Are you Michael Phelps trying to win a Marathon? You could surely hope to finish well with lots of practice.. because you know the art of practice, but would it be worth it?

"My alma mater - Dept. of Earth Sciences, IIT Roorkee"

Last week, I wrote about my experience with placement seasons at IIT Roorkee and a few leanings from my first job. Amused, a lot of people contacted me, congratulated me.. some people had lot of innocent questions. Exactly the kind of questions I used to pester my seniors with. My favourite go to person was Dishant sir. I met him early in the first year, I found him really cool... his answer to most of my questions/challenges would be, “Tu tension mat le”. I really liked the sound of these words and still quote this in front of my friends...

He is now working with OYO, a job he got through off-campus interviews. I mention him not only because he couldn't get placed on campus and still was super cool about it but because the day he joined, my professor said to me, “This is such a waste of talent. Dishant should get a job in the Oil Industry. These oil company recruiters are blind.”

I agreed with her then but didn't realize the relevance of her words. I remember thinking, "She doesn't know anything, its such a cool job, travelling across Rajasthan, meeting with travellers and getting paid for it...". I couldn't imagine how perplexing, bewildering and challenging... it is for people who have been studying a subject diligently for 3-4 years to suddenly start over. In the corporate world of banks, MNCs, IT firms and startups doing their odd jobs... doubting every single day, if it is/was the right decision to throw away all the hours and hard work you put in all these years... just to make a decent living... to feel powerless, like an absolute beginner, easily replaceable.. when you could be a master at what you did, better than most of them out there...

It's like.. Michael Phelps training 4 years for 100 meters and then suddenly competing with Bolt in the Olympics because sprinting has more vacancies. Because only sprinters came to your campus for recruitment since, it's winters in December and the pools are closed..
(Oil markets crashed recently, I graduated with a degree in geophysics.)

Still feeling like an Olympic champ?

We might laugh but most of us are living like this.. from taking sciences in 10th, to taking up engineering, to going for an MBA/UPSC...without any understanding of the choices we are making. We miss big opportunities, waste a lot of time and energy....

Is it a good idea to make a career in web development because its easy to find a job.. even when you belong amongst a handful of people who understand the concepts of reservoir modelling? What’s the point in recruiting drivers and managing operations for OLA when all your college life, you had championed in geology? There are 1000s who could recruit/train/build websites etc.. but only a handful few are aware of the mineral composition of a rock they are holding.. People haven't even heard of things like plagioclase and orthoclase.. but you get excited hearing these names because you can tell the difference just by looking. 

Why is this happening in the IITs that too with students there who care about what they study? Why are the so called cream candidates suffering?

• There are people I admire, people who spend time to study their subjects in their depths and have the courage and patience to take a leap into research careers abroad. They are criticised in the name of brain drain. What the so called “patriots” fail to recognise is that the Indian research has big shortcomings-
•  The infrastructure is poor
•  The salary of PhDs is so low that its impossible for a self respecting person to survive on that.
• Most of the professors aren't doing any good research. Its like a sarkaari naukri. We have the same question papers repeated each year. Sometimes people forget to change the year in the title. There should be some pressure from the authorities to publish good research.
• Autonomy of the professors. Nobody can challenge their decisions. Nobody questions their teaching. No job descriptions, no KPIs... 
• Unnecessary politics and insecurity amongst the reseachers.
• For those who like their subjects but need practical experience before thinking about research, core engineering jobs are few, those that are there.. pay poorly when compared with whatever is the latest fad - be it IT, startups, MBA opportunities. How can we expect that the students who have been coaxed into believing that they are the cream of the nation’s huge student population - take up such low paying research/job opportunities with relatively slow career growth.
• To top it off, most of the companies visiting our campuses are IT/startups with abstract job descriptions. If the government wants/needs good engineers please visit our campuses, provide and communicate about the good work and greater career growth opportunities.

Till that happens students will keep trying to fulfil the society’s expectations of a 7 digit starting salary, doing bullshit jobs where satisfaction levels are hardly skin deep leave alone soul satisfying.

I may have painted a grey picture but that's how it looks like. With the startup culture, there has been a little hope for people to try out new ideas and do good work but that still doesn’t justify the life cycle of an average engineer...

So, is it worth it? I don't know... Tell me, what would you do.. If you had another chance? Would you do it differently? Could you do it differently?

"Tu tension mat le"