How To Quit UPSC After 2 Failed Attempts & Restart With An MS In The USA - w/ Akash transcript

For most of the students, it's like a black hole that really sinks all the youthful years of India. Two years, eight hours daily. Two attempts at India's hardest exams. Then he walked away from all of it. I didn't really properly sleep for those 3 days. I actually felt sick in those 3 days. He restarted at 24. Masters in computer science, no coding background, nothing on paper to prove that he had the credentials. But bro, you have no credential at all. You won't be able to convince your uncle, let alone the admission committee, that you deserve to study computer science. And so he reverse engineered the credentials from scratch and then converted it to a pure numbers game. Applying for 17 universities and guess what? I just had one admit.

Then New York, six figures of debt, no return offer, and then a layoff. I would be googling, okay, hey, what if I fail a course on an F1 visa? This one is about quitting something you already paid for and what it actually costs to start over. Please join me in welcoming Akash Pande to the Ready Set Do podcast. Let's jump in. Akash, welcome to the show. Thank you. Appreciate you making time. Yeah, really excited to get this going.

Sorry about all the random rescheduling we had to do, but just cannot wait to kind of sink my teeth into learning about just like it's almost kind of it reminds me of 12th pass a little bit or 12th fail. I forget what the name of the movie is. I think 12th Fail. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, there you go. 12th Filth, you know, great to get that butchered right in the first minute. So, with that out of the way, um, yeah, so it it almost reminded me of like that when I came across your LinkedIn profile and I'm just so curious to unear what goes on there. Obviously, there's a few elements. The first being that I just think personally and I've talked to a few people that, you know, tend to agree. But just the UPSC in general is I feel like the biggest time sync in like all of everything that's current about you know the way things are done in

India like tens of thousands and millions of students every year basically waste away the most productive chunks of their lives trying to get something that you know we don't even know or I don't know if it's up to us to comment whether it's good for them or not. all of random word soup to say. Can you talk us through your journey and take us to that point where you first decided to prepare for the UPSC? You were like here's what I'm going to do and then kind of share what happened from that point. Yeah, that's that's a good question and honestly I wish I had a very you know perfect answer for that but I do not think my why was as strong. So it all it all happened back in my undergrad. I was a metallergy grad student or or I was doing my undergrad. I was studying metalergy as my major. Uh and I did not

have any interest in that course. No offense, that's a lovely course for those who love it. Uh it was on me that I wasn't a good metallergy student. Uh but having said that I we had this mandatory attendance rule back at IBHU and I obviously had to go to classes and because I wouldn't understand what's going on I would like just go to the backbench and uh just read books and I would read like novels all kinds of books and funny enough uh my roommate at the time uh he was preparing for UPSC and so he had like bunch of books books in my room. We share the same room.

Uh and so when I ran out of my novels, I was like, "Okay, this these books uh aren't too bad." And I just picked up uh India's struggle for independence. It's a it's a history book. And I it's like a 700page like very thick book. And I just picked it up because I didn't have any other book to read at the at the at the last bench of myology class where I was there just for attendance. Uh and so I don't encourage that.

Um having said that I started reading it and in the matter of next uh I would say almost uh two years I ended up reading all his books like it it started with history and then you know geography uh economy Indian economy current affairs and I I was just like hooked and at at at that point you know I I had no plans to attempt UPSC whatsoever. Um and and after that when I started my first job I wasn't really uh I I went into consulting and I wasn't really enjoying it and so I did that job for around a year and I realized that hey that's not my calling again uh this is not what I want to do and now I was like what do I do next uh and so that is when I reminded myself that hey I have read all these books already for UPSC um why not give it a shot?

And also at the time I was a caregiver to my mom. She was going through some serious health conditions. And so I was at home um as a as a caregiver. And so I was like, "Okay, I have uh some time on my hands. Why not I revise what I've already read? It's not like I'm starting from scratch." Yeah. And just give it a go. Uh so honestly that was how I started or I kind of uh got into that um I wouldn't call it trap. It's a it's not a great word but at least for me it it it's it's yeah that's something that kind of got me into preparing for for UPSC and then yeah the rest of the story is obviously uh out there on LinkedIn but we can also talk more but yeah to answer your question. question. I'm yeah I'm very curious. So for those in the audience that are not super aware that includes me exactly if you had to kind of give an overview level

description around what's asked in in at least like the first written test. I know there's a few phases or whatnot. So just kind of paint that picture for us if you would please in terms of So I know you mentioned the current affairs, economics, uh some other stuff like geography I think you said but yeah exactly what's the scope cuz all of those things sound really broad. So is it designed to be that way? Yeah they say that everything under the sun is in the UPSC syllabus uh and and rightly so. I mean uh it comprises of yeah like different um subjects you know right from um there's general studies um uh and then there's optional and in the general studies it's like a bunch of uh subjects right from geography history poly economy current affairs environmental sciences uh and it has like three stages first is the

