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Nandini S Hinduja
Nandini S Hinduja

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Why did you get into a tech career?

Okay, so everyone has their own reasons for choosing tech as their career. I will share mine and I hope you all share yours in the comments so that we can all read and get inspired!

  • One of the main reasons why I got into tech was the fact that where I live - India, the professions that are hyped up are doctor, engineer, lawyer and CA. So I chose engineering because I could not afford the medicine degree fees. Why I did not choose lawyer or CA was because where I studied - a school in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, most of the students were Tamilians and only some were North Indians and there was a stereotype that north Indians choose commerce whereas Tamilians choose science, I did not want to be part of that stereotype and so I chose science. In our schools we have science streams and commerce streams, so we have to choose any one. And if you choose commerce streams, you can study to be a lawyer or CA in college whereas if you choose science streams, you can study to be a doctor or engineer in college.

  • Another major reason why I chose tech was that I knew that women in STEM are way lesser in numbers than men in STEM. So I wanted to contribute to the number of women in STEM. I know that it would just add one more woman to the list and it won't make much difference but I come from the land of Gandhi who said the lines "Be the change that you want to see in the world."

  • Another reason was financial stability. I knew that tech jobs pay well. So why not choose something that pays well, right?

  • Next reason is that I was good at mathematics and in grade 6 my mathematics teacher suggested me to become a software engineer. I took her advice seriously and made it come true.

  • Last reason was I thought it would give me a head start. I don't know about other countries but in India, for becoming a full fledged doctor, you need multiple degrees, same goes for teacher, lawyer and any other profession I could think of. And government jobs and CA require really competitive exam scores. But software engineering jobs required just one engineering degree and no competitive exams. So I thought I would save a lot of time + effort.

  • Bonus last reason - I saw examples of my own mother and mothers of many of my friends. These mothers had studied commerce at college and were housewives. So I thought that if I wanted to get different results than them, I had to do different things, pursuing engineering would be different than pursuing commerce, so I did that.

Why did you choose tech? Tell us in the comments!

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