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Not All Who Wander Are Lost, Some Just Took the Scenic Route!! Back in Udgir, where I grew up, “career planning” wasn’t a thing. Life was simple: school, friends, and wondering why adults drank tea like it was oxygen. Then came the big shift. My dad moved us to Latur. Big city, big school, and, wait for it, an actual football ground with grass. Until then, I thought football grounds were just well-leveled dust bowls. But life, being life, had other plans. Lost my dad in 7th grade. And suddenly, things got real. Financial struggles hit hard, so hard that even the ₹80 rickshaw fare to school was a luxury. That’s when a neighbor, who owned a rickshaw, stepped in like a Bollywood side character with a golden heart. He refused to take a single rupee for months. (Good humans do exist. Who knew?) School wasn’t all sunshine either. Ever heard of a kid who doesn’t fit in? That was me. If bullying were an Olympic sport, some of my classmates would've been gold medalists. Thankfully, I had my own Avengers - Musabkhan Golandaj, Aniket Dharekar, and Gaurav Patil, who made things bearable. Then came 9th grade, a new school, and a new me. I had promised myself—no more being the quiet kid. Confidence? Maxed out. Somehow, I ended up as the Head Boy in 9th itself. (Still don’t know how that happened, but I rolled with it.) That’s where I met Saket, a friend who made school way more fun. Then came the classic Indian parent-approved career path—Science. Because “Beta, marks ache hai, toh doctor bano.” But guess what? Selling jewelry door-to-door to fund my education was way more fun than organic chemistry. (At least people didn’t look at me like I was a failed lab experiment.) Somehow, I made it through. BSc in Botany. MSc in Biotechnology. (And after years of studying plants, the only thing I successfully grew was my confusion about life.) Even got into RGCB as a research trainee under Dr. George Thomas. Had an amazing mentor, Joyous Thomas, who made lab life interesting. But five months in, I had a realization—I love management, not pipetting. Marketing was where my heart was. So, I switched. (Yes, after spending years studying something else. Because why make life easy, right?) And here I am now, navigating work, the city, and still figuring out life. (Like everyone else is.) Took me over a year to figure out where I actually fit. Which is funny, considering I’ve spent longer trying to find a comfortable sleeping position at night. We test-drive cars, sample ice cream flavors, and swipe left a hundred times before saying yes, but trying different careers? Now that’s a problem? I was told LinkedIn is for polished success stories. But honestly, the messy ones are way more fun. So tell me, what’s one career move that surprised even you? Let’s swap stories.