preliminary round second is the mains and third is the interview and yeah obviously Uh it's a very competitive exam. Uh people from all u majors or all streams uh arts, science and and uh what is it? Uh commerce. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They all sit for for the exam. And so almost like I think more than a million people at least fill out the form if not attempt. And so yeah, that's the nature of the exam. I think it's very also it's very um subjective in nature. uh and so it's not like uh it's not like an equation you know LHS equal to RHS like the way we study for let's say uh the engineering entrance uh exams where you know once you understand the fundamental concepts there's probably no question that you're not going to crack if you really understand things thoroughly uh but that's not the case for UPS uh it's very subjective and the

interpretations can be different uh the syllabus is so huge you know you might just a few things here and there. It's also a matter of luck. I mean you studied something and you know it appeared in the exam or you ended up wasting like 2 months and that wasn't asked at all. So I mean yeah uh for me as as as a person who was always uh into you know preparing things very fundamentally in a very structured approach. Uh clearly it didn't work out.

Uh but then yeah I gave it two attempts and then I was like I don't want to gamble my entire youth on on on an exam. Yeah. Um and so I want to jump in there when you say you give two attempts. So you mentioned you had quit your job at the time. So were you literally just studying like were you a professional studier for what was it 2 years? years? Is that Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. More than true. I was like yeah just Yeah. doing everything I could, sitting for like long hours again, like studying for like eight to nine hours per day. It was like a full-time job to study.

I'm so curious. Take us through a day in the life of any one of those two years. I'm I'm just so curious how you were, you know, routining this like I'm just, you know, very intrigued by this. Yeah. Um, so fun fact, during those four years at IIT, I was like a loafer. I was like a waster. I wouldn't study. I wouldn't recommend that lifestyle. But I was like, you know, I had really grinded really hard for the two years in my 11th and 12th grade. And then when I finally made it to IAT, I was like, uh, that was I needed like some break. And that's that's how the world sells you the dream, right? They're like, okay, you know, crack this exam and, you know, then you're good to go. I was like, I am good to go now. Yeah. Yeah. So, I took it very literally. uh and I explored like a bunch of things and studying was like the last one of them.

Uh of course I would do the bare minimum and make sure that I get the threshold GPA because otherwise the the placements wouldn't uh let me sit for the for for the jobs. Um so I did all of that and so in those four years I really lost that habit of you know sitting in one place and studying for long hours without being distracted. So I kind of like my my brain got rusty over the period of four years and it's a very common uh phenomena I would say with with many IT grads um you know they kind of tend to lose their um strengths around like focused concentrated long hours of study. So that was the case for me. And so then like I had to kind of like condition myself into you know making myself sit on a chair for like long hours. And so for the first 1 month or so I was like kind of like just conditioning myself making a daily

habit. And a typical day would be I would obviously get up in the morning um around 8 7:30 or 8. I've I've always usually been an early riser sometimes even earlier. And then obviously I would get my breakfast and everything done. Um and after that I would u yeah take a water bottle next to me and just like yeah sit for like 2 hours. I would make sure that I do I study in like a shift of 2 hours like I would study for 2 hours then take a break then again and then obviously take a longer break when I had to go for lunch. But it would always be like if I am sitting on the chair to study, I have to sit for two hours. Uh that was non-negotiable.

Um and yeah, so I I would like take uh one of the subjects, let's say I would the way it would work for me was I cannot be like context switching. So I would just most likely spend my entire day into one or at most two subjects that I had to study. I wouldn't like study all of them in parallel. uh and so let's say if I if one day I was studying anthropology and let's say history I would yeah divide it into divide my day into two halves let's say I was studying for 8 hours I was like four hours I'll study anthropology the other four I'll study uh history and yeah just just go go at it um there was no AI at the time obviously so you had to go through like bunch of books uh curate your own notes and all it was all like manual handwritten handwritten I barely use laptop at the time. It was all like handwritten notes, bookmarks,

like physical highlighters on the on the book. So yeah, very traditional old school way of of studying things, trying to retain, trying to memorize, trying to kind of go deeper sometimes, but also not too deep to waste your time is like a good balance. You know, you can't be going too deep cuz you're not doing a PhD in that course, right? You're just doing enough. Yeah. Yeah. So So yeah, it was pretty much pretty much pretty much that. So here's a question if I can jump in that has always just you knowve I've just always had this question and I've never once been able to ask somebody that has you know been there done that and so actually I'm yeah to take a step back first of all you you and I both know I'm trying to figure out how to best word this but I guess most members of our audience yeah watching would know

that there's almost you know this just obsession with getting into UPSC there is is literally nothing that is more that is held to a higher standard than that exact thing. I guess what I'm getting at Akash is if you were to remove yourself from that position right like let's just look at a person X that's preparing for UPSC we know like you just told me there were what like a million people that on average apply right? Yeah. So what I'm getting at is is all of this studying that you were doing, does it actually translate in any way, you know, to something that can, you know, build a career, make money for somebody, get make them well suited for a certain type of job. Cuz what I've been led to believe is that it's just like a time sync. like there's very little you can get out of it outside of obviously cracking the UPSC which is the

