Conviction, Confession, and Continuation

The Beginning: A Naive Conviction

Ten years back, I got lower than expected marks in my plus two, and I was completely clueless. All I knew at that moment was that I might end up doing MBBS. But I couldn’t score enough to get into a medical college. The next chance I had was getting an engineering seat.

The top colleges and courses—mechanical engineering, computer engineering, triple E—they were requiring higher cutoffs. I had around 190. So at that moment, I had one silly thought, one conviction: I need to take a course where I can easily score, where I can easily get a gold medal.

That’s how I ended up choosing control engineering. It was offered in just seven engineering colleges across Tamil Nadu. It was a very naive conviction, and it sounded very satisfying at that moment. I’m very open about this—I just chose control systems to score, to get a gold medal, because I did not perform well in plus two. Less competition, I thought, I might end up getting it.

I chose St. Joseph College of Engineering, Chennai. Due to my health issues, I couldn’t score well enough—I couldn’t get the gold medal either. But one thing I got for a lifetime is developing a control theorist mindset, seeing things through the lens of control theory.

The Foundation: Systems, Computation, Intelligence

Control theory gives you something profound. I studied subjects like control systems, system identification, modeling systems. Everything—physical systems, industrial systems—can be seen as a system. Anything that can be seen as a system can be modeled, represented mathematically, and understood. You can map control systems concepts to business problems, industrial problems. You can see the feedback loops, the control theoretical parts everywhere.

I learned about state space modeling and Kalman filters, which I’m still seeing in different versions through my probabilistic machine learning classes. It gives you a system science perspective—how you can perceive the world in a very systematic way.

I also had subjects around signal processing and soft computing, which gave me a multi-interdisciplinary perspective. Through soft computing, I learned about neural networks, genetic algorithms, evolutionary computing, fuzzy logic. I learned such things exist. My professors’ research papers were on evolutionary algorithms and how they solve control systems problems.

My key takeaway was three things: seeing things through a systems perspective, understanding computation as a way to solve problems, and getting an intro to intelligence through neural networks. That too, just till multi-layer perceptron—nothing much, but it kindled the interest. These three pillars shaped how I see everything.

Let me be clear about the context here. I’m talking about undergrad in India, especially Tamil Nadu, six to ten years back. It was all about just getting a job. That was the environment and exposure I had. At least I was in Chennai, so I got something better than rural areas. We cannot always compare ourselves to somebody who studied at Yale or Columbia, who in their second year itself happened to work on machine learning research with a professor who pampered them through all the ups and downs. For me, things were not given on a plate—and that’s true for most people like me.

The Alignment: Mu Sigma and Complexity Science

Then, luckily—and by self-organization, I would say—things evolved such that I happened to join Mu Sigma. The place that talks a lot about complexity science. Dheeraj and his thought processes always talked about complexity science, the different behaviors of complexity, and how to map that to industry problems and business problems. How business problems evolve, how they’re non-linear, how problems are interconnected. He tried to bring organization and order to such things, to see complex problems from first principles in a very simplified manner.

It naturally aligned with what I was developing. It started adding more and more clarity. It supported the gradient I was building. I was going in the right direction, aligned with my natural instinct. Over three years at Mu Sigma, I kept seeing things from that lens, always exploring different things related to complexity science, behavioral economics, computer science—especially neural networks and data science.

Whatever interactions I made, in terms of technology or in terms of the ground I stood on to solve problems, it was all around systems and intelligence. I could also include behavior because sometimes we study the behavioral aspects of social systems, how to simulate the behavior of specific social cohorts.

This inherently developed a latent alignment: systems, behavior, and intelligence. You can see how I started from control systems, then in the last couple of semesters developed the intelligence part. When I started working with business data, I discovered behavioral aspects—how people buy products, how people make decisions. It’s not just learning Python or two or three statistical methods. It’s developing a foundational canvas that gives you a mental model—how you see things, how you learn what to do next.

The Clarity: Columbia and Confidence

Fast forward—here I am doing my master’s in data science at Columbia. Now things are becoming very evident. I can really clear some of the clumsiness, the chaotic things that happened. I can clearly see what I’m perfectly aligning with and how all the learnings are helping me, how I’m making a difference—at least to myself and compared to my peers.

Most of the time, people just focus on one model and keep working on it. Or they stick with data structures and algorithms and solve hundreds of LeetCode problems. No. For me, this evolution happened—or the right word is self-organization. All driven by my instinct and how I interacted with people and this ecosystem. That naturally guided me to learn the right things, to go in the right direction.

Sometimes external forces might make me feel low. But when I truly reflect on it, I can really see that I’m in the right direction. Just that I might not have had focus and consistency due to many things—because not all places give you the space to explore your belief systems or learn by your belief system. Mu Sigma gave me that chance, but other constraints—family, health issues, personal commitments—sometimes diluted the focus, forced compromises, made me adapt to other systems.

But now, with my MS, I can see my true interest and the DNA I’ve developed over time: the problem-solving DNA in myself.

When I started collaborating with people here—especially PhD students from chemical engineering labs—I could really feel my true essence, my true problem-solving ability, my research ability coming out. As I continued to interact with PhD students, people from industry, professors, I could see: I am not dumb. I am not struggling for survival. I’m not suffering to get a grip. I’ve developed such things very naturally. I just need to get to the next level of things.

