Ten years since completing undergrad is a good time to pause and reflect on how things stack up relative to the outlook from the past. My bachelors was in mechanical engineering from MS Ramaiah Bangalore (Obviously not wearing the IIT/NIT shades) (1)

Mech had this reputation of being "evergreen" yet very went on to pursue careers in the field. Quite a few started out in manufacturing, automobiles, design etc. but over time used shifted out into anything and everything such as sales, finance, marketing, entrepreneurship (2)

Middle class immigration is truly alive - plenty of folks have moved abroad. Usual suspects .
was seen as the promised land during college ~ german language classes was in vogue, cheaper fees, open immigration policy and job market has fulfilled this prophecy (3)

IT sector has stagnated - no crazy hikes, harder on-site and oversupply resulting in mid level comatose. Those who did not leave in 2/3 years for MBA/MS have struggled to get out. IT slowing down post 08 very visible, but this rapid deceleration unexpected during college. (4)

I declined my campus placement with Accenture. Hated programming, more due to how it was introduced and taught to me in puc/1st yr and despite best efforts to avoid it, I started out in a small analytics firm (read KPO types) doing data crunching for US Banks (5)

Definitely a career handicap in pretty much all financial services sector if one did not take to programming in the last decade @shrikanth_krish 's tweet on this succinctly captures this sentiment and possibly one area that I could have paid more attention to in college (6)

For folks from typical middle class, start ups/entrepreneurship was not on our minds in college. The options were MNC job/MBA/MS. Those of us who left missed out on the startup boom. Many friends took the plunge, failed but have their chins up and have moved on (7)

At least among urban kids, there was hardly any desire do get into civil services/government and the main reason all of us gave was corruption. No surprises here - no one from my immediate/secondary circle opted this career path and all prefer private sector. (8)

Folks who managed to get into FAANG, big data & analytics irrespective of location have made the most . Easily beating core mech, IT, back office finance gigs. Folks working in have easily beaten the rest, but wages in corporate sectors have caught up big time. (9)

O&G and metal and mining was talked a lot in college - well aware of the in O&G, but hardly anyone risked it all. No-one in my circle was able to cash in on the fracking boom in and very few who started off quit due to lifestyle issues (10)

Most of friends have changed companies at least twice and I was surprised to note that I was the one who had stayed the longest (~7 years) with one firm (albeit different roles). (11)

On the personal front, a mix of arranged/love/love&arranged marriages, but plenty of golden bachelors (30+) remain. Late 20s was median age for marriage for men in south cities, but this number appears to be indexing the western trend as noted by @GuerillaShivaji (12)

Always soul searching to note on how things panned out and if 2020 has taught me anything - best laid plans go awry!
#Reflections #Bangalore #career