hello di, im starting 11th with Science stream, should i take coaching?
heyy, thanks for asking <3
I would say don't go for coaching from now itself.
This is probably a hot take, but in my experience it is always better to wait a month or two before you take coaching. One, because it's very very costly and two because 11th and 12th is very time sensitive, you will struggle to have time to even breathe.
So if, like me, you're someone who cannot understand things unless a little bit of self study is involved then coaching can really take up all your time and leave you struggling. As I said, you have to figure out your preferred method of studying before you make huge payments to coaching centres.
I would suggest taking some material from your friends and seeing how much that coaching centre will actually help you. And especially now that more or less everything is available on yt, invest wisely in coaching.
If you do feel that you want the extra knowledge coaching provides but prefer self study and need time for yourself, I suggest buying the coaching study material and test series but skipping the live classes.
If after a month or so of experimenting you think you can do proper time management and juggle school, live classes, school exams, coaching exams as well as self study (you still need to self study regardless of how much tution u take) then by all means go for it.
'Everyday I wake up, then i start to break up, lonely is a man without love academic validation'.
I had a terrible dream and woke up feeling sick and there was something so ominous in the air the moment I opened my eyes. I dreamt that I got my board results and then i had to go to a train station with a guy and he abandoned me there so I made my way to a weird looking house which I kinda liked so I went in but I got lost and ended up in my own house and in my own house there were snakes. A thousand hundred billion snakes.
Guess what happens 3 hours into my day- I get a call from a friend telling me board results are out. They were supposed to be out after 20th May, there is NO WAY they release it before time exactly on the day that I dream it, that shit is freaky.
Anyway so the result was worse than expected and I have nobody to blame but me even though CBSE did go extremely strict on the checking regardless of the papers being standard/tough. Of course this upended my entire day and I have my exam on 18th. I did not study a word, I was fighting for my life.
Now all I can do is give my exams well and try and drag myself through the cut-offs for at least one of the colleges I've applied to and then none of this will never matter ever.
Woke up lowkey motivated to start my official academic comeback era and was hit in the face with a mail from one of the colleges I applied to telling me they're cancelling my application which I paid 4000 bucks for. Spent all morning trying to fix it, mailed them, called them, wtv I could do I did.
What happened is that they sent me a mail asking me to update some ID no. on the application form within 24 hours, which is fine cz I check my mail every morning. HOWEVER, they sent me this mail at 7 PM on 30th April and the deadline to make any updates to the application was...you guessed it.....30TH APRIL. They sent me the uRgEnT mail JUST 5 HOURS before the deadline and obviously i do not check my mail every 5 mins like a maniac. Turns out they did this to a lot of kids and most of us couldn't update it so lets see if they consider our situation and give us an extension or smthn.
Other than that I gave a mock test which went ok-ish, I did good but the cut-off for this test is SO DAMN HIGH that I need 100 marks more to clear it. Only 5% students who gave the exam last year cleared the cut-off and I only have like 4 weeks of prep and all my hopes and dreams depend on these 3 exams i might be making the biggest mistake of my life here but ok.
I also did half a chapter of LR at night, up till now LR has been pretty easy for me but this chapter is genuinely really hard plus its huge so I hope I finish it tomorrow.
finally convinced my parents to let me focus completely on the entrance exams for the course i actually want to do rather than wasting my time studying for an exam to a course i don't even want to do, my dad was very accepting and i'm so happy
i feel extremely free right now like a really large boulder has been lifted off of me, and for the first time in two years i feel actual motivation
With boards ending, a lot of you guys are wondering what stream you should choose, and a few people have hmu in my dms asking for advice, so i figured I'd make a post about how I suggest choosing a stream. Fair warning, I am a PCMB student so my advice will be a little science-stream focused because, obviously, I don't know what problems other streams might face, so additions are welcome from other people who have more to add <3
First off, this is one of the most important decisions of your life. This decision determines what the next two years of your life will look like, and it plays a strong role in determining your career for the rest of your life. So don't make this choice lightly.
Make an informed decision. I cannot stress upon this enough- do. your. own. research. Don't trust people who say there is no job opportunity in abc stream or that xyz stream will make your 'life set', all of it is bullshit. Half the time the people giving you these advices finished their schooling 20-30 years ago, respectfully- they have no idea what they're talking about. So sure, listen to everyone's inputs but check everything for yourself.