main point but does that make sense like is that tracking with you what I'm trying to get at absolutely yeah uh I think what you're trying to say is I think UPSC is pretty binary so it's either one or zero like there's no proportional um outcome to your effort for example in computer science if I put in let's say 99% of the work I will get maybe let's say I don't crack uh Google or anthropic or whatever, but at least I get like a good job job uh you know, I I get like a good decent paying job because well, hey, I I did study. I do know my uh concepts and and so so it's like the output is proportional. Yes, I may not be in the very top of the top, but at least I'm there and I'm making a living and it's working out for me. Uh but that's not the case in UPSC. So, it's pretty binary. either you really have a

very high upside and you like end up cracking uh the exam, you get to be a very top administrative officer. Um but if you don't then I think the downsides are also pretty high. So that's like the gamble of UPSC I believe and it's definitely I I like to call it for most of the students it's like a black hole that really sinks all the youthful years of India. Uh and it's such a national hobby at this point especially I I don't know where are you originally from but if anyone from Kolkata but roots in Bihar so yeah yeah yeah okay got it so yeah you you also know it I mean if you grew up in a family that originally comes from UP or Bihar uh you're pretty much even if you're slightly smart you're like told or brainwashed into believing that hey you can also you should attempt it and you will crack it uh which is which

is again to our parents from the generation that they come from maybe that was one of the most um uplifting things to do. Um but I believe uh there are more ways to to reach the same goal now. Uh so yes uh to your question precisely I personally think because you're just studying like history, geography and you know all these other uh liberal arts subjects subjects uh job valuewise or skill-wise I think no offense to those subjects but given the market given those skills that pay more pay less I believe if you let's say invested four to 5 years of your life and and let's say if you don't make it which is the case for 99.9% of the people um looking at the stats uh then you're basically back to square one and while it may not tangibly give you any skills I believe one thing that it does give you is that ability to grind hard

so uh that's what I tell people to kind of bank on like yes You may have lost some years, you may have lost some efforts there, but it's definitely a gain in terms of like the the character that you build. Um, so yeah, I wouldn't call it an absolute u waste of u time for someone who has already been through that. Uh I'm sure they have built some character out of it and hopefully if they apply it in the right way, I believe it's never too late to take a U-turn. U-turn. Yeah. Um, I guess thank you for confirming my worst fears. Yeah, Yeah, cuz as I said, like I didn't suspect this was true, but it is what it is, right? Like, of course, we we weren't consulted on the design phase of and and I feel like the reason many like 1 million people attempt the exam is is obviously the the kind of glamour that it carries. But many of the

students I would say majority of the students do not have a very strong why. Uh I feel like a why a very strong reason or your motivation should be like really strong to the core. Some are like you know okay there yeah like choosing power or for my case it was yeah a chasing power having grown up in that kind of conditioning coming from UP I'm from Goripur. Uh and so so uh one is that the other is um people sometimes are also I had friends who wanted to like do some higher education in like Harvard and all these Ivy League colleges cuz government of India like sponsors you to study in these top Ivy League uh institutions. Yeah. So you can like study on government money. Of course there's like contract you need to like serve some time and yeah. So all of that um but uh some of them had that reason which is

again not not the best reason. So I feel like assess one should assess their motivations I believe. So if I were to go to maybe one day after right you got your results for the first time. So you've sunk a year you didn't made it unfortunately I'm I'm sure you were very gutted. I want to explore from your POV around what type of questions a person should ask themselves whether or not they set themselves on course for giving it another year cuz I'm sure you did that right in that position.

Yeah, absolutely man that's a very very good question. Um yeah I feel like the most important thing like I was saying is yeah like is your why still standing? Yeah. Uh second, I would also kind of encourage people to like look at their results and like kind of assess. Um and the other question is are you prepared to like gamble five to 6 years? Like do you have the wherewithal, the resources? Is your is your other aspects of your life okay? Like not everyone is that lucky or that fortunate to have everything else figured out. some are going through some other challenges maybe health problems maybe some family issues maybe you know unlike uh like I like to call it like when you were preparing for ITJ as a 10th grader all you had to do was study like you did not have to worry about the world like food was brought to your table in most

cases at least I was fortunate enough in that case but that's not the case when you are like you know a graduate or 24 25 year old um you know you have some real responsibil some real pressures, some some extraordinary circumstances for a few. So I would say take that into account as well. Are you ready to gamble? Is life kind enough to you at the time to allow you to gamble those years? And then are you also the fourth aspect that I the fourth question that I asked myself is let's say I crack the exam. It is super tough but let's say in in the in the most optimistic shot I crack the exam. Unless I crack let's say IAS or IPS or IFS which is Indian foreign service service there are like many other services a 10,000 people crack it roughly and only like let's say if you're coming from a general category you only like 100 or

200 people get like those actual field jobs and after that despite cracking it despite in like being in the top.1% of of those candidates you still are doing a desk job and so I asked myself that hey let's say I crack it do I want that kind of life that it provides me uh am I just chasing it like another medal in my in my cap like hey I cracked UPSC and now you know let's see now what it is uh so I was in the latter category like I was just chasing it as one of those exams that you know I had always had this high of like chasing difficult things and I was like wait is that like the thing that's triggering me instead of like do I really on that kind of life, that job, that lifestyle.

