My Junior College, School, Tuition, and Self-Learning Journey

📅 Published March 30, 2026 ·personaleducation

Written by Aryan

Introduction

This is not a story about being the smartest student in the room.
It is a story about how school, junior college, and tuition classes shaped the way I think, the way I learn, and the kind of environment I do not want to depend on.

I am usually a silent person. I do not like unnecessary fights, fake respect, or creating enemies for no reason. I just want to study, understand things properly, and move forward in life. But when I look back at my school and junior college journey, I realize that silence was often misunderstood, and learning was often replaced by pressure, copying, and performance.

🧠 The Expectation vs Reality

When I entered junior college, I expected growth.

I thought this phase would sharpen my thinking, expose me to real-world knowledge, and push me closer to my goals. But what I experienced felt very different.

Instead of curiosity, there was routine.
Instead of exploration, there was memorization.

And slowly, that gap started affecting me.

🧱 My School Life Was Even Harder

My school experience was harder than people may think.

I did not know Marathi properly while living in Maharashtra, and that created a lot of distance between me and many classmates. On top of that, I had an allergy issue, and instead of understanding it, some students and even some teachers used it as a reason to troll me.

When students bullied me and I went to teachers, many of them got frustrated with my complaints. At home, I was told to complain to teachers. At school, I was told to adjust. So I was stuck in a loop where nobody really solved the problem.

I was not looking for attention. I was looking for peace.

There was also a point where things became serious in tuition during my high school time. I had been bullied for a long time, and eventually there was a dangerous fight. After that, people finally became serious, but that does not mean the system worked. It only means the situation had gone too far.

That entire phase felt like trauma to me.

⚠️ Why I Felt Disconnected

There wasn’t one single reason—it was a combination of things:

Over time, it started feeling like I was learning for marks, not for life.

🧠 I Was Always the Quiet One

Throughout my junior college life, I stayed silent.

Not because I was weak.
But because I never believed in unnecessary fights, arguments, or creating enemies.

I just wanted to study, improve myself, and move forward.

But sometimes… staying silent doesn’t protect you.

It just makes you invisible when things go wrong.

⚠️ When Silence Gets Misunderstood

In junior college, I stayed silent most of the time.

Not because I had no opinions, but because I did not want unnecessary drama, fights, or enemies. I wanted to remain focused. But the environment did not always allow that.

Many students around me were undisciplined and uncivilized. Some openly used bad words for teachers. One day in IT class, a student sitting next to me was speaking badly about the teacher while the teacher was explaining practical work. I did not support him. I ignored him.

But because he was sitting next to me, the teacher thought I was involved too. I was humiliated verbally in front of the class for around half an hour even though I had done nothing.

That moment stayed with me because it showed how quickly silence can be misunderstood, and how easily innocent people can get blamed when the environment is already messy.

If I complained, more teachers might have gone against me.
If I argued with the student, it could have turned into a fight.
So I stayed quiet and took it.

😔 The Mental Side No One Talks About

This part matters.

When you’re in an environment where you don’t connect with the way things are taught, it creates frustration.

Not because you don’t want to learn—
but because you want to learn differently.

There’s a difference.

I didn’t lose interest in learning.
I lost interest in the way learning was being delivered.

🧪 “Practical” Learning That Wasn’t Practical

One of the most frustrating parts of junior college was IT practical.

In theory, it sounded like a subject where students would learn by doing. In reality, it often felt like the opposite.

We were not really allowed to work freely on computers. The practical seemed like a paper formality. If we did not know the answer, sometimes it would be given to us. That did not feel like learning. It felt like filling space.

The journal work was also strange. We were given a huge IT journal to write, but much of it was based on old PDF files that were already shared in the college group. Sometimes it felt like the journal had been made from previous students’ work or even by the teachers themselves. Then we were asked to print screenshots from the PDF, copy everything, and write it into the journal.

That is not practical learning. That is copy-paste disguised as education.

📘 The Journal System: Copy, Not Create

We were assigned a large IT journal.

It looked like a record of practical work… but the truth was different.

