Why I left UPSC to become a Software Engineer?

"yatho dharmastatho jayah" - Mahabharat.

I could read. Across my life, if there is any statement that has been unchanged, is that I can read. I say, could read, not in the sense that I am literate, I am, but in the sense that I wasn't afraid of thick books. I was always a tall kid, which saved me from a lot of bullying when I was young, but I was also very thin, and scrawny, which didn't allow for a complete peace. My friends could and would walk over me if they had some bravado, and so to compensate for my physical weakness, I turned to books. I could read for hours and days on end. I would finish 300-400 page books in one sitting. I would forget that the rest of the world existed around me until the book was over. I had read the entire works of many great figures in the literary world. I could remember quotes and arguments I had read in favour of, or against something. So when I say, I could read, I almost say it with pride.

I could always remember counter-arguments for something I believed in. This led me to always keep my dumb beliefs in question, and almost made it so, that I could always see through the holes in my logic. This also made me not believe in anything so strongly that I could bet my life on it. I learnt it rather early on, probably too early, that most of us had very little idea why we thought of the things we did. Very few could articulate why they held certain beliefs and those who could, did so at the cost of others' beliefs.

I remember that I would also out-write all of my schoolmates, in language papers. Due to some colonial relic of a rule, no one could get full marks in language papers. And the most marks anyone could get in was the essay-writing. And so when I wrote essays, I wrote at least 2 to 3 full-scape pages more than the next person. This resulted in me consistently getting good marks in language papers. This imbibed a deep confidence in me that I could write. At the same time, I never stopped reading great books, which kept me humble as I could never touch the level of the greats. I was never a topper in my class, across school and college, but I scored safely above average, enough to satisfy my family about my studies. I was enough lazy, and ignorant to not have my class books completed, nor to have the fair journals tidy and complete before the deadline. I was just a student about whom there was never anything to complain about nor anything to praise about either. That was the way I liked it.

After my tenth standard, things changed, and I was supposed to make decisions about my life, and what I wanted to do with it. The reliable monotony of going up to the next standard was over and I was in the Wild West now. So my parents and I once sat around the dining table and had a long conversation about my future. The confidence I had in my language skills percolated to my parents, and they told me to prepare to become an IAS officer.

The thing is, the father of my grandfather was an ICS officer during the British Raj. Because of that, our family enjoyed some level of well-earned respect from the community. Whatever was in my "Bapuji's" not-so-humble power and authority to help many of my father's and grandfather's cousins, was done. But after his death, the family had to see some difficult times, which led my father to not be able to pursue his dreams and forced him to start earning at a relatively younger age. What that meant was, that if I did become the IAS officer, the golden glory days would return to our family. We would again be in a position to help my community.

All I knew at that point was that, if I wanted to become an IAS officer, I had to study, a lot. I would have to close myself to friends and relatives and funnel all my energies into studying tomes of different subjects with considerable depth. But I thought, of course, I can do it. I can read. And if reading is the only thing required then sign me up.

And so I did. I did read. I read a lot. I read a whole lot. I had to read textbooks, across all the subject books, from standard 8th all the way to 12th, with dates, and names, and formulas, and mnemonics. I made extensive charts, bought a globe to memorise the geography, and studied affairs between countries. I read about almost half the wars that have been recorded in the world. I read about the economics of many countries, the different models proposed by different economists and politicians. I studied geography, from mineral deposits to demographical changes in a region across time to names of different types of clouds, to how much water each crop needs. When I studied polity, I had to read the Constitution Of India cover to cover, remembering the important Supreme Court cases, along with dates, and their political contexts. Then there was the dreaded current affairs. All this after studying current affairs absolutely daily. Every. Single. Day. For 3 years, I read the news. I made extensive notes every day. The notes I made for each month would stack up to a height of one foot per quarter of a year, so at the end of the year, my notes on just current affairs would stack up to four feet in height. That is how much I read.

