In every person’s life, there comes a moment that turns all the tables and mine was when my father passed away in 1997.
My family used to live in a village, but after his demise, we had to shift to the city for a better life. My father was the sole earner of the family and his loss brought upon us a life of debt where we had to fend for ourselves without guidance. I remember when I was in fourth grade our economic condition was extremely terrible and it changed the way I looked at things. I started studying hard and decided that I will never let my family face such a crisis ever again.
When we moved to the city that my uncle had brought us to, I felt immense respect for him for wanting to support us in such trying times. I was in tenth grade when I interacted with a guy who used to live in my society. He was in twelfth grade. One day he was taking a walk, and I initiated a conversation with him. I asked him about his future plans, and he said that he is preparing for IIT. I asked him what IIT was, and I will never forget what he said. He said that getting into an IIT will make me an engineer which is a way to have a peaceful life. I knew then and there that I wanted to follow his footsteps.
My family isn’t well-off and we took a loan to get through my coaching days. But, coaching classes did not bear the fruits that they claimed they would. I kept preparing for IIT, but I was not very lucky. I took the state exam, and was given admission in a government college. I did not have the privilege to pick my field. I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, but I was given IT.
In my second year of college, I started interacting with a friend whose brother used to develop apps. At this point in my life, I wanted to make the switch to mechanical and also wanted to get into development. I started ethical hacking, and there was no turning back after that point so I continued with IT. But, we weren’t placed from the college. I started looking for jobs in Delhi-NCR. I gave around 30-35 interviews and received rejection emails from all of them. Self-doubt started accumulating inside me and I was doubtful if I would ever get a job.
Good thing about being from a humble background is that you don’t have the option to give up. So instead, I persevered.
I went to Bangalore for placement and bagged a role at Wipro. I was a hardworking and laborious student during college- I liked working on Hibernate, development, and Spring Integration projects. My work at Wipro surrounded the field of performance testing. I said to myself- Is this the kind of work I envisioned myself doing? I wasn’t satisfied with my job at all. I felt that it was stagnant and filled with mechanical work that included filling Excel sheets. I did not want to waste my life doing work I was not passionate about. I had worked at Wipro for a year, but I could not leave because that job helped me put food on the table and sleep under a safe roof.
At that time a friend suggested that I join Scaler Academy. He asked me to try it once. I was still working at Wipro and wasn’t planning on leaving unless there was another offer on the table. I dropped an email to Anshuman explaining to him that I was from a humble background and was looking for something new in development. He assured me that with correct guidance, working on my programming skills and hard work I would be able to change my path soon enough.
I did not know if I wanted to invest in Scaler before joining. I was living in Bangalore on a freshers’ salary. I did not have money to spend on a risky investment such as online coding classes. But, when I took the free trial lectures, I was sold. I made this investment and decided to upskill. Kshitij taught me DSA, and I was floored by his teaching style. I am still in contact with my mentor, Goutham! He helped me with a lot of confusion when I first started.
I gave three rounds of interviews for the job I currently have. It was a comprehensive interview session with system design questions, DSA problems, etc. I bagged that offer at Freecharge as a developer. I still cannot explain in words how I felt at that moment. It was a better offer, and I could work on things I loved and was passionate about. Life has come full circle and the only way forward is up!
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