So yeah, I had my answer to those questions and I it was a tough decision because you know sun cost effect is pretty real. Yeah, I was just bring that up and I I feel like obviously that is just a very real thing to deal with in any circumstance, but something like this is where you're just like, "Oh, I'm so close. I just need one more shot and I got it." and but you don't got it or at least most people you know don't got it. And so to then again jump fast forward one more year.

What was it that time where that made you be like that's it. I'm going to move on with my life. I I'll go look at other greener pastures. This is it. What was that? Or maybe you can just say that the combination of your answers to those same four questions probably changed. But so is that true? And if not then what was it if anything definitive that made you be like that's it I'm walking away from this. Yeah. So obviously the four uh questions that I mentioned earlier uh but other than that I also saw some of my friends who had given it like five or six attempts and who were like more motivated you know they had spent more time and I believe their aptitude in those subjects was also much better than me. uh they could not make it and that was like a kind of a bummer for me and and that kind of did it. That kind of

put in the final nail in the coffin for me. me. Uh and so I was like, "Okay, you know what? Uh it's time to uh yeah, call it quits." quits." That must have been pretty tough, right? Like looking back, maybe you'll say that it doesn't matter where you are now, which we'll get to. But how do you feel about that actually if you were to look back to that day? Thank you. It's pretty um yeah nostalgic um in in in in in the sense that um I remember I took like full 3 days to like arrive at a decision and at every second I didn't really properly sleep for those 3 days. I wasn't like my mind was just at arriving at a decision like do I give it another shot? Cuz the thing is once you get the results the next stage is somewhere around the corner. So like you have to decide if you need to like fill out that application form. And

so I I gave myself like 3 days and I was like I need to decide. And every second I was like negotiating, assessing, putting variables to my you know ideas and like trying to come up with like yeah an equation or like a a way to like you know measure things and like um man it was u yeah every second was like a torture to like you know I was I was like obviously oscillating between the two decisions and yeah the what if was really haunting me and there was obviously no at the time I didn't know it would it would work out right at the time I was just looking for like a switch or a pivot or something else.

Um so yeah, I just had to bet on certain uncertain um uh possibilities. Uh and I think the thing that worked for me well at the time was uh I had friends uh in all walks of life. So I had friends who had cracked UPSC. I had friends who had done IM who had been to IM. I had friends who had who had been doing masters. I think I got that advantage. I think yeah that I had friends in like all uh kind of um careers at at different places in their lives and so I could get uh more data uh direct data from them. Uh but it was very very tough. I remember I was almost uh suffering to the point that I actually felt sick in those three days. I remember um it was it was very very draining. Uh I would sweat sometimes like literally like you know thinking of you know uh how do I you know take a decision? Where do I go from here?

Yeah. Yeah. That was a scary moment. I was like am I like you know sometimes you you tell yourself you know am I like 1 ft away from the water? I was digging and digging and digging and am I leaving it at like 1 ft from the water? That's Yeah. And and then there's another obviously voice saying that hey there's 100 more feet bro and you know you don't have those uh tools and those uh that time uh so yeah it was life at some point is uh a gamble of sorts because obviously there is going to be uncertaintity but I I think I took my bet. Yeah. No that's super cool and yeah obviously really appreciate you you know being candid about that. So one of the questions I get asked a lot just by students that reach out and such is just your generic why masters in the US right like what made you take the jump and what I tell them at least the short

version is the way I see it once you graduate from your undergrad if you're looking for really anything that is not just a job that you continue to grind or switch companies and that type of track I feel like that's slightly different as far as higher studies So you're presented with one of three options. You either take the CAT, you either take the GATE or you at the time I know a lot of universities wave it off now but you take the GRE right.

So the reason I bring that up is I think maybe where you were you were probably presented with a similar option. So I'm curious if you looked at kind of all of your options and you alluded to that a little bit where you said maybe you were considering CAT or like MBA and or you know obviously we know what you ended up choosing but I'm curious for that immediate next decision branch that you arrived at what you looked at and what made you pick what you picked. Yeah, it's a very good question, man. I'll have to say your questions are like really pointy and, you know, uh very valid. Um I like how you also like naturally flow into uh the right set of questions to jump to next. So, uh great job. Now coming to your question, question, um yeah, you of course had these three track tracks that you mentioned. Um I

was 24 25 at the time 24 I would say and for some reason um I might have some personal biases but I felt that I talked to my friends obviously who were studying at IMS um and then I obviously talked to my friends who were doing masters in US. I kind of felt that MBA is not something that I want to do right now. I felt that um you know most of the friends that I talked to uh I I got like a conclusion that MBA is more like a brand building um like there's very less like hardcore skills that you learn.