It wasn't sudden though, and I had years to prepare myself as well. I chose Science as a field, because that is the field I most respected, and sought a Bachelor's in Chemistry for my graduation. I never intended to actually use my college degree to get a job, because a college degree was the bare necessity to appear for the UPSC exams, the exams to become an IAS officer. I chose Chemistry, simply because it made me feel like a wizard. But once I completed my graduation, I dove straight into preparing for UPSC. I gave the first attempt, without being un-serious, but I knew I was too inexperienced with the examination to actually clear it. I still had a long way to go to actually be a competitor. So when the result of my first UPSC attempt came and I learned that I had not cleared it, I sat to study like a demon. I ferociously devoured any material I got my hands on. I gave a lot of mock tests, and I wrote a lot of essays as well. I made a catalogue of old UPSC essay papers and started writing essays on all of them. With enough effort, I actually felt more and more confident in my writing. I used to show my work to many other senior aspirants, who would criticise it very harshly in the beginning, eventually turning around to actually using my essays as example material.

Eventually, the time for my second attempt came. I was cautiously optimistic because I knew I had a good grasp over many subjects, I had a good hold over current affairs, and most importantly, I had practised the exam over and over to the point that my actual examination felt like just another mock test. With hope and fury, I sat to write the paper and feeling quite confident that I cracked the examination, I came out. The results for UPSC examinations are declared a few months after the exam is taken, so just like every good UPSC aspirant, I started studying for the next exam. I rewrote my notes on Polity, History and Economics, and started anew, even before the result came. I had solved the exam paper at home as well, and I had a range of marks, that I had got in that exam. The exam is competitive, so there is a cut-off point, and only by scoring above it, may you pass. The score I calculated was in the range of 95-97, and the cut-off was declared at 96. The next day the results were declared. I furiously checked the site for the list of people who had passed. Furiously because, the site kept crashing, because of the sheer number of people who were trying to know their future. Finally, it opened. I pressed CTRL + F to search my name, and it showed "No results found" for that file. I had not cleared it. The cut-off was probably just 1 mark above what I had scored. I was devastated. I was shaking, because it had taken two years of my life, and countless other personal sacrifices from me. The exam had just devoured them without a burp.

Very early on, even before I started preparing for UPSC, I had heard that a man with "why" can get through any "how". So I had forced myself to dig deep into the recesses of my brain to come up with an answer to why I wanted to become an IAS officer. My answer got refined over the years, but the underlying sentiment never changed, and still hasn't. I believe the world is governed by two forces, order and chaos. Chaos is spontaneous and happens without any effort, but Order comes at a cost. There are people across the world, who do their small bit at contributing towards Order, which keeps the Chaos at bay. If not for these people the world would tumble into Chaos. I would like to be the bringer of Order to this entropied world. I would like to dispel Chaos in whatever magnitude I can. Becoming an IAS officer would allow me to bring the largest amount of Order to the largest amount of Chaos, and actually noticeably make the world a better place to live in, for all. This sentiment eventually pulled me back to my feet, and I started preparing for my third attempt at UPSC.

Oh man, did I work hard! I read and re-read all the textbooks again, at least 2 times. I read the special subject books cover to cover while making notes, and read those notes at least 3 times before the exam. There is an optional subject that one has to choose in UPSC, in which subject the student is expected to know about in a lot of depth. What most students do is select their graduation subject, so the material is never new and studying it is mostly revision. But I couldn't choose Chemistry, because I was just a Bachelor in Chemistry, and would have to compete with Chemical Engineers and people with Masters' in Chemistry. And the material was costly too. So I did some research and chose Philosophy as my subject. It was a bane to many, because it was a very, very dense subject, and it warranted a lot of reading. So it was perfect for me. I completed Philosophy I within a month and a half, and Philosophy II within the next month. I was ready. The History was well revised, and the Geography well known. I knew Polity so well, that I actually started a YouTube channel explaining the history of the Constitution of India, called "Albus Explains". Current Affairs was a tricky subject, because it brought new syllabi daily, and it was difficult to gauge what topics would hold weight a year from now or so. But I had been doing it for the past 3 years, so I had some idea of how the examination judged the character of any news. I also practised a lot over old papers and gave a lot of mock tests. And just like that, the day for the third attempt came.

