An undergraduate’s journey to self-realisation.
In Dec 2018, I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Engineering from BITS Pilani, India. Today, on 7th Aug 2019, I am writing this blog post from the airport as I prepare to embark on the next chapter of my life. I am moving to Pittsburgh to pursue my Master’s in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. As I reflect on the past, I remember a similar kind of paradigm shift when I left home four years back to head to Pilani for my undergrad. However, shit is real this time; Pilani was but a training ground, a simulation of the real world played on beginner mode, equipped with safety nets to catch my multiple falls and help me spring back. Thankfully there’s a world of difference between the teen that entered the Pilani black-box and the adult that exits it. This article attempts to capture some of that change and the journey that heralded it.
First some observations about the state of engineering education in India. Admissions are determined solely by highly competitive, uni-dimensional entrance exams that most students spend the better part of 11th and 12th grade preparing for. Only those who score exceptionally above the norm get into the handful of elite universities that offer a half-decent education. Since most students with any signs of smarts choose engineering after 12th, exit options after a bachelor’s are usually very diverse, with top companies from non-technical sectors like finance, consulting, sales, <insert high-paying sector>, etc. flocking to the best engineering schools for recruitments. This creates a vicious cycle of disinterested students being compelled to invest the next four years acquiring knowledge they will have little use for, and companies recruiting engineers for profiles totally unrelated to their major since that’s where the talent’s at.
Most freshmen engineering students in India enter college with highly underdeveloped personalities due to prior academic and societal structures being actively aligned to penalise (or at least insufficiently reward) individualism and independent thought. Those kids that get into the elite residential universities are afforded the opportunity and incentives to grow as individuals, whereas the rest typically are not (unless they are super-driven and willing to hustle). Of course, I won’t attribute the advantage enjoyed by elite colleges to the quality of the faculty; very few profs really know what they’re talking about, and those that do have slightly more charisma than a block of wood. Rather, the ‘culture’ of the university — orchestrated in part by (relatively) liberal administrations and exposure to extraordinary peer groups — contribute most to sculpting the personalities of the malleable teens that enter its hallowed grounds.
When I entered Pilani, I too didn’t have much in the way of a coherent personality and value structure. The main inhibitors to my initial flourishing were a strong disinclination to leave my comfort zone and a tendency to easily buckle to social pressure or alter my personality according to the setting. This problem was compounded by the fact that I was unaware I had these fatal flaws. My life was running on auto-pilot and I was going with the flow — completely ambivalent about my mediocrity. I had done well in my engineering entrance exams and gotten into an elite institution not because I was particularly motivated, but rather because I thoroughly enjoyed and was good at studying Physics, Chemistry, and Math.
It took me more than a semester to cultivate some sense of ambition. In Pilani, I was exposed for the first time to people that were exceptionally good at everything — be it academics, sports, social butterflying, conversation and debate, taking the initiative, etc. I used to be a victim of the famous Indian trade-off mentality which posits that if you have too much fun in life, you will most certainly lose out in the long term. I slowly began to shed these preconceptions as I started interacting with people who lived life passionately and with relish, and not just one milestone at a time.
The realisation slowly dawned in my third semester that others may be able to make peace with mediocrity, but that would never be me. I developed an intense and actionable sense of self-FOMO, i.e. the fear of missing out on any opportunity that lies within the realm of possibility for someone of my potential and privilege. Thus began in my second year my frantic hustle for seeking avenues to satisfy myself intellectually, because coursework was proving to be a cakewalk. And these avenues opened up more avenues, and thus began my journey towards career self-realisation.
When I think back to the tumultuous last 4 years, the most impactful experience I had was no doubt my discovery of deep rationality and self-awareness. While it is immediately apparent to me that I started becoming self-aware in my third semester, for the life of me I cannot tell you what caused it. Which makes sense because without first being self-aware, I wouldn’t be able to describe both the change of mental state and the path taken during the change.
Technical side-note: I do not mean to imply that self-awareness is an ‘on-off’ step function, my experiences have demonstrated that it is indeed continuous. For instance, I recently went on a 4-day silent meditation retreat, and that was the most euphorically self-aware and alert I have ever left. Whereas, on days that I’m groggy and low on energy, I am more likely to let my emotions override my will.
I cannot emphasise enough the impact rational thought and self-awareness has had on my decision-making ability, mental stability, and overall clarity. Probably the most challenging aspect about ‘waking up’ was the implicit resolutions I took to –
(a) Never harbour any illusions about myself — which stripped away the familiar coping mechanism of lying to myself to maintain an undeserved sense of self-worth.
(b) To maintain logical consistency in my world view — which set me on a long journey of reading, deep thinking, and discussion about hard moral and political problems; and having to follow through on any conclusions I draw.
If you don’t know what I mean by self-awareness or wish to go down the rabbit hole on this, I highly recommend Mark Manson’s article[1] on this topic.
Another distinctive ever-present feature of my Pilani experience was the rapid rate of growth I experienced sem-on-sem. I was blessed with the academic pedigree that opened up doors to ample opportunities for advancing my career and building marketable skills; an impressive peer group that pushed me to develop my intangible skills and build up presence; enriching relationships — romantic or otherwise — that were steep learning curves emotional-maturity wise; etc. Being perpetually embarrassed by who I was a year ago has become the norm, and I pray that never stops. A good rule of thumb to check your growth in college is to ask yourself — what was the holistic ROI for the fees my parents paid last semester? If you can articulate the answer well, you’re on the right track my friend.
Finally, I would like to share a profound realisation I had about happiness in my final year — that it is largely an internal struggle of mind for someone isolated from war, crime, poverty, and disease (most of my readers will fall under this category). If you keep training your mind and polishing your character, achieving an unshakeable happiness independent of external circumstances is trivial. Yet most of us (including me) chase the best possible external circumstances with fierce ambition. Which is totally fine, if you are aware of what exactly you are chasing. For instance, it is not a quest for happiness but rather stimulation that drives my ambition. Life is way too short, and I want my flame to burn as bright as possible, all the while maintaining a stable inner happiness. This hustle for self-realisation is what gives meaning to my ambition.
It really catches me off guard when people say Pilani was/would be the best 4 years of their lives. By now, I am used to an ever-increasing richness of experience, and I do not in any way or form accept the proposition that this trend will not continue throughout the remainder of my 20s (and beyond). In fact, extrapolating from my experiences outside the Pilani ecosystem, I am convinced that my undergraduate journey has enabled me with the base firmware to enjoy a rich and stimulating 20s, full of growth and learning. Thank god I didn’t screw up on the day of my BITS Admission Test (BITSAT) 4 years back; things may have turned out very different had I not had access to the truly transformative, roller-coaster of a journey that was my undergraduate education at BITS Pilani.
