Uncertain Futures

TLDR : Life will be alright. Don’t worry about the future.

Generally, life is pretty great. Until it isn’t. Then it isn’t. So what am I talking about? Uncertainity about the future or insecurity about skills. Imposter syndrome, depression, thoughts of being a complete and utter failure, the occasional crying, the old panic attacks and the very new comparision on social media with someone else’s life.

Graduating from college this year was really underwhelming. Not just because everything was online but also because there wasn’t any sendoff. The last I heard of my teachers officially was the end of my viva, after which I simply sighed with relief, called my friends and was still in shock I graduated. There really was only one question in my mind.

What now?

Given my career shift of wanting to do something in my life, I had no idea what to do. I had this struggle since my 3rd year of college where my mind changed more frequently than the order of a person with multiple personality disorder.

During the intial months of my 5th semester , I decided to focus on my academics considering I had pissed away my previous 2 years on endeavours best left mysterious (I assure you, any rumors about this period are all completely and utterly false). This eventually led me to learning a bit of german (Ich bin gern bier!) as I assumed I would apply for the Technical University of Munich. It was one of the few universities in the world that took GATE scores, with the others being NTU and NSU.

I attended all the classes, did all the assignments, studied for the exams (as sincerely as I could pretend too anyway. I still maintain that everyone was high that semester). I’d find out in the next semester that I’d got a 9.7. The only thing missing when I found my result was a pair of sunglasses and a cigar. Also, since the GATE portion was essentially what was taught in class, my new found academic excellence was a plus.

My 6th semester started in 2019. Covid was simply a virus out of China, one that was memed for about 2 days before the news turned to something more exciting. However by the mid of March, with every country declaring a lockdown and the seriousness of the situation suddenly hitting the whole world, no one was laughing.

The intial excitement of having holidays was tempered by online classes and attendance requirements, which we had to bear for the next few semesters. I would never replicate my academic success of the 5th semester, though the workload was considerably less.

Throughout the pandemic, I did an internship which nailed a final nail in the coffin for my aspiring CS career. It wasn’t that the internship was bad, rather the opposite in fact. It was just the fact that I’d had enough. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life behind a computer.

I began to read about politics and poltical theory, of history and geography, of men who changed the world and geniuses who conceived of better ones. My curiosity and imagination were invigorated for the first time in a long time, pushed forward by the boredom that the pandemic had bred. And so I changed my plan from attempting to get a job or study for a masters in Germany, to UPSC.

Here’s how the thought process went.

I’m serious. I knew what I didn’t want to do and within the limited purview of my knowledge, it was the only alternative to a life behind a computer (One of my friends did remark that I’d be sucking off politicians instead, so there’s that).

Looking back, while it may have been naive, it did bring me to read a number of books that I otherwise wouldn’t have. The enthusiasm lasted for a whole of 9 months, after which my mother withdrew the support she had given me for my plan to drop 2 years to prepare for the civils. While she was thrilled with the possibility of having an IAS officer in the house, she told me to do a Masters first so that I would not emerge after 2 years a failure if nothing materialised.

I eventually acquiesed to this idea because to drop 2 years without any support from family was a bad investment with no investors. However, the next question of where to do a Masters raised bitter arguments, occasionally ending in a shouting match. Given that my optional for UPSC was Political Science and International Relations, I opted for the same Masters as it would help me during my exam. My father however, had one look at the list of colleges I proposed and immediately denied me any chance of going there. JNU, Jamia and DU were my choices.

Believing that I’d be infected with some disease known as extremism, he forbade me from going to these colleges. These days I don’t blame him, though back then I used to seethe with anger at his decision. So eventually I agreed under one condition. I’d go outside.

My life really is a sitcom. From a Masters in CS, to UPSC, to Masters in India, to Masters somewhere else, the path that I would choose seems to have settled for now unless life wants to have another laugh.

If there’s anything you should take away from here it’s this. Your life isn’t settled. Especially not in your 3rd or 4th year of college. Its gonna keep being fluid. I’ve seen people with jobs bored with work, people searching for new ones hoping to find green pastures and people with no jobs searching for some pasture with a hint of green. I’ve seen great minds depressed, untalented people succeeding, loudmouths toiling away after boasting of their greatness and morons talking, knowing nothing.

So do what you want. You’ll be fine.