The examination for UPSC was held the day just after my birthday that year. I was in very high spirits. I had stopped praying for any particular result since a few months before. I would just hope no bad thing would happen to me. I just gave the paper without any ceremony or pomp. When I came home, I didn't even solve the paper for a week. Eventually, I did solve it at home and factored my marks would be around 92-95. I give ranges because many other classes and tutorials gave different answer keys. I didn't start preparing for the next attempt immediately. I bided my time. I did study some material that caught my interest, but no longer religiously. I started going on treks with my friends, and there my 3 year sedentary lifestyle was also showing its signs. I also started visiting my friends' homes and started inviting them to my home.

Enter Viral, my best friend, AKA the GigaChad! He also came to visit me from time to time. It was the month of November when he came one weekend. In the evening when we were chatting after dinner, I read the news on some online portal that the result was out for the UPSC exams. We both rushed to my room to my computer to check. The energy in the air was electric. I was hoping against hope. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. As always, the site was still crashing. But eventually, after some furious refreshes, we got hold of the document which had the list of all people who had passed. I felt cool breezes on my tongue as I typed my name into the search box, my breath held. "No results found". The cut-off was 94.

When I broke the news to my parents, they had nothing but love and pity for me. But when I told them the news, I couldn't stop my tears. I cried loudly as if I had lost a loved one. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, and remember that day, I still cannot hold back my tears. I had worked really hard for three years straight, without missing a day. My dad calmed me down, and I stopped crying after some time. I returned to my room and spoke with Viral at length. I unloaded the years of baggage I held on to, and he, being the absolute chad, endured my rants without judgment.

I was at a critical point in my life again. I could no longer reasonably follow through with UPSC. In the best-case scenario, if I cleared all the exams, it would take me 2 and a half years more before I started earning, and if I failed again, it would be a year and a half above it. I did not have the the luxury of time any longer. We spoke on different subjects, and fields I could go into. We thought of me becoming a writer and followed that with a lot of realistic talk, and promptly put that dog down. The next field we considered was pursuing a degree of Master's in Chemistry, but that was 2 more years after the coming admission season. After putting some more fields down, like philosopher and psychiatrist, we came to Software Development.

Software Development was a field for criminals like me. Degrees held very little significance. Only skills and knowledge mattered. If one could learn to build websites, that was a need even people from non-IT backgrounds had. According to Viral, I had the skillset, or at least the drive to do it. For me, the reward at the end of the race was less attractive than the dog chasing me was scary. I was running for survival. It was November, and Gujarat State Exams were coming. I decided with Viral that if my GPSC paper didn't go well, I would dive head-first into IT.

I never before in my life, while preparing for UPSC, had a backup plan. I always thought that the backup plan would ruin my drive, and make me lazy. I was not wrong. For GPSC, with a backup plan, I only prepared for the exam half-heartedly, because the field of State exams was such that, the sphere of excellence required in the field was very far from the sphere of excellence required to crack the exam. This discord between the study material and the actual job was very high, and I could bear that for UPSC but not for GPSC.

While in IT, at least the way I was going to break in was the sphere of excellence perfectly matched what I had to do on the job. But the most exciting thing was, that there was absolutely no overlap between my study material for UPSC and for IT. I sat to give the exam, but halfway through it, I came across a question on camels. I just kept looking at the question, without answering anymore. I put my pen down and realised then and there, that this discord was too big for me to ignore. I let the paper go and decided that I was going to become a Software Engineer.

I called Viral back to my home, and he being the GigaChad came. Within the next day, we charted a course for me to follow, and learn as much as I could on building websites. I would start my SDE career as probably a Frontend Developer, and work my way towards Backend and higher up. It was also a lot of work, and there was a lot of watching tutorials, and endless reading of documentation. There were many reference books written by excellent masters of the field, that I had to read to get better, but then again, I reminded myself, I could read.