From lofty aspirations to bored indifference

Some of us were assigned the "doctors" or "engineers" labels at birth, while others had some freedom in picking their own poisons. Nevertheless, it is understood that most of us had high ambitions when we were kids.

I dreamed of becoming a chemist at some point. There was something fascinating about the cartoonish image of a messy-haired, lab coat-wearing scientist who made colourful chemicals explode comically. Unfortunately, it turns out that chemistry is not for me.

The fact of the matter is, as children we know next to nothing about how the world works. Yes, some people pick a goal at age 10 and somehow stick with it, but let's be real, many of us have never envisioned that we'd be where we are now.

Growing older, our vision of what we're going to be can change, multiple times at that.

Maybe you were told you could be anything you wanted to be when you were a child, but now all of a sudden "Fine Arts" won't pay well, and you're not allowed to study that. So, you think whether Maths or Biology is more abhorrent to you and find yourself in an oversaturated field that has a high chance of leaving you unemployed after graduation. Either way, you probably hate your field and, by extension, yourself.

At some point, you find your dream university changing until it just becomes one you can realistically get into. Perhaps at one point the concept of a "dream university" has faded away until it's nothing but a fever dream.

You watch your grades decline until you're toeing on dangerous territory. Your exam preparation has gone from revising twice to "God, please help me pass and I'll straighten up next semester."

Somehow, you make it through. Next semester around though, your exam strategy is, once again, praying or crying.

You tell yourself that you're not the most ambitious person around, knowing that it's only a feeble attempt at trying to console yourself.

The grand ambitions that once made you feel like you could conquer the world are nowhere to be found. That's fine though because you only care about it once every couple of years.

At the end of the day, however, we're not just defined by our achievements. We're humans, and we have much to offer the world than tired minds and broken dreams. But we'll get to that after the exam season ends.

Zabin Tazrin Nashita is trying her best to gain the affection of the cats on her campus. Help her win them over at fb.com/zabintazrin.nashita