As school finally ended, I walked out of class into a massive crowd of students already planning for their future. Through the crowd, I saw my friend Anaya walking in my direction. She asked me the same question I’ve been asked at least a hundred times:

“Are you applying for an internship?”

The truth was that nearly every student wanted a dazzling ‘certificate’ before college admissions. But was this truly learning, or just a race to get a piece of paper?

I watched my classmates join random organizations, not because they were curious about marketing but because the internship had gone “viral” and offered a free certificate.

I wondered if they were truly to blame. Nowadays it has become common to pressurize students into building a portfolio before they even had the chance to explore their interests.

While I respected their choices, I decided to take a different approach. Instead of chasing certificates, I spent my summer vacation learning programming basics and taught myself Python. It was sometimes difficult to understand coding with only Youtube videos to guide me. But that was exactly how I learnt problem solving and debugging. When I taught myself Python, there was no certificate at the end. The reward was gaining the confidence to solve problems independently and genuinely understanding coding which was far better than any “Well done” certificate.

A year passed and guess what? Most of them had moved on from the courses they had rushed to join. And me? I was already preparing to start learning C++ (another coding language) and side by side researching Einstein's famous theory of General Relativity. They sound scary, but if you're interested in them you'll realize they're actually quite fun to learn about. 

By sharing this personal experience, I want to encourage you to first look around you. There are so many subjects and fields and majors and options-

Don’t get tangled in the mess.

Choose what feels most like you. One thing that does not feel like homework but feels like an activity you can spend hours on and never get tired.

Then start researching. Be chill. No need to rush anything. Explore the various topics of that subject.

Allow yourself to be “attracted” to a certain topic like oppositely charged poles of a magnet.

Then start learning in a way that actually reflects who you want to be.

So, as a fellow learner, I advise you to never stop being curious. Don’t make certificates your main goal. The goal is to develop skills, certification comes later. Focus on learning. Whether it's merely reading an article online or watching the thunderstorm outside (Did you know that lightning can heat the surrounding air to temperatures hotter than the surface of the Sun?) 

Everything around you is an opportunity to understand your world better. The more you learn, the more possibilities you discover. The world's greatest discoveries were not born from certificates or titles, but from people who never stopped asking questions.  And that is where innovation begins: with curiosity, with learning, and with you.