of them had been even ‘instructed’ by their parents to become a doctor.

Sadly, this trend of becoming a doctor has destroyed thousands of intelligent students’ careers. They keep dreaming of becoming doctors, but that dream is not their own.

When they struggle to get admission, they stand emotionally, physically and mentally shattered.

The government should really make it mandatory for every school and college to have a career counsellor on board.

Syed Badshah
Buner

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2023