Websites are your best friend. And no, not "Top 7 High Salary Careers' type websites, I mean college websites. The best way to choose your stream is to explore various careers. For this, start with exploring the type of courses and degrees available, then head to the college's websites and check out the curriculum, the eligibility and the entrance exam requirements. Of course you don't have to choose a degree from now itself, in fact even if you have chosen something 9 times out of 10 you will change your mind by the time 12th ends, but knowing what options there are other than NEET, JEE, CUET and stuff will help you understand if you're more inclined towards science, commerce or humanities.
Subjects change after 10th, for example- what you think physics is and what 11th-12th physics is are two completely different things, so if you are more inclined towards a particular stream, go through the books. Either borrow from your seniors or go through the free NCERT pdfs (ncerts are the easiest versions of science subjects, at least, so your actual material will be 1-2 levels higher in difficulty, keep that in mind). Going through the material is not that efficient because everything seems easy at first glance but it still gives a general idea about the type of stuff you will learn so whatever piques your interest most should be a good choice to consider. I would suggest going through the books of all the streams if you have time, that way you can check which is the best fit for you.
(Also go through multiple chapters, not just the first few ones)
Work on attraction rather than elimination. Dismissing a stream just because you don't like one subject in it is not a good way to go about it. Choose the stream which has a majority of subjects you do like, rather than choosing one which has the least number of subjects you don't like. Overall the purpose of a stream in 11th-12th is to get you into your desired course in college, so your biggest indication of stream will be the degrees you like, not the subjects you don't like.
Remember to prioritize yourself and your choices, trust yourself. People might have all sorts of opinions about what stream you should take and what career you should pursue. Of course some people have your best interests in mind, but ultimately it is you who has to go through with it. Being pushed into making certain choices is really harmful because there is absolutely no motivation to keep going once it gets hard (and it will). So it is best to choose your own poison so that when times get hard you know that this is something you actually really want and that way you will genuinely feel like working for it, rather than being forced to work hard for something you aren't even sure you want to do.
Don't stress too much. I know I said this is a super important decision, and it is, but it is not life ending. You can only do so much and there is no guarantee whether what you choose today will work out for you two years down the line. And that's okay. Remember that there is always an option to change plans, no matter how far along you are. So don't bind yourself to the choice you make today, you always have more options. Try your best to choose what feels right for you, and if situations change later in life, so can your plans.
If you don't know what exactly you want to do with your life, stop blaming yourself for it. I promise 90% of us had no idea what we were doing when we were your age either, even if we thought we knew what we wanted, we didn't. It's okay to not know what you want to do for the rest of your life when you're 15 or 16. Trust your gut and try your best to be informed about the stream you're choosing. As you go along, you will find your calling when the time is right. It's never too late, you'll be fine
lots of love to everyone starting on this really tedious path, the next two years will teach you a lot about yourselves and I hope you all make the best of it, all the best <3
boards season is over and there's going to be a mass burnout because all of us spent the last two months on minimal sleep, oversaturated on coffee
so here's a few reminders:
you did good. stop worrying about it stop trying to calculate what your percentage might be stop thinking about the dumb mistakes you could've avoided, its okay. you did good.
take a break, even if for a day or two because i know a lot of us have a whole lot of entrance tests coming up. but our brains and bodies have been on overdrive so take a break, you deserve it
rejuvenate. try slowly bringing yourself back into a normal schedule. work on fixing your sleep schedule, work on eating better. there's a long road ahead of us, you want to have a healthy sustainable routine to make it through this.
explore. it is not too late to change your path, i promise. this is the last chance you get to change your mind, don't waste it. explore your options now that you have full knowledge about your strengths and limits, there is so much more out there than we've been told. there are so many options i guarantee you will find your perfect fit, don't compromise on your future by just going along with the crowd, find what you want to do and work for it.
Physics practical went great, my physics teacher kind of hinted that i got full marks and I hope that is the case. Tomorrow is the last practical, Physical Education and also...it's my birthday. I talked to the batches that already had their PE practicals and turns out the external is weird, to say the least. Also that he's asking questions from theory, formulas, definitions and measurements and stuff. So I guess I'll have to skim through the whole syllabus. I did a bit of math in the morning and then spent the rest of the time studying PE. I did plan on reading a bit more but my friends called me up at 12 as is tradition so I'll just read the rest of it in the bus tomorrow. I'm not too stressed because viva is just 3 marks and the rest is just physical stuff so a 50m dash, and then we have to demonstrate some yoga, push-ups and partial curl-ups and then some techniques of whatever we've chosen as our main sport. Let's see how it goes.
