Choose Your Path. Make the Journey Interesting

I grew up in a small town in southern India called Vijayawada. My mom was a math major who chose to be a homemaker and my dad was a lawyer. I have always been super interested in math and science. As a kid, I conjured up a lot of experiments to satiate my childlike curiosity. Looking back, I am amazed at my mom’s patient indulgence as she dealt with many of my madcap experiments. My “labs” were either in the family kitchen or in our lush backyard resplendent with the fragrance of Indian jasmines. I owe much of my success in the tech world to the encouragement I got as a child from my parents to never stop learning.

A few decades ago, there were very few women in math and science.  Engineering was even more male dominated and was considered an inappropriate field of study for young women. Thankfully, much of this societal attitude has changed over the years. All of us need to work harder to get more women into the STEM domains but the progress is encouraging.

I started college as a Physics major and after a year switched to engineering because I was keen on finding ways to make things work better. I attended the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi. New Delhi was a long way from my home town. I left the comfort of my home as a teenager and headed to IIT, New Delhi after a 24-hour train journey, filled with excitement and apprehension. My first week at college was daunting as I did not speak the local language and found myself to be only one of five women in a class of about two hundred and fifty.

I called my mom and dad after my first week and told them I wanted to come home. Both my parents were supportive yet responded in different ways. My mom understood how miserable and lonely I was feeling and agreed that I should perhaps return home. My dad on the other hand encouraged me to look at the big picture. He said I could return home if I wanted to, but that would be taking the easy way out. I remember the advice that has stuck to this day:

“You chose your path; now it is up to you to make the journey interesting.”

I did make the journey interesting. I graduated from IIT at the top of my class, met my future husband in the process and became an engineer for life. After graduation, I left for my next adventure even farther away from home. I came to the United States to attend graduate school at Cornell University with $100 in my pocket and a one-way ticket. The rest as they say, is history.

If you think our paths may cross, join us at NextEV USA.