It's mainly about Yeah. the soft skills and you know the brand the network the network. Exactly. Yeah. And so for me uh coming from an IIT network was not really uh that uh absent for me. he was like already there and and so I kind of um at the time thought that maybe this is my last chance to get like a hard skill for me. Uh because I'm already like I was on the verge of fatigue, right? I was coming out of a UPSC grind.

Uh and I was like if I don't do it now, I probably will never go for any hard skills. And I think I have always probably probably uh tried to take a difficult route. Um and so for me cracking CAT and and attempting uh to go for IM was not as challenging probably as let's say of course getting GRE is a very simple exam compared to CAD but like the whole process of like going for computer science you know studying like making a career pivot learning a very you know hard skill so I thought maybe this is my last opportunity and this is a harder thing to do and the upside is also like a But more again people can debate on the upsides but at the time I felt uh this was like the direct way to come to US learn from some of the best people in the world from you know explore the US uh education system and also make a

pivot and so masters for me was like really kind of soft launching myself into computer science in US uh and that looked like a very exciting prospect than let's say continuing you know with an MBA cuz I always was like I my first job was being a consultant. Uh and then um uh yeah UPSC preps help you good enough for the for the IM interviews at least. least. Uh so I felt like I I that was like a relatively easier option for me. Uh but I felt like at the time I would much rather choose a harder option with a better upside and come to us.

Yeah. I feel like something that almost goes under reportported slash doesn't get enough mention is that it it takes a certain type of person that you know wants to just not even like necessarily the US but just even consider like a masters abroad or studying abroad. I found through not just this podcast, but just people I talk to and such, like you'll find that these people actually have nothing in common outside of the one thing that they all share, which is it's kind of hard to find a word for it.

It's almost like a Jennis Sequoa, right? Like it's that itch to go somewhere really out there, you know, that you just really know nothing about. And there's obviously something really exciting about that. And a lot of people are aware that this is something that they seek. A lot of people don't really know and they end up doing it anyway. But I don't know hearing you kind of share your reason for this just kind of sprung that to top of mind. I am curious though why computer science. Yeah. Uh so back in my undergrad like I computer science students were like celebrities back at IIT campus like they were like getting all these crazy international placements and like you know 50 lakh 70 lakh packages in in India and they were like really like especially like in the final year like they were like celebrities to everyone and so it all

started from there and obviously I never like funny enough I never liked computer science while I was in my uh undergrad I always hated it. That's why I took up a consulting job which was like neither in the core nor in the coding side. Yeah. Yeah. Um so there was like this thing in my mind that hey these guys are doing something difficult. Uh that's why they are paid for so heavily and during my UPSC UPSC um phase I kind of collected this habit of sitting for long hours that I had lost. So during my undergrad, the reason I didn't take up uh coding was because I didn't believe in my ability to kind of uh crack it or nail it because I was I had become like very rusty and like you know I would run away from like hard things. Uh I would like you know my mind was like more into its own comfort zone and I didn't want to push outside of it.

UPSC for me like really broke that like really destroyed any of my you know hurdles mental hurdles and that was like honestly if I had not done UPSC I would have never ever uh been into software engineering that's yeah that's that's a fact that I know and the only reason why I yeah did that was I was like okay I'm not stupid I I mean I can think of the algorithms and you know in a very reasonable way uh and and I had that um kind of um preparation from my 11th and 12th on how to think rationally having attempted and clear J. So I I kind of knew that okay algorithms is something I understand and I can think through things very structurally. Mhm. I just need to learn some and have more patience and learn some more um you know syntax and you know the way you do things and computer science the architecture and all those kinds of

things and so uh UPSC for me kind of broke that mental inertia or like that mental barrier that I can't do it and then I was like okay you know I can sit for long hours how difficult can it be for me to not understand a particular data structure and algorithm problems if I sit two hours with it and I because I have conditioned myself into it. it. I think again I don't mean to sound cocky. It mainly comes from the fact that if you give anything very sincere time and genuinely try to like understand something how difficult can it be that you cannot understand it and if it is that difficult then wow I want to know like if it's something that crazy difficult then let me just at least see what it is. So either ways I was like yeah UPSC really helped me break down that mental block that I had. Mhm. Mhm. That's super cool. Yeah. And then when

you were applying itself I feel like you probably would have run into just some logistical issues such as how do you explain like not having any work for the past 2 years and such. So did all of that end up being a factor slash something you had to actively solve or do something about or would you say that it was largely you know it just ironed out by itself for the most part? Again great question. Um I actually fun fact I should actually tell you the entire picture on how I arrived at computer science. we would I remember I had this batchmate of mine who also went to NYU who was like a very like close friend of mine like all those four years I would just you know uh hang out with him um and he kind of uh didn't take his uh campus placement although he got a really good job and he came to us NYU to do his masters in computer science so

when I was when I took the decision that hey I want to quit UPSC luckily he was in India on his annual visit it. So I talked to him and he kind of told me that hey it's not it's not that hard and you know it can be done. Uh and then I was like hey I have no experience at all like some people do minors in computer science in their undergrad and you know they have something to show. Uh but that was not the case for me.

