So you're passionate about Humanities and really want to opt for it as your stream in 11th standard, but you're relatives think otherwise, first of all, ignore them, they don't know what they are talking about half of the time, most of their advice stems from second-hand prejudices and pre-conceived notions with zero to little knowledge or facts being taken into account and secondly diagnose your aptitude with the help of the points given below.
You must choose Humanities if:
1) You genuinely want to pursue it, if this point holds true for you, jump into it, you shouldn’t be guilty about it, if the field of Humanities genuinely makes you curious and if you have a passion for it, go for it.
2) Look at your history (pun intended) with humanities subjects in the past, right from the time you were introduced to you, how well do you understand it? how do you perform in it generally? are you genetically skilled at it? i.e., were your parents or relatives good at Humanities subjects? how much effort does it take to study humanities subjects such as history/geography as compared to Science or Mathematics?
3) How much effort does it take you, can you score good marks almost in it effortlessly? or does it take you a massive amount of work to understand it?
4) Talk to a person who has had first-hand experience with Humanities in 11th and 12th, and try to get your doubts cleared, ask the questions, as a lot of students choose Humanities thinking that they won’t have to study, I hate to break it to you, but you probably might have to study a lot, much more than science subjects at times, but don’t let this scare you, if you work hard and put in your effort sincerely, it will be not that troublesome.
5) Download PDF versions of the Humanities textbooks that would be in your syllabus if you were to study them, go through them, study the chapters, skim through the syllabus, try to understand it, does it appear hard, or doable? Would you require an external tutor or would you be able to manage it by yourself, how well can you understand the concepts? Does it make you curious, do you genuinely like studying the subjects, try to do this as an experiment and see where do you stand?
6) Do a critical analysis, read interviews of former Humanities students, blogs, articles, life stories of successful Psychologists and Sociologists, talk to some humanities teachers and HOD’s at your school, ask them whether they see the potential in you, ask your teachers for genuine advice about what do they think you will be good at, I asked quite a lot of teachers, and almost always got the same reply, which solidified my choice and I chose Humanities confidently.
7) Be true to yourself and perform a self-introspection, what do you think about your own potentials and strengths, generally the answers that come from within are mostly the correct answers, list down your strengths and potential weaknesses, and what would you like to change about yourself and try to analyze this data.
8) Read and research extensively on the professions that would accommodate your knowledge and whether Humanities will help you in that pursuit, and also try to read about professions in the field of Humanities (Detailed blog coming on this topic coming soon).
Stay tuned to get more updates!