Coachahauntus (Coaching - haunt - us)

           So, here is the thing about coachings: there are just too many of them. And there is too much confusion about which is the best. I'm pretty sure many of you would have though this at least once "Kuch nahi toh coaching hi khol lege, achcha business hai." Ah! true,true.

             In my experience i've learnt that there are two types of coachings: The BIG, renowned ones and the smaller ones run by private teachers .

            I remember the time when I was looking for a coaching. There were so many options. Some people said study Maths from SO-so coaching, physics from yada-yada and Chemistry from another. While others suggested take a look at Aaskash, FIITJEE, Resonance and such.

                    Although I ultimately joined one of the big ones-for namesake lets call them ROCKJEE's but a few of my friends joined these small ones-lets call them JOCKJEE.  And I am going to describe how it affected us in different ways.      

                At that time, I was looking for the best. The best teachers, best material, best guidance, best coaching. However, now I realize that Best does not matter at all. Though, it is true that a coaching plays a very crucial role in preparing for your competitions, but 60% depends on you and your hard work. So, when you chose a coaching chose one where:

1.      You understand what the teacher teaches (even if the person may not necessarily be the best teacher)

2.     The coaching covers the syllabus for JEE and other competitive exams thoroughly.

3.     Other kids in your coaching are good. (Trust me, this has an immense influence on your performance. The better the kids in your batch are the better you will want to perform.)

Frankly, I hate the institute of coachings but it is undeniable that school syllabus is insufficient and way below the standard of competitive exams. If you are serious about any of the competitive exam-you must join some form of coaching, however unfortunate it may be.

         On one side the education system of India is being changed continuously and experimented under the pretext of doing away with the coaching system but its policies speak otherwise.

          Never mind that. It is a topic for later discussion.

    Personally, I don’t think that the JOCKJEE’s-the single coaching or the ROCKJEE’s have much difference in their standard of teaching. In my experience I have seen that the concepts, theory coverage are more or less same everywhere. Although, if you chose JOCKJEE -there is a chance that you get hold of all good teachers for all three subjects. In fact, that is a major drawback of ROCKJEE’s, i.e:-

                      These coaching centers run a lot of batches per day and every second student wants to join them. There is no guarantee that you will get good teachers. (As it happened in my case, our batch got a really bad physics teacher.) But again, all the ROCKJEE’s have a provision that you can ask for a change of teacher if they do not meet up to the marks. We did that with ours, yet regrettably the one we got after him was not of much help either.

            However, if we compare I think it is much preferable to join the ROCKJEE’s than JOCKJEE’s. why? Here’s why:

1.     UNDER THE SAME ROOF: You get to study all three subjects under one room. It will save your time immensely.

2.     MATERIAL: The material provided by them is compiled and analyzed by experts, extracted from various competitive exam. It is slightly better than normal coaching stuff.

3.     SYLLABUS RELIABLITY: These coaching have a strict regime about completing the syllabus within a certain period of time. It ensures that your course is complete in due time, with proper revision. However, in individual coaching it often happens that they carry on at their own pace, and rush up towards the end.

4.     COMPETITION: This is by far the most important advantage of these big coaching’s. The exposure they give you towards competition, preparation of other kids across the country is immense and absolutely important.

5.     TIMELY TESTING: Although, a number of small coaching centers may be doing this but the ROCKJEE’s have repetitive tess-Weekly, monthly and so on-exactly on the pattern of JEE. This gives you a good practice of how to attempt the paper, time management, and right from the beginning.

               My experience in my coaching was a mixture of good and bad. Like i said, i joined a batch that started late. As a result i did not get a the best set of teachers, or a studious batch for that matter. Though, i repect both my teachers and my batch very much. We (our batch) got an excellent teacher for maths, while our chemistry teacher was good at what he taught-but he was sort of lazy and liked to gossip more than teach, and thirdly, the jinx physics. I feel bad for him honestly because he tried really hard to make our batch understand 'physics' but ultimately we did not like him and he only though of us as a useless batch, a waste of time to be taught anything.The mutual dislike killed our physics.

                          Regardless; the material, interaction with other kids from different schools, the on-off tests, the pressure  given by the coaching's works on you like a hammer against a nail until you succeed. 

                                Like i mentioned before, we did not get the best of all. However, it is not as important to get the best of all as to make the best of all.