Yes, I went to a no-name college and no, this post doesn’t justify why I did it.
More or less this post is about why you should do it, or suggest someone else to do it because it makes complete sense.
Some backstory
Just like any other Indian kid, I wanted to score well in competitive exams and so I left home to prepare for one, IIT-JEE, more or less one of the many rat races Indian kids go through.
Needless to say I fucked it up, I couldn’t handle the pressure and left.
I spent the next one and a half year recovering from the depression and hence fucked all my changes to get into tier-1 colleges (Ivy leagues of India), but I had done decent on other independent tests and could have gotten into tier-2 colleges easily if I had wished to, but I didn’t.
How has it worked out
Simple answer : The struggle is fucking real, but the learnings are invaluable.
But nothing in life is simple, not even life itself, so here is the complex answer.
Primary reasons for not taking a tier-2 college:
- One of the primary reason back then for not choosing a tier-2 college was that I wasn’t able to clearly see the ROI, most of them would cost an upwards of 20 lacs for the 4 year course including tuition, accommodation and living expenses.
Which has turned out to be true, I have friends from these colleges who never got placed or got placed at the standard 3.6lpa package in terrible companies like TCS, Infosys and the likes of it. - Second, was that their campuses were mostly 20-30kms out of any mainstream city which made them inaccessible, and having spent 7 months in Kota isolated from the culture had thought me that it wasn’t a great idea.
- Third, attendance policies. Most Indian colleges function very similar to schools, where having a set percentage of attendance is compulsory.
And I really wasn’t the person who was going to sit back and attend lectures, like I hadn’t done it in 2 years and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it.
In short, I didn’t want to be bounded by anything, not the money paid in fees, or the locations or the ability to experiment and use my time as I wished, and by this time I had lost any respect I had for education, having closely experienced the capitalism.
Tier-4 college experience
- Of course, I had my hurdles, coming from a tier-1 school and dropping into a tier-4 college is a huge cultural shock, one that I duly needed.
Suddenly, the umbrella of privilege was gone and I could see what ordinary people looked like, talking to them, being with them for 8 hours a day has an impact on you, and it broadened my worldview by a stretch unimaginable.
You get access to third-world problems that you can solve in the future which most likely will be ignored by most people from tier-1 colleges because they cannot even imagine these problems.
Here is the review of my first day of college, and I am sorry for being the crybaby:
Read on Quora - I was the smartest in the class, well in most situations this would be the problem, but when in tier-4 colleges you are the smartest, you get favors, you get liberties and one of those liberties was attendance relaxation.
I never went to college after first semester, I mean I used to but more or less I was absent 95% of the time.
Since I was living in the city, I got to participate in multiple events throughout the city, meet people, build a professional network, organize events and do Internships as and when needed.
Btw, I did 10 internships throughout the 4 years, and started 3 initiatives. - Also, since most of the college isn’t smart enough to utilize college’s resources, you can take advantage of it, may it be seminars, webinars, expert talks, labs, equipment, office space, I have done it all.
- Being from a tier-4 college, your parent’s and relative’s expectations from you reduce to a certain degree, so you can do what you love and find your WHAT effectively.
- Being a tier-4 college, there’s always a scope of improvement in what they do, and if you have ideas, you become the key problem solver much easily.
I started a parallel education system in college to help first year students improve their skillset, I was in second year.
This experience cannot be bought at any cost, taught 350+ students for over a month in 3 different colleges. - Since you already know that the college cannot get you placed, you work on your skillset from day one and keep doing it forever.
From getting into Tier-4 college to having NID and NIFT students as Interns when I was myself an Intern, to leading a team of IIM-B grads, everything is possible when you have enough time to explore your life.
