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Under Eighty

Back in my time in India, it was not common for schools to bring in counselors to help kids decide what career would be the best fit for them. Mine was one of those schools that was ahead of its time in many ways and so we had one of these come in to talk to us and give us a battery of tests to make an informed assessment. Being about fifteen or sixteen years old at the time, most of us were eager to game the system just for the thrill of it. 

We did not like the idea of a professional telling us what we should do with the rest of our lives. We were going to do our best not to co-operate with the system. At the time, I was not sure if this is how any kid would behave in those circumstances or if our bunch was particularly uncooperative. So we went through the process and out came the results. A bunch of us including me had been found to have an IQ of 80 and lower. 

Thankfully, not every parent understood what that meant and what career opportunities remained open for such a person. We had hardcore geeks represent themselves as wannabe poets, artists and the like. Similarly, we had folks who truly hated math and barely passed their tests, pretend that they dreamed of becoming engineers and scientists. The career counselor as it turned out saw through most of that nonsense and made very sensible recommendations on career choices that would work best for us. We attended those feedback sessions with our parents and it was embarrassing at best. For me, it was also the time I experienced some regret for having squandered an opportunity to derive real value from the process - maybe not answered so many questions wrong deliberately only to prove  I could bamboozle a professional. 

Maybe part of what was driving our collective behavior is that we wanted control of our lives and did not want a random adult prying too deep into our souls - we wanted to be young people of mystery and intrigue, not so easy to decipher or direct. After the counselor had left, we compared notes between ourselves and had to agree, she was way smarter than we wanted to give her credit for and perhaps she was actually good at what she did. This was also my first encounter with a real "professional" - an experience I never forgot. 

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