I work for the National Games curating content from various sources and passing them onto various teams who turn into media specific formats. This is my standard answer when people ask me what I do. Then there can be two questions. If the interrogator knows me they’ll ask “But you studied engineering. This is not engineering is it ?”. If they don’t know me very well they’ll ask “What did you study?”. Then they come back to the this is not engineering question..

I’ll try to answer this question here and add it to an FAQ. First of all i never really wanted to do engineering. It was my only choice and not due to parental pressure. I simply had forgotten to apply elsewhere. Now you must be thinking “ninakk angane thanne venam”(You deserve this!). Anyway by the time i realized sitting at home was more boring than going somewhere everyday to “study” i had no other choice.

And i didn’t know what i was getting into. I literally had no idea what was taught in engineering colleges or the syllabus or how it was taught. Almost half way into the first year i knew i had made a bad choice but didn’t want to quit. So i hung on. And when it was finally over i was willing to do anything other than what i was taught to do.

So this is a shout out to all uncles and auntys who think engineering grads should do only engineering. You cant expect a teenager to select what he or she wants to do for the rest of their life. In a job market where new specializations spring up almost everyday one has a better chance of finding work by following their path rather than mugging up and getting grades. Yes it is a tougher path and the going will be slow. But one fine morning you find out it was a shorter route. And it leads to a better destinations.

Please don’t make your kids follow your unfulfilled dreams. Let them follow their own