#63 Anything But Lucky

I recently met a friend from college. We were en route to meet a few other friends, and we started catching up. “What do you do now?”, she asked. I said, “I handle product marketing for an enterprise software company”. Her reply was, “so, you work in IT?”

Even though we studied Biotechnology, a good chunk of us moved to IT and other jobs.

“Yes…I work in IT, but in a non-IT job”, I replied.

And that is when it struck me. I always wanted to be part of the tech space, but in a non-technical role. And I’m exactly doing that. It brought back memories of a row I once had with my environmental engineering lecturer during the third year of college.

Campus placements were around the corner and he said, “The only way to make it in life is by getting hired as a software engineer.” Associate software engineer was all the rage back then. I said, “It can’t be the only way. I would work as anything but a software engineer”.

I had nothing against software engineering. In fact, I don’t even know what software engineers do. But, I knew one thing for sure. Becoming a software engineer is not the only way to make it in life. Hearing my response the lecturer said “In that case, you won’t get any other job. The only job you’ll get is selling pirated CDs.”

I said, “Let’s see”.

It’s been 13 years and I’ve spent 8 years of it as a technical writer and marketer. And every day I work with software engineers. I’m glad I didn’t become one. It is a tough job. And, I don’t have the skills to become a good engineer. If I had listened to others and landed a job on campus, I would’ve had a job. But, I wouldn’t have grown much. I was incredibly lucky to land a role in writing during my early years. And I’ve loved every day of it since then. Disproving my lecturer was just a bonus.


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