And so I talked to him and he was like well then you know what you can you know if you really want to come to us you can do like some you know like ancillary courses to computer science you know some sister courses like MIS master in information systems or exactly uh you know some management engineering management like some courses which are you know there in the tech field but not really like hardcore coding. Uh so I was like almost uh you know buying that idea and then like there was this voice in my head which told me that hey if I have to you know go to US if I have to take a gamble again if if the tuition fees is the same you know why not like go for uh a major which has like a bigger bigger reward and like better placements. So because we helped my be become become my yeah I mean repay my loans faster and and try to attempt

something that at the time seemed impossible. So it was it was mainly uh yeah I think these these variables. So first it was arriving at the conclusion that yes I want to quit UPSC then it was the decision that yes I want to go to US and then was the decision to you know what major to take and then I talked to a bunch of people. I looked up the the data, the tuition fees, you know, was pretty much similar for any course. I was like, why not do a course that uh and the only thing that was stopping me was, hey, I don't have any experience. experience. But then the counter to that was a voice that said that, hey, you can put in long hours and you're not stupid. Uh, and so these two kind of like uh helped me uh take Yeah, I was like, I'll go for the bigger bite. uh and and I just decided to go for computer science.

I see. And then when you were writing your um purpose statement and all of those things, that must have been something you would have addressed, right? Cuz I'm sure the colleges were probably just like, well, this is an interesting profile, but I don't see a single course on computer science at all ever. So, how did you get get ahead of that? Yeah. Uh so what happened was when I took this decision that okay I want to do computer science I obviously asked my I was the first person to ask myself but bro you have no credential at all like this is this is like shot in the dark and this will obviously not work out like you won't be able to convince um your uncle let alone the admission committee that you deserve to study computer science so then I was like okay you know I I took like some problem solving approach So I was like okay how

much time do I have and what can I do to build my profile uh and so that's when I talked to again some of my friends who were doing PhD in computer science um and they were like you know you can publish a paper in machine learning very easily uh at the time it was called ML uh uh it was not like AI wave it was yes yes less glorified machine learning uh and so I was like yeah I mean that that would also be like a proof of um capability for me. Yeah. And proof of interest, right? That uh can I really do it? Um because I mean the outside picture is always shiny, right? Uh true. And so I was like okay so now I need to u publish a paper because there are two upsides to publishing a paper. one you get a research paper to your name and the second is if you do it with a professor they can recommend you right and because they are your

co-authors they'll work with you on a paper it's like taken very seriously uh and so I was like what can I do to get a paper and so I yeah thought of this idea that why not I go to the computer science department of my own um alma mater and Oh cool nice yeah and so it it was all like yeah first principles thinking like okay one step at a time and you know what are the blockers how can I unblock uh what are the steps and then I was getting all the data from all my friends from like in different box of dear research and dear uh masters uh so yeah that's how it happened I ended up finally going to my IT professor professor amazing and then so in terms of the admits itself did you how many did you have multiple and how did have did you have multiple and how did you end up picking where you ended up going finally I'm sure you were very

happy the day you got your first offer but yeah how was that like for you? Yeah so because I did not have any um yeah prior work experience or prior uh undergrad major I had to like overcompensate. So I made sure that you know I totally nail my GRE and you know my research papers are like really good. uh my recommendation letters are top. Uh and so and also because I was playing uh a numbers game. I feel like uh US admits are numbers game. So I applied for 17 universities. People are people usually go for 10. I was like I want to play this numbers game. And I was unemployed.

I was I was basically on loss of pay from my previous company um on a leave. So obviously I was not getting paid. I did some cryptocurrency trading at the time for almost uh 6 months. I wrote the uh um yeah the Bitcoin wave and I made some money. Uh that's cool. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I but I invested most of it in my mom's treatment. Uh and then uh after that I had to take like some uh yeah some money from my friends who were like doing really well and they didn't mind uh you know lending me some money and so that was like a costly affair. Exactly. No, I'm just I'm just kidding. But that was really nice of them. Uh yeah, it was really nice of them. And so I um yeah, I ended up applying for 17 universities and guess what? I just had uh one admit. Wow. Wow. So it was rejection after rejection

after rejection and then finally um yeah, NYU Kurand gave me an admit and I was like over the moon. Uh and then actually so I would say two eventually because Tony Brooks actually gave me a reject and then I don't know what happened if they do it on a rolling basis or whatever. First I got a reject and like two months later when I'd already decided that you know I'm going for NYU karant they gave me like an admit they were saying that okay you know we had some people shift out and you know we had some more space to accommodate and so so yeah maybe two you can call it two but it uh it was like a gamble that you know eventually was a numbers game. Wow, that must have just felt, you know, so good.

