If someone were to ask you the question -"Which is the most developed nation in the world with a plethora of opportunities?" , the first name in majority peoples mind would be the United states of America. Many of us Indians especially, grow up with the idea of the American dream stuck in our heads. The reasons that many of us nurture this dream to move to USA ,pursue higher studies ,find the perfect 9 to 5 job and have the perfect life are varied and I am not here to comment on why other people make this choice. I am writing this blog just to share my personal journey. Firstly , lets clarify, I am not a writer ;I am a Software Engineer who is going to try her best to put her thoughts into words. I am sharing my journey to throw some light on the much debated 'H1B' work visa which is distributed to 85,000 'skilled workers' via a purely 'random' lottery to give an opportunity to us foreigners to work in the USA. You see how I have quoted some words ? Well of course it is to attract your attention to them. Don't the words skilled and random together sound funny? I don't know if there are other people in in this exact same situation that I am , but I do know that each one of us at some point in our lives faced a setback (job, career, health, love, relationships etc) that has felt so unfair and has seemed like the end of the world and today I am writing this so that the readers can relate to me in some form or other and know that they are not alone. Besides, I have realized that my head is bursting with a ton of thoughts at this time and penning them down seems like a great idea , so here it goes-
I grew up in a small town in India. I
belong to a loving well to do Punjabi family. Growing up, I was always
extremely studious. On one hand I had friends talking about getting married to
a rich guy and being the perfect house wife, on the other I used to talk about
being a Doctor (Yes , that's how it started before I decided to become an Engineer). I always did well academically and by class 12th, I developed
this fascination to Technology after taking up a vocational IT course for
grades 11 and 12. So there it was bye bye to Medical and hello to Engineering. No one in my family or extended family is an Engineer so I would
not only be the first Engineer in my family but also the first female to do so
!
Interesting story, after the class 12th result
was out along with my Engineering entrance exam results, I remember me and my
uncle went to a local college close to home for admission; The reason being I
was a girl and it wasn't really safe for me to travel outside my town to study
alone. Now you see, I was ambitious and got good scores that could get me into
any good engineering college easily, but I wasn't really ready to let go of the comforts of living at
home with family and mom's food either so I readily agreed. The admission officer at
the college took my attested copies of mark sheets and looked at me and my
uncle with quizzical expressions and said "Are you sure Sir you want your
daughter to study here ? she is very talented it seems , you should send her to
Pune (Pune being one of the hubs for engineers in India)". That one gentleman whose face today I don't remember very clearly,
but whose words still echo in my head became the reason why our decision
changed. Sometimes a few words are all it takes. A few months later I found
myself enrolled in a very good engineering college in Pune , purely on the
basis of merit with no donations or reservation quota. I got my Bachelor of Engineering degree in Information technology by continuously being among the
top 3 in my department for 8 consecutive semesters and 4 years. It was sometime
during the semester 4 that I read about the Fellowship program my college had
for Purdue University-One of the most reputed universities in USA for Engineering. The criteria again were purely