Harshveer Jain’s Post

I ditched an INR 30,000 internship in TelAviv, Israel for an INR 2,000 internship in Dadar, Mumbai. Israel intern was as a product engineer in a drone startup. Dadar intern was as copywriter with an Ad Agency. This was summers, 2013. As a B.Tech 3rd year from IIT Bombay, that decision seemed ridiculous. And there's no redeeming it - given how the world has moved, an engineering internship at a drone startup in Israel would have taken me down a far more professionally lucrative path than a copywriting internship in India. But here are the non-monetary trade-offs that came along with the INR 2,000 intership. a. Learning: I worked with and learned from Mr. Nitesh Tiwari, an IIT B alum, the national creative director of Leo Burnett then, and the director of Dangal. b. Pursue my interests: I taught class 8-10 physics at PACE, in Dadar, over the weekend, honing my storytelling skills. c. Love: I got to nurture my relationship of then, making me into a better man that I would have ever been. d. Satisfaction: I could visit home, I could stay in touch with friends here, and I could enjoy Mumbai, the city I had come to admire. e. Quality of life: got to stay back in the IIT Campus, which by any standard, is the best clubhouse you can live in. My workouts, my health and low cost of living was incomparable to any apartment I could have rented anywhere else. On the face of it, 30,000 for tech >>> 2,000 for content. But with these additional benefits that didn't come along with the CTC and JD, the internship offers became much more comparable. In college, undergrad or otherwise, the most important measure of a job offer is usually the CTC. And then the role. But as a human being, you require a lot more than money and job satisfaction to grow and be happy. So you have to make trade-offs. The beautiful part is, as a human being, you can afford to make these trade-offs. Your only purpose in life isn't to work, and your only joy in life isn't just your work either. It's to live. Here's a little story I wrote about ants. I always go back to this when I have to make trade-offs in life. To everyone about to get job and internship offers in this placement season, PLEASE, evaluate them on more than just the job on offer. The pressure to secure the biggest package can be immense. But you are just in your 20s - you have decades of professional life ahead of you. Don't miss out on all the other aspects of life just because you were offered a bigger paycheck or better role. You are a human being, not a working ant. Please remember that. PS: You never know what leads you where - that two month stint with Leo Burnett, as a copywriter, spending time with my girlfriend and family and friends is the reason why I now run a 450k followers storytelling page on Instagram and yesterday, released my first song, #hitchki. Again. You are a human being, capable of wonders. Don't live the life of an ant.