It is that time of the year again - the dreaded placements. The same block where once I used to hear noisy birthday bashing or the typical Hindi abuses while playing Counter Strike is now a hostile territory of men at work!

It is bloody amusing to find yourself in this very rat race in spite of all the protective shells you try to pretend to wear. There are days where I have nightmares of not getting placed in a good company, or even worse, having my best friends placed and not me. Hell! When did this get so competitive & stressful? But it is actually not our mistake. This is the exact way it has happened in the past, and we will follow it blindly.

I still remember my JEE preparation days and the same very rat race that I ran. We all were sailing in the same boat. With no clear inclinations towards a field of study or interests, we ran, we ran hard for two long years without looking back with just one goal - IIT. And on the day the result was announced I never felt so empty, with no ambitions & no purpose. But then IIT Jodhpur happened.

IITs might not be great academically, and especially not IIT Jodhpur, but these 4 years serves you something which might get you back your purpose. Ample of opportunities in the fields you cannot even imagine, friends & seniors who will really sail the world to get you out of trouble and learnings which will stay with you the rest of your life. My three years were something very similar.

I enrolled into a very new branch of Systems Science(even after 3 years, I still don’t know what it is ) in a new IIT. Aspiring to get my branch changed, I studied hard for the first midsem, but soon I came to know I had brilliant classmates, who are more deserving. Since school days I loved programming so I tried competitive programming but soon gave that up too. Then entrepreneurship happened. I got introduced to it by a dear friend, with whom I would end up starting my own venture, and we went crazy. The next two years were energetic, colourful and worth every bit of the hardship. I also got acquainted to data analytics and dived into this field to learn more. In a nutshell, these 3 years I learnt and experienced things that I wouldn’t if I were somewhere else.

But then it arrived. The fucking fourth and final year. Again it felt like the good old JEE days. Everyone running behind their aims of jobs, masters, MBA etc etc. I am sure many of them are actually interested in whatever they are pursuing, but not me. I have not freaking idea on what I am doing!

I had promised myself that I won’t run that race again but here I am, reading things for getting a job and spending a good 3-4 hours a day hunting jobs. Why? Do we really need this?