And so obviously you've since been in the US for a while now. Would you would you say it's been mostly like has it lived up to your expectations in terms of not just you know the you you mentioned earlier the you know US quality of education but more importantly you know just the quality of life like when you look back to your you know to how your life changed after you immigrated to the US what are I guess some of the biggest um you know flagship type learning slashmoments that you know come top of Right. Right. Yeah. Uh it really did not live up to the expectations for the first uh 3 years I would say. It's been 5 years for me. Uh five and a half since I've been in US but for the first almost 3 years I would say it was a every single day was like a battle to fight man.

Uh especially like masters was pretty rough for me like Quran is like very maso was it a two year course? It was two years. Yes it was two years for me. It is math heavy. Yeah. I mean all CS courses ultimately in masters are fairly fairly ma math heavy math heavy CS heavy and so I had no experience so I would like go from scratch and yeah I mean but I really loved the education system like I loved the sincerity of the professors the TAs the efforts that they would put in the assignments but it would take me like really long time like let's say what somebody who has studied computer science would do in two hours I would often do it in like two days sometimes Uh so I for the first two years and every semester I used to feel that okay I'm going to fail at least this course in in this semester I would be googling

okay hey what if I fail a course on an F1 visa do I still get to keep my job when or or do they send me to India like yeah I would like Google in anxiety like all these things u but eventually it all it all worked out um and and then I got my first job man um I did my internship at AWS they didn't give me the return offer because they were not giving anyone any return offers. It was like uh yeah the market was going bad at the time. Yeah. Uh and then I finally found another job and then they laid me off. Uh so like yeah for the first 3 years I had like huge education loans. NYU is a very costly school. Very costly. Yeah that's true. So I was like on the verge first for finding internships then for finding full-time job then got laid off all this while I had like uh more than 100k of uh student loans. Um life was like crazy tough. It

was not what it appears to be when you are in India uh and you see your friends posting stories on their way to Grand Canyon. That's that's a very you know um out outside shiny picture that is not close to reality. Uh there's a lot of struggle obviously you know uh you know it too. So for the first 3 years I think it was like a challenge every single day but then it pays off. It pays off like it's like it's like a summit you know it's like you need to like keep on like climbing. Yeah. Uh for the first 3 years it was super rough for me at least.

Maybe for people who have done computer science, maybe masters with the cakewalk. There were a few students in my batch who were like highly cracked and like they didn't need to do a lot. But at least for me it was like uh I would like I would be dying like literally I crawled my way uh into understanding things and doing assignments, exams and finally finally I was you know so yeah now I think I'm in a pretty better shape. Um uh so it does it does pay off. You get to live the American dream but not on the day you land for your masters. It takes at least I would say to eay your loans to kind of you know start living in a one-bedroom apartment without having to share it you know like the typical or like living in you know New York City uh it takes like at least 3 years of time from the day you land in US

that's the real picture and in between it's only you and you know uh yeah it's between yeah you and and your roommates that they have seen you struggle and the kind of things that you go through. Yeah. Yeah. Uh but it works out if you just keep keep at it. Yeah. I think you would be surprised just hearing you talk about that particular part. I think you'd be really surprised um to there is obviously no way we will ever get real stats on this.

But just how many students actually Google uh if I fail this course will my F1 visa will still be valid? I promise that number will blow you away 100%. Yeah, cuz I've done that and I I didn't even have that excuse that Well, obviously it's not an excuse, but it's like the most valid thing ever. Everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. And like I had no excuse to just ever Google that. But I've definitely Googled that multiple times and I have no shame in in, you know, admitting that. It's hard, dude. Like people don't realize. And part of it is on I guess us as well cuz obviously we're not going to like cry about it, right?

Of course, we're going to pose the story of Grand Canyon cuz, you know, it feels good. Yeah, there's all of that dop dopamine from all of the little hearts that fly up from, you know, the bottom left. But yeah, I I really really like that you were real about just Yeah. how not easy it is. And so I am curious though just it would be I would be remiss to not bring this up just you know to put that neat little bow on top of this cake wrong analogy cherry on top of this cake that we've built here but after your layoff I guess when you so obviously you're know you you now you have a job you're doing great what did you like move certain things around slash did you have to do anything to that really got you that result or was it literally just a function of keep grinding, keep throwing stuff at the wall and eventually something will stick.