That gave me confidence that I should not worry much about internships and job offers. I can surely see the relevance and requirement—the world needs me, to be honest. Because I can see people who just stick with DSA are in commanding positions. People who are just lucky to work under somebody’s lab or get opportunities. In that case, I have agency and natural instinct that pushes me toward interdisciplinary fields centered around these three pillars: systems, behavior, and intelligence.

Right now, I’m finding my gaps, developing my interdisciplinary and theoretical understanding. I truly believe this MS is giving me freedom to focus, an environment where I can just concentrate. I’m really grateful for that. I really chose to do this because any small diversion would derail things. I’m feeling very happy and motivated that I’ve got my traction. What should I do? What should be my north star?

The Conviction: No More Outbound

In the initial days, I felt pressure to attend networking events, meet people, email people, apply to internships. But sometimes—no, most of the time—people do not listen just because you have experience or have done this and that. Because a lot of people are doing the same. A lot of people sound the same. A lot of people have fabricated their credentials.

People on the other end may not be smart enough to identify the dark talent, as Balaji of Network State mentions. I’m such dark talent, to be honest. I’m pretty confident about that. Not everyone will understand where I’m coming from or the potential in it.

I convinced myself, and I’ve seen over the years how people’s career arcs have been, how people have ramped up, how successful people are. I shouldn’t be worrying about going behind people and asking, “Can I get an internship?” I don’t think I should be doing that. Maybe in the past I was, but now I can see that I should concentrate on my conviction and start building, experimenting, doing research and engineering.

Over time, I’ll be able to attract unique, high-signal, high-value opportunities—rather than just being like everybody else who secured a full-time job or somebody who’s in the role of HR or something. I don’t find it viable to my self-respect that I should stand in a queue, introduce myself, and tell my story to someone who’s not even going to listen. I’m not saying everyone, but people who don’t bother about true skill set, true potential—who just come and stand and claim, “Hey, I’m from this company,” or “Hey, I’m in this position.” No, I’m not going to bother about it.

I truly value some of my mentors, truly value some thought leaders. That’s enough. You can learn from them over time. I have very good retrospective learning ability, so I can fix the gaps. That’s why I don’t want to waste my energy asking for referrals. I don’t want to waste my energy being nice to somebody who’s not even going to recognize me, listen to me, or show respect through conversation.

Outbound is not going to work. Because most of the time people behave like influencers or celebrities, even if they’re just in their final year or one or two years ahead of me in the system. No.

I should be proud of myself. I should know my value. I should continue building on it. I should address real concerns and gaps—rather than worrying about what one random guy, one random recruiter, one random manager somewhere in the world thinks. People we’re trusting that if we’re nice to them or reach out to them, they’ll give us a job. No.

I can develop the skills. I can continue to build. I can take really interesting problems, prove myself, and attract real value—rather than standing in a queue where the person in front of the queue is not going to respect anyone.

Self-Respect and the Path Forward

I have self-respect. I’ve earned it. I’ve put in a lot of effort over the years. I’ve gained knowledge. There are people, there are ecosystems who value that. I need to go toward them rather than being in a rat race where other rats are just fabricating, cheating, taking labels and putting them on themselves.

The learning, knowledge, skill set, thought process I’ve gained—it’s continuous effort and evolution. For someone who can only see through one lens, one materialistic lens, I might look similar to somebody else who just did 100 days of LeetCoding. That’s why I see it this way: just because I’m a student, just because I don’t have a job right now, doesn’t mean I lack something or don’t know something or should be on the other end.

The reason I quit my job, came to the US, and started doing my master’s is because I want to run the show. I want to be in the right ecosystem where all my learnings, thought process, and personality drive things—not where somebody is saying, “Can you join these two tables?” or “Can you run this piece of code?” or “Can you just do this and that?”

I want to interact. I want to collaborate. I want transactional dealings and collaborations to be at the same intellectual level, same thought process level—not me standing at the lower end being an order taker while somebody else with a name tag is commanding it.

The Freedom

I’m hoping for great days ahead. My mind has some clarity now. I’m relaxed. I’m not going to worry about uncertainties like getting a visa or extending it. If someone is not going to give me a US visa, I have the rest of the world. My degrees of freedom is not one or zero. My degrees of freedom is n minus one—if not the US, I have the rest of the world.

But now, with this level of traction, I have degrees of freedom n—meaning any potential ecosystem that requires a bright mind, bright capability, true skills, true capability, true agency. I’m building that. I’m building myself as a research lab or startup that solves problems, that answers questions that naturally emerge.

Key Takeaways

Don’t worry about internships. Don’t worry about visa. Don’t worry about what others are going to judge. Don’t worry about how others are going to weigh you against somebody else. Don’t worry about resumes, profiles, portfolios.

I have the best. I have something good. If someone has the right way to validate it, then yeah. Otherwise, we have again the n minus one degrees of freedom.

This is the best place to clear all the bad vibes from the brain and then energize, charge up. Because the world, the capitalist world, values what is rare and valuable. And there are people who can value me.

Let’s go.