From a Government Job to aspiring HCI Researcher in a year: Evolving Workship goals
“Work is Worship” and hence I like to call it Workship. The term reminds me of the role of gratitude and devotion in any and everything we do.
This is a self-reflection on my B.Tech journey. I had been a studious kid over these years with little exposure to how the industry works and my specific role in it. The pandemic that struck during the last year of my undergraduate, suddenly, triggered thoughts that evolved over the months. And finally, as I write this today, I am filled with gratitude, joy, and optimism as I look forward to what lies ahead — a roller-coaster ride, but one full of contempt.
Second Year, B.Tech (Circa: 2018–2019):
I was told that by the end of the second year, you must have explored the opportunities and strengths to be able to prepare for a job. Either it could be preparing for GATE or it could be mastering product development. I had made a conscious effort to explore all the things that came towards me, which my institute offered.
I joined a Technical team that made cool robots and rovers, participate in nationwide competitions. While I intend to contribute actively to the team by making Mars Rovers, I could not. The reason, you ask, I lacked the ability to self-learn and apply in dynamic work settings. I went easy on myself, well aware that, the technology stack was new and “Nobody taught me this”. The student peers around me did not. I aimlessly worked on the product, without learning. I knew I was not contributing to the team, not learning enough, despite paying money for it! I knew that I had joined the team to explore my interests, but I was low-key bullied for being slow at work and a liability to the team.
Lesson learnt: This prepared me to have that attitude of self-learning and gave me a taste of the people around me. Almost childishly, I made a Folder on my laptop, titled “missionPositive” — that would have all the learnings and new things that I explored, with a “positive”, good intention, which btw went on to have amazing projects and awesome content to learn from. I had this one friend, who stood by me in such testing times that kept alive the hope within me to do something productive. Yet another friend helped me digest the concept that the world won’t spoon feed me all the wisdom and that CGPA wasn’t any good metric to define success.
At the university, the professors were supportive and inspired me to do research. In particular, one professor advised me to complete all my course credits by end of the third year, giving me important 6 months to explore.
THIS, advice was very helpful, as I got 6 months of time, with no course to study. I was at home, doing free internships, making a good profile, exploring interests. That worked out really well…
March 15, I got an email from my university, I had to vacate the hostel due to COVID. Within one week, I was interning at a startup from home!
April 2020:
Like many other middle-class engineering students, I was planning to rigorously prepare for GATE exams (a gateway to do Masters/join Govt./PSU Jobs). My entire family is into government sector jobs. Their perks coupled with the “job security” and “stability” factors — as informed by many, convinced me to give a fair attempt GATE. I went through websites of DRDO, ISRO and was also reading a book called “Ikigai”. Soon this realization struck me:
- Their requirements had a somewhat strict requirement of being from the core branch. I was from Electronics and Computer Engg background and hence unfit for their roles.
- It is not important to crack a government job, it is much more important to love the job that you do and actively contribute to the nation and society at large.
May — September, 2020:
The startup internship exposed me to usability, accessibility. While my role was that of ML Engineer Intern, I learnt a lot outside the role too. It was also the time when I had started searching for Universities to apply for Master’s. While searching for labs and universities offering programs that interested me, I came across the field of Human-Computer Interaction. Ever since I have been fascinated by the kind of research happening in this field. There were 2 defining factors that drove me towards this.
- Course on “Technical Answers to Real World Problems” that focused on Design Thinking to solve pressing issues of the society.
- Power of community-based research. I read about Sangeet Swara, Avaaj Otlo, Graam Vaani. The real-life impact of such work made me excited and curious about this field.
December 2020— March 2021:
I did not sit for college placements, that was an easy decision, one which I won’t regret ever. And so, it was the time of applications. I was so excited to go abroad and work with excellent professors who had done phenomenal research in HCI, my idols! While this excitement was given a pause (much needed) when my family highlighted the practicalities of going abroad, the PR, the working part-time. By this time, I had done internships abroad, published papers. On paper, I had a “great profile” in the words of consultants, peers, etc. I was pumped by the external confidence and motivation fed to me.
To balance the tradeoff of doing HCI research work and maximizing the chances of getting into a program, I applied to universities in Canada, the US. I applied for PhD, MS programs. I applied for research-heavy and industry-oriented programmes. All of this was done with devotion and good intent.
Each year, a lot of ambition, passion goes into filling applications for higher studies. From a middle-class Indian perspective, I experienced it in me and a few of my friends.
Applications were done by February. In the coming months, I would wait for the results. I used to check emails at unhealthy rates, often waking up in the night, checking emails, and going back to the loop of thoughts as I saw other emails of people getting “settled” with the college placements. And I started receiving REJECTIONS! One after the other, the ambitious ones, the moderate ones. I just got 1 acceptance from R2 University in the US which did great research in HCI. My “great profile” ambitious admit dreams were shattered though!
In my past years, changing institutions had been a passive job. I lazily passed my time, without working on something cool. Breaks are a great detox. But, if I reflect on my 10th to 12th-grade trajectory or 12th to the university, I did not learn anything new! I realized it this time. I had enough time in my final semester, which gave me the liberty to work on something other than my final year project. I worked on stuff that I was attracted to.
I searched for India-centric HCI projects. When I looked around, I felt motivated to initiate a project on Homemakers and Social Media business ventures. I did a preliminary study and submitted a position paper at CHI’21. I got to attend CHI’21. I also got in touch with HCI for South Asia folks. That cheered me up from the rejections.
While going through the HCI research work, I randomly came to know about HCI Research scholars in India. To the best of my knowledge, there are only a handful of institutes in India doing HCI Research. Of those that do, only a couple offer Master’s programs in HCI. From the alumni of the institute, I came to know about IIIT-Bangalore. I then came to know about CITAPP and the programmes offered at IIIT-Bangalore. After a few months, I again had hope. I applied to IIIT-Bangalore and got accepted for MS by Research in IT & Society programme. For once, I felt not mediocre and the feeling is surreal.
A single piece of paper does not define your future. But a single mail from Admissions team put things into perspective — the journey till the “present”, and all those decisions I made in the past suddenly made sense.
I am indebted and beyond words to start from scratch towards a journey that I am passionate about. This has prepared me for future rejections and roadblocks. While the volatility of the 20s tells me that the journey towards achieving Ikigai is a constant process, I would very much like to believe that I am on a path towards Ikigai. I have realized that there would be a gap in where you want to go and where you end up, but it’s about acknowledging the gap and make the most of it wherever you are, having full faith in the power of the present and good intent.
In my quest to search for directions in life, I often rely on Gurus, my mentors. I am always up for spiritual gyaan through YouTube videos. One such video said that when you search for a Guru with complete devotion, more often than not, you find them to guide you through the darkness. This has been true so far and I am forever grateful to all of them :)
This picture has a special place in my heart and lives rent-free. This is Mr. C.R Sathya, rocket engineer during the first Indian Rocket along with his assistant carrying Nike Apache Rocket (India’s first rocket) cone towards Thumba Rocket Launch site, 2 hours before the launch! Such was the dedication. Beautiful things take time and effort and you only make sense looking backwards…
So excited for what lies ahead! One failure at a time, I hope I get to follow ikigai.
This post is a labour of love, to absorb all the emotions that I have had in the past year (more than a year now, actually!). If you have ideas to make this better, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @jkabiir9 This self-reflection exercise was a delightful experience and puts me into a good mental space!
