Out of the game finally
Hi people. I really was confused whether i should or should not post about all this but SpecialLie1458's post gave me some strength, so here I am. I was active on this subreddit last year (albeit just visiting and not doing much).
I graduated in 2023, regular run of the mill CS student with dreams and a resume filled with research papers and internships. Started working as an SDE with one of the big four to save up money for Mtech as job wasn't something i wanted to do in the long run (but asking for money for masters seemed a bit too much to me). Long story short, saved up money, but gave gate last year while on the job, scored an abysmal ~500 score in CSE, missed IIIT Hyd by 7 ranks and BITS too, at the end of the rope I decided to take probably the riskiest decision I had till date.
Decided my love for research far exceeds my daily slavery and quit the job then and there (last year august), came back home and threw myself with everything I had for GATE. Come results, scored a not so good not so bad 708 score and 1061 rank.
Come applications time, I applied to the places I wanted to go to, very selectively, IIT Kanpur Cognitive systems, IISc quantum, IIT Bombay AI (ms) and the lower tiers. Then started the wait.
To my surprise, got a call from IISc for quantum tech interview. It was a dream sequence of 4 days. Travelling to BLR while going through various places (Banaras, Kolkata, Lucknow to name a few) and trying to remember each and every thing i could before the interview. Come interview day, popped two paracetamols (as i got heat stroke the day before, just some luck), went into the interview, which went pretty average, answered 3 out of 5 questions and came back. I just thought of these 4 days as being a travel diary more than interview prep (cuz no way they give chance to a guy in 1000s). I just sorta forgot everything about it. The other interviews came and went by like breeze (Didn't get a call from IITK as minimum threshold was 730 in CS so I didn't qualify)
Come COAP round 1, I wake up late, am casually scrolling through youtube when I get a call from my friend (because i have always been too afraid to check my results, he does it for me)
Friend - COAP KHOL (Open the website)
fearing the worst, that I got nothing, i open the site
There it is, an offer from IISc bangalore, Quantum technology.
HUH? Me? why?
I closed the site, opened it, checked again, it still was there, I wasn't dreaming.
So I have officially joined Mtech Quantum Tech at IISc bangalore (and have opted out from further COAP rounds), and have taken an exit from this cutthroat competition for good. A huge thanks to all of you in the sub, y'all have really kept my spirits high whenever i would doubt myself.
If you have any questions, feel free to DM. Would love to help y'all out.