No understanding. No experimentation.
Just replication.

🐧 Ignoring What Actually Matters

Important topics like Linux were in the syllabus.

But:

But later never comes unless you take control yourself.

I had already become interested in cybersecurity from around 6th class during the COVID period. That gave me enough time to self-study the basics of many languages, Linux, and operating systems through online courses and YouTube. Still, I had many doubts and misinformation until around 8th standard, when I started getting more clarity.

That was when I understood something important: sometimes the internet teaches better than the classroom.

📉 What I Observed Beyond Classrooms

There were things that didn’t feel right:

It didn’t feel like isolated incidents.
It felt… systematic.

When systems normalize shortcuts,
students are forced to choose:

Integrity or easy marks.

⚖️ The Pressure to Compromise

I had options:

But I didn’t.

Not because it was easy…
but because I didn’t want fake knowledge.

Seeing all this changed something in me.

I realized:

Being a “topper” in a broken system doesn’t mean you’re actually learning.

So I made a decision:

I would rather be average in marks
than be fake in knowledge.

I chose to pass honestly instead of topping dishonestly.

And I’m completely okay with that.

🌐 Discovering Self-Learning

Outside college, everything changed.

The internet became my real classroom.

That’s when learning started feeling alive again.

Instead of:

“Study this because it's in the syllabus”

It became:

“Learn this because it matters to what you want to build”

🚀 Why I Chose Self-Learning

Self-learning gave me what I was missing:

I wasn’t just studying anymore.

I was building.

The more I learned on my own, the more I realized that self-learning suits me better than the normal system.

Self-learning gives me:

I do not want learning to feel like punishment.
I want learning to feel like discovery.

That is why online learning matters so much to me.

🏫 Why I Don’t Believe in Tuition Culture

Along with school and college, I also experienced tuition classes.

And honestly, I never connected with them either.

For me, they felt like pressure cookers—not places of learning.

⚠️ High Pressure, Low Understanding

Tuition classes often add:

Instead of solving problems, they sometimes just increase stress.

💸 The Cost vs Value Question

One thing that always confused me:

Why do tuitions charge so much… for the same content?

In many cases:

It raises a real question:

Are we paying for learning… or just for extra repetition?

🌐 The Internet Changed Everything

Today, we’re not limited to classrooms anymore.

With online learning:

And now with AI tools:

That kind of flexibility is hard to match in traditional setups.

🤖 AI vs Traditional Teaching

From my experience:

But that doesn’t mean teachers are useless.

The real issue is how the system is used, not just who is teaching.

🪪 A Concern About Personal Data

Another thing that didn’t feel right to me was being asked for personal identification details like Aadhaar in private tuition setups.

This raised questions in my mind about:

I believe students and parents should always:

⚖️ Not Everyone’s Experience Is the Same

To be fair:

Some students do benefit from tuitions.

But for me, it didn’t work.

⚖️ This Isn’t Hate—It’s Perspective

This isn’t about saying college is useless.

For many people, it works.
For some paths, it’s necessary.

But for me, it didn’t align with how I learn best.

And that’s okay.

🔥 What I’m Choosing Instead

I’m choosing:

Because in the end, I don’t just want to pass exams.

I want to understand, create, and evolve.

I’m not against education. I am against empty education.

I’m not against teachers. I am against systems that punish curiosity and reward copying.

I’m not against marks. I am against the idea that marks are the only proof of intelligence.

🧩 Final Thought

My school life was painful.
My junior college life was frustrating.
My tuition experience felt like pressure without purpose.

But all of that also taught me something valuable.

I learned that not every environment is made for every person.
I learned that staying silent can be a survival strategy.
I learned that systems can be flawed.
And I learned that real learning can happen outside the classroom.

That is why I trust self-learning more.

That is why I respect the internet more.

And that is why I do not chase topper status in a system I do not fully believe in.

I would rather be average in marks and strong in real knowledge than be high in marks and empty in understanding.

Systems can fail you.
But you don’t have to fail yourself.

Real knowledge doesn’t come from copying pages.
It comes from understanding, experimenting, and questioning everything.