The only stake-holder in your life is you yourself, so make your own choices.  

It is great to love your family. And your relatives. And your friends. And your neighbors. And everyone else. But remember, that at the end of the day, we all have to live our own lives. If you are suffering, emotionally or physically, others can only help but they can’t take away your pain. 

So make your own decisions and take responsibility for them. Kuch toh log kahenge, logon ka kaam hai kehna (people will always pass judgments, that’s their job)!

-Srishti Kotiyal

Life after IIT

I graduated from IIT(ISM) Dhanbad in 2015. Coming from Environmental Engineering background, I did not have much options in on-campus jobs. In case you are wondering, placements in IITs are also limited and the packages are not even close to your expectations. For me, it was especially frustating as there were only a handful of companies recruiting from my branch.

I did not want to go for core field jobs and hence ended up at Capgemini. However, I soon got into a creative design startup but things did not work well there as well and I moved to a Germany based app marketing agency that later changed the course of my career. In 2016, I also got calls from some IIMs (including IIM Lucknow, IIM Indore, IIM Kozhikode) but coud not join due to health reasons. Honestly, I did not want to join one, as I believed it would make my career very predictable even though I slogged all these years to get a call from a reputed B-school.

Within the next 2 years I found myself starting up my own company, Adferns Media. Things were pretty difficult and required a lot more of efforts, sacrifices, all my savings but so far it had all been worth it. We are now a team of 8 people and we are working with some of the most reputed brands across the world. We even represented ourselves across 6 international events globally (Seoul, Barcelona, Shanghai, New York, Cologne, Singapore) - all within just 1 year of operations and without any external funding.

So to answer your question - Life is what you make out of it whether or not you graduate from IITs.

-Vidisha Suman

Don’t.......

Don’t overthink it, do your best and see where life takes you. I’ve made plans in life. Huge plans. None worked. What did eventually work for me was my hard work and persistence. When you are in the right, opportunities keep revealing themselves to you. Trust your god or yourself and just give your best to everything you do! 

 God Bless All!

-Srishti Kotiyal

Damaging Advice

Computer Science and Programming is constantly changing

The field isn’t constantly changing, this is a myth.

Python came out in 1991, it’s still in very popular use in 2019, well over quarter of a century later. Same for Java, almost quarter of a century after release, it’s the most popular language in industry.

People think the computer industry changes quick, it doesn’t, it’s actually very slow to move.

UNIX celebrated 50 years of existence this year, and we’re still using it, or copies of it for loads of different things. Half a century old!

This industry is very slow to move, it’s amazing how little changes every decade.

Even the new languages that come out like Go, it’s really not that different to C, and not very different at all to Limbo.

             -Garry Taylor

Do not lend money to a friend.

 Money has a way of changing people. Do not complicate relationships by bringing debt in. If you want to financially help a friend, do it but consider it as money gone. That way, your friendship won’t be bothered if he/she doesn’t return the loan. I lost a childhood friend once for a mere 1000 INR. Apparently, taking money was way easier for her than returning it.

-Srishti Kotiyal

 

This might look like an innocuous photo but it hints at a dark, insidious period in American history. This young woman was a radium dial painter. In the early 20th century, radium was used by manufacturing companies to create a glow in the dark paint. Young women, many teenagers and in their 20s, were hired by the thousands to paint the tiny glowing numbers with radium so they would glow in the dark.

 

In order to get the most precise lines, the women were instructed to utilize a practice called lip pointing. The women would place the radium-covered brushes between their lips before painting the strokes. This would be repeated again and again to ensure the brush tip was always pointed.

 

The women had no idea that the element they were using was dangerous. On the contrary, they were told that it was good for them, and radium had been shown to shrink tumours in some patients so the prevailing public opinion was that the element was a wonder drug.

 

It didn’t take long until some of the women began suffering horrific effects from radium poisoning. The element targeted the bones, their teeth would begin to rot inside of their jaw, the girls’ skeletons were disintegrating inside of them. There are reports of women having parts of their jawbones fall out into their mouth, and stories of dentists who with the slightest pressure were able to fully remove a patient’s jawbone. Some women had disfiguring tumours grow on their faces. The pain that these girls suffered is hard to imagine.