Yeah, I feel like just like it was for us admits, even for jobs, it's a numbers game and you only win a numbers game by increasing the volume. Uh so I would like you know very you know systematically apply to at least 20 to 30 jobs daily. Um and yeah and also like yeah take help of all my friends in different companies to put referrals for meeral and referrals when I say referrals I don't mean like approaching a random stranger on LinkedIn who is if he or she is very kind they will best they can do is they'll go to their portal um you know company portal they'll upload your resume whatever and you know address is up to you and the recruiter but the kind of referrals that actually work in this market is your friend who can like literally have your back and who can like take your resume all the way to the hiring manager and you know

just like you know pester the hiring manager with with your resume and say that hey look into this guy and that is a real referral in my opinion very interesting you know I've had like at least at least like 30 30 35 40 conversations around just this piece in terms of you know cuz obviously it is one of my goals with the podcast and just in terms of where I'm at in in my life is to help other international students to you know crack the market get jobs here cuz you know you know the feeling where we've been there done that and yeah and it's tough right and I feel like I almost owe it to you know like the folks just one rung of the ladder below me to get some help right cuz I mean I was dumb enough to not even ask for help. So, but the reason why I say that is because I've never once heard somebody actually share that what you just did.

And I actually love that. That's actually so effective and it feels doable. Like obviously you will not get 200 referrals out of this, but that's the whole point, right? You don't need 200 referrals if you have somebody that can really vouch for you and not just be checking a box on a portal that you know 35 other people did and it went nowhere. like the ATS autorejected you. That was just a waste. So that's awesome. I'm going to start share sharing more around that when people ask me. Let's say in such a case that your friend really approaches the hiring manager and you know puts your profile in front of him. Let's say even if he or she rejects your resume, they'll give you feedback like hey this person seems like a job hopper. Hey this person does not have this skills required for this job. And so if anything

the worst outcome that you get from that is feedback which is good enough. So I would say I mean get your friends to like really you know put in some more work and like take it all the way to the hiring manager instead of just you know letting it slip through the system. So Akash, you've in obviously the short time that I've known you, it has it's become somewhat clear to me that you're, you know, the type of person that is just basically at any given point itching for like the next challenge.

Like what else can we do? What else can we grind for 3 years for? So firstly, you can say that no, that's just not true. But but if it is, I'm curious where do you go from here? What are some things that you're really excited for? maybe you know in the next two or three years of your professional or personal life. life. Yeah, I think um I eventually I've done a bunch of random things. I've done product management, I've done I've done uh consulting, software engineering now for the last 4 years. Um I would say eventually I want to be an entrepreneur and I think that's where all these experiences will kind of uh get condensed together uh and make some sense. Uh but that's the plan but obviously that has some real constraints around visa um around uh you know where I am personally in my life. I have to knock some

personal milestones out of the way. Uh I'm not 20 who can start something out of their parents' garage. Um so you know I need to like have some more buffer some more informed decisions some more backups. Uh but yeah, I think that's getting me excited lately. How do I figure those pieces out? Obviously, it's not straightforward, but there lies the fun, I guess. Indeed. And you know, I'm reminded of this really cool NAL Ravikan quote. He I'm going to butcher it, but the essence of it is essentially he talks about how one of the toughest things for people to do is um get so set on climbing a certain mountain that at some point that mountain is just a waste of their time to climb. And so what they should do is have the ability to realize that actually I don't want to climb that mountain. instead I'm going to go back

to the bottom and then try and climb a different mountain. And he really makes a huge deal of how important this is to do at various points in people's lives that are trying to get successful, which hopefully is most people. And I just love that. I feel like your entire journey is just a testament to you doing just exactly that over and over and over again. And I know that it's obviously not easy to do at all. And so I guess just also to take a step back I've also been kind of challenging myself to bring to top of you know top of mind at the end of every episode that I do the one single thing I'm only allowed one thing in this hypothetical that I'm going to keep take away with me right like if somebody asks hey naman episode 131 with Akash one thing that you remember this will be it and I've been challenging

myself to do that but yeah in this in your case it will be just you know spotlighting this ability that just because you set course to climb a certain mountain does not mean that you actually have to do it. it's okay to take a detour or realize you know reconsider the your decision in the first place and that's really really hard to do and so you know just wanted to leave our our listeners/viewers with that and you know truly thank you so much for taking the time here today and share your experiences this has been so cool like definitely one of the more I the word unhinched is coming to mind even though it's a little bit out there say oh My god. You know, I Exactly right. You uh am I getting cancelled after this?

No, it's it's more so just, you know, your your ability to be vulnerable and transparent more than anything else. But but truly, thank you. This was so cool. Of course. Of course, man. I also thoroughly enjoyed and like I've said before as well in the middle of the podcast, like you really were very natural and you know, you were asking very, you know, pointed uh valid questions. Um, and I I it also took me back to some of my experiences. I got to relive them. Uh, so yeah, thanks man.

Keep doing what you're doing and I wish you uh all the best and may you win in all walks of life. Thank you.