I just couldn't.

Choices can be hard sometimes. It’s extremely hard to choose between two things you love dearly, but add in career pressure to the mix and you can understand how I felt today. Private Equity Analyst - sounds like an amazing role for a fresh undergrad who is still wet behind the years doesn’t it? All these years of business trivia, going down internet rabbit holes about business analytics and dreaming about becoming a consultant, and yet when faced with having to leave behind tech, I just couldn’t.

Pull apart the curtains of Finance speak, the numbers, the stories and you’ll find that Technology is what I love the most. Don’t get me wrong, I do like other stuff dearly but its tech that fascinates me, drives me to do fun things, keeps me alive. It almost sounds like I’m obsessed over it, but that wouldn’t be too far off the truth. There’s something scintillating and refreshing about tech. The constant shifts, the turns, the ebbs and the troughs, sometimes bursting with color yet others a pall gloom. The world of tech is a violent ocean and yet here I am - a longing seaman.

There are days when you know exactly what you want, you are content with yourself but today is the other kind. I’m torn apart, mind and heart at odds over decisions made, those tiny splinters of self doubt hurting the delicate strings of my conscience. Now don’t mistake this as having lost confidence - au contraire I have gained some. I have gained the confidence that I was the guy they wanted, but they had the heart to let me make the choice - to join them them and enter the confines of the world of management consulting and quite possibly end my tech career there, or to take a leap of faith , not knowing what is in the unknown depths of the future. They had no obligation to notice that the 21 year old who was at the receiving end of 2 hours of relentless case studies and estimations had uncertainty buried deep within him. They had no need to ramble on about life and the choices a person has to make on the journey through it. They had no need to open up and talk about what they saw in him. No need to tell him that it’s alright, we understand if you don’t want to join us. It’s alright if you are think that this isn’t what you want to do in life yet. It’s alright if you love something so much that you can’t bear to part with it this early. It’s alright, we’ll deal with any regulations that say otherwise. It’s alright kid, you have greater things destined for you, don’t look back. Just be great at what you do.

There may be many things ahat I end up doing in life, but these guys have received a special place of respect in my heart. There might come a day that I join them, not out of luck or coercion, but out of the will to solve problems like I always do - but even as a consultant, I shall always be an engineer.

In the end, all I can tell them is this - Thank You