The other day, I came across an article in The Hindu about how disabled people were discouraged from pursuing an education in the STEM fields and how this is changing. This prompted me to share a few of my thoughts and experiences.
You can find the article here.
I’d recommend that you take a look at the article before reading this post.
Back when I was in 10th grade, I was neither as well informed as I’m today, nor motivated enough to fight for what I really wanted. During my school days, I was fascinated by science in general and physics in particular. A subject that explained how the world and everything in it works, sounded amazing to my ever curious mind. It was also a time when for the first time my dad started tutoring me in Economics. He made this usually dry and boring subject sound like a kind of law that governs how people handle money. This got me interested.
When the time came for me to decide the future course of my education, my fear for math coupled with my friends talking about ultra long records and complex experiments overruled my interest in physics leading me to pick economics and the rest as they say is history.
Most differently-abeled students today don’t realize that now, they’ve got a choice. Even back then, I’ve had teachers who were skeptical about my ability to grasp these subjects. But once they got down to teaching, most of them felt that it was almost as easy or even easier for me to understand what they were trying to convey compared to normal students. The use of different teaching aids may let students learn these subjects in their own way.
Society should realize that the notion that a visually impaired person cannot take part in scientific experiments or write records may sound true but it is a specious argument. Technology has progressed enough to allow anyone to dive into any subject they may be interested in, irrespective of there physical disabilities. Yet, there are still significant challenges that may be faced by these individuals, regarding reservations, assistance and other provisions made for them. The thing is that some preferential treatment takes place only to provide a level playing field and not to benefit someone.
At the end , even though physics was my first love, I am in a committed relationship with management and I don’t regret it one bit. Economics introduced us, by the way. And who knows I might give physics an other chance later on.
The rings of Saturn 
One thought on “They have a dream, too!”