“I wasn’t good at anything. That’s the part people don’t usually believe when they see where I’ve ended up.
But it’s true. In school, I hovered around 50s and 60s in marks. Failed a few subjects. Didn’t shine in anything – not studies, not sports. Nothing. And when you grow up in a small town where teachers only care about toppers, you learn to shrink yourself. I used to see something nice on TV and dream it, not for me, but for my classmates who were good at studying. Somewhere I believed they deserved it more.
I got into a tier 3 college. Not a lot of options, not a lot of hope either. Before I left, my dad told me, we don’t have much. If you want a better life, it’s on you. That hit hard. And for the first time in my life, I decided to try.
College was messy. There was ragging, drinking, boredom, and a strange kind of loneliness. Everyone seemed lost. But I wanted to know something. Why were IIT students getting Google and Facebook while we got Infosys? I found a senior from IIIT Hyderabad and asked him what to do. He just said, start with SPOJ and CodeChef. You’ll figure it out. You don’t need me.
That one sentence shifted everything. I became obsessed with coding. I’d scribble problems during class and run back to my hostel to write code. I didn’t spend on parties or trips. I barely spent a thousand rupees in three months. I wasn’t chasing marks or grades anymore. I was just in love with problem solving.
Eventually, it led to internships. One in Bangalore at a small startup. Then one in Delhi. I still remember they interviewed 300 people and picked two of us. The other guy was from a top college. I was just some kid from a forgotten place. That summer I earned forty thousand rupees. It felt unreal. I used that money to pay my semester fee. My hands shook a little when I gave it to my parents.
I didn’t keep it all to myself. I started a CodeChef club on campus. Taught juniors. Pulled my friends in. Most of us came from homes where money was tight and dreams were second-hand. Watching them thrive later in jobs around the world, that meant more than any salary ever could.
By the end of college, I had some good offers. Not from campus placements, but from coding contests and people who saw my work online. I took a 6 LPA job because the interviewer was kind. I wanted to work with kind people. Still do.
That job changed everything. It was at a small India office for a US-based startup. I worked like crazy. Not because anyone told me to. I just loved building things. Two years in, they doubled my salary. Then flew me to the US for a visit. I drank clean water from a tap and nearly cried.
Later, when the CEO started a new company, I joined him. Worked eighteen hour days from my home, with my parents around, my dad chatting with me in the evenings about the world. That startup eventually grew, and they filed my visa. I moved to the US in 2018. Still working. Still learning.
In 2023, the company went public on Nasdaq. I stood with the founders. My photo lit up in Times Square. My wife and I live here now with our baby. We fly home business class. I invest in other startups sometimes. I still write code.
But I’ll tell you what mattered most.
It was sitting in a hot, broken classroom feeling invisible. It was deciding to try anyway. It was writing code in notebooks because the lab was always full. It was teaching juniors when no one had taught me. It was choosing kindness over prestige. And remembering what my dad said one night. That most people just go with the flow. And if I worked just a little more, I’d be ahead of most.
I don’t think of myself as special. I just didn’t stop. That’s all.
And if you’re sitting there right now, wondering if you’ll ever matter, maybe this is your moment to try too.”
— From a former student
Editor’s Note:
We came across this story on Reddit, shared by someone who chose to stay anonymous. We don’t know their name, but we felt the weight of their words: the ache of feeling invisible, the stubborn hope of trying anyway, and the slow, steady climb from self-doubt to self-belief.
To the one who wrote this – thank you. You may not know it but somewhere, a student may be reading your story right now and deciding to try.
Leave a Reply