Biology practicals went great, I have physics practical tomorrow so I'm preparing for that. Apparently the external is sweet but is asking insane questions and making people do derivations and numericals for the viva. I don't know who in their right mind would ask for derivations to be done during a viva the whole point of viva is for it to be oral and no pen and paper involved but okay, we'll figure it out. I spent most of my time preparing for viva from my investigatory project because I'm more or less confident about the experiments. I spent the morning doing Vector Algebra and then the rest of the day preparing for practicals. I hope it goes well.
Time Studied: 8 hours
Subject: Mathematics, Physics
Content: Vector Algebra, Practical Experiments, Investigatory Project, Activities, VIVA Practice Questions
Last week was terrible for me, I was dealing with a lot of stuff and I couldn't focus at all. Everything is sorted out now, thankfully, so I can get back on what's actually important. I have bio practical tomorrow and I spent all day preparing for that. It was a pretty chill, laid-back day because bio practical isn't that difficult and I more or less know all the material already. I made some short notes and diagrams for the Spotting and Observation part and I read the theory of the major and minor experiments. I'm pretty good at bio practical so I'm not that worried. The batch of students who had their practical today told us that the external is pretty strict and she's asking a lot of questions which aren't from the practical book. Also for chemistry practicals our internal teachers checked the written part of the exam so we all more or less got full marks in that part but this time apparently she is herself checking the papers and being very strict about any mistakes. So I am a little on edge but not really worried because I feel like I can handle it, I have a good grasp on the subject so I'm pretty confident. Hope it goes well.
Time Studied: 4 hours
Subject: Biology
Content: Practical Experiments + VIVA practice questions
Moderately productive day, considering that I've been wildly unproductive all week this is an improvement. I'm dealing with some personal stuff right now but at least that's making me study to distract myself. Although I am still distracted by it while I study so I don't know if this is good or bad, but I do hope it gets sorted out because if it doesn't then I'll lose my mind and all productivity will go out the window. I didn't do much today, my target was much more than this but it is what it is. I really wanted to finish all math chapters by this weekend but I wasted half the week because of burnout and now I don't know if I can catch up, I am going to try though. I think I'm out of my slump, and can get back to my normal levels of productivity so I'm hoping everything else gets sorted out soon as well so I can properly focus.
Time Studied: 6 hours
Subject: Mathematics
Content: Continuity and Differentiability (Differentiation)
Have been feeling super burnt out the past couple of days, I've been in that same old rut of procrastination and executive dysfunction. Tried to push harder today and while it wasn't a complete success, it was not a complete failure either. Dealing with some personal problems right now, but at least that pushed me out of the slump because I'd rather study than think about it. Barely productive studying though because I feel extremely burnt out and my brain works so much slower. Started this chapter which is actually pretty easy but took me so long to do it because I was super distracted and had to go over the same thing multiple times to actually grasp it. I wasted so many days in between that I'm not sure how I'll finish up the whole thing before my deadline, I hate how I understand the importance of not slacking off during this time but at the same time just end up slacking off anyway. Anyway, I'm getting back on track hopefully.
Time Studied: 5 hours
Subject: Mathematics
Content: Continuity and Differentiability
They called us to school once again to 'practice' for physics and bio practicals which are in the first week of Feb, I don't think much 'practicing' happened but we did get some core points to focus on while preparing. I'm a little apprehensive about physics because it's been months since I've done any of the experiments but I've always been good at practicals so I think I'll manage. I want to finish my math and physics revision before practicals week because I barely have any time after that. I'm leaving chem for last because I will definitely want to procrastinate chem and I can't afford that right now so I'll do it last with the pressure of the deadline on me so that I refrain from procrastinating. I've been getting more and more nervous about the theory exams as the days progress and I don't want to think about them right now. I'm practicing each chapter individually and then doing previous years papers and sample papers during the revision time I don't know if that'll be enough but I hope it is. Didn't get to study much today but I did finish the second half of this chapter, I love matrices and determinants they're the easiest thing in the whole book.
Time Studied: 3 hours
Subject: Mathematics
Content: Determinants
