I have been a good student all my life. My accolades were an instrument of pride for my family and when I scored above 90 percent in my tenth standard even after losing my grandparents a few days before my exams, my relatives had named me genius! They were all anticipating me to get laurels in my competitive entrance examination as well. Although I had an inclination towards Science, I never really believed I could crack the dreaded IIT-JEE or AIEEE exam. Conveying this to my parents would have only brought them pain as they were not very open to my idea of not applying for the exams at all. I worked hard on my concepts and tried solving the sheets provided by my coaching centre, but all was in vain. Eventually, I managed a seat in SRM University. Financially, it was out of my parent’s reach and them being disappointed in me added to my agony.
After a lot of convincing I managed to join college, but I was very low on confidence. I had to prove myself again to get my parent’s respect. I put in extra hours of studying, worked on mini-projects along with the course and even worked at the local shop inside campus to manage my personal expenses. Managing time was always difficult back then and the financial constraint kept me away from most of the happening things in college. After receiving a scholarship at the end of my first year at Engineering, I felt motivated to achieve something beyond academics. I strived and put in extra hours at personality building and keeping myself updated about the world around me. I was one of the few students who had cleared the Personality Test that was a pre-requisite in my college to sit for placements. Needless to mention I was placed in the first company that visited the campus that too in the Research and development sector.