 

To make it all the worse, the companies responsible misled the women; when reports came out regarding the harmful effects of radium, the companies went to great lengths to try to discredit the scientists, the characters of the women affected, and to hide medical reports that contradicted their narrative. When I see photos of the dial painters and think of the pain that so many of them suffered, it just makes me so sad. It is awful to think of the human suffering caused as a result of ignorance and willful neglect.

 

It is hard to know the exact number of women who died as a direct result of radium poisoning. There are 112 confirmed deaths but the actual number who died as a result of their exposure is thought to be far higher.

 

-Shelby Cockhill

Do not hold grudges. 

 

 Grudges, hatred, ill-feelings, these are all just toxic sewage! React momentarily, if you have to, and then let it go! Block the source of the negativity and move on! You’ve got better things to do than dealing with shit!

-Srishti Kotiyal

This is How you become a Multidimensional Person

Here are few steps to become multidisciplinary person:

》Make it a habit to read.

No matter how busy you are in life, make it a point to devote at least an hour each day for reading. It doesn't means reading trash on Social Media but only from authenticated sources. They could be any good or highly recommended books.

After few months change the genre & subject of the book. Over time you will have good understanding of many fields.

》Meet new people.

Meet people from new places & with different ideologies. Adopt the ones that you like. This will make your personality dynamic.

》 Work-hard.

A pleasing & multi-faceted personality is the result of sheer hard-work. So, if you want an attractive personality thumb of rule is hard-work. Suppose you don't have good communication skills. So, improving it is in no way an easy task. Hence, it is the only the hard-work that can bring the requisite desired changes.

Always remember, हमे तो बस यह पता है कि बस मेहनत ही रंग लाती है।

So, go ahead & achieve what you want to!

》Never stop learning.

Keep leaning. Learn new skills, languages, technologies, tactics, etc. They make you cool :)

-Amit Yadav

Believe people’s actions, not their words! 

 

 My ex-boyfriend showed me multiple times that he wasn’t ready for a serious commitment. He did say that he only saw his future with me. What did I do? I trusted his words instead of his actions and ended up wasting precious time and going into depression. Don’t be me! I’ve learned my lesson now and made it a life-rule :)

-Srishti Kotiyal

This happened to me back in 2016. I'm an salaried person from middle class background, and at the time of this incident, I was 29. I'm too conservative in nature and so is my wife. We (me and my wife) had a saving of around Rs. 7.5 lakh together at the time of wedding. In next one year, we saved some more money and in total we had 11 lakh. This was all we had, no other assets, bank balance, shares, FDs, nothing at all. This is really a very big amount for us.

A new co-operative credit society, having head office in Nashik (Maharashtra) had open their new office in Nagpur that time. They offered attractive returns (13%) on FDs and I fell for it.

I invested of the money we had at in the society. I was aware of the fraudulent practices in such societies and how the money is looted by them. 

But then I thought, the society is newly setup in Nagpur and they won't make any fraudulent practice immediately after entering the market. I thought, they will require some time to earn fame and even if they're corrupt, they will show those practices after they're setup well in market, which will take some years. Considering this, I decided to invest there. I was very clear that I will keep money invested with them only for one year. 

This was crystal clear aim I had. But then within just few months, news spread about the malpractices in the society and and somehow society ran out of money, and entered into liquidation (details later in another story).

Me, wife and parents are till now in big trauma that we lost such a big amount, but we can't do anything now. Government officials working on the liquidation process are sleeping since 3 years and we have almost lost all our money (a current runs through my body even when I'm saying this)

So coming to ultimate question - What was your biggest financial mistake?

1. I fell for unrealistic returns. I had doubt, still I fell for it.
2. I trusted a co-operative credit society despite of knowing their practices (in India).
3. I invested all my the money in the same instrument.
4. I took a risk beyond my capacity.

Advise to readers:

1. Do not fall for the unrealistic returns, especially when they're promised by non-trustworthy sources.
2. Never invest all your money in co-operative credit societies, no matter how reliable they seem to be.
3. Never invest all the money in any single instrument.
4. Never take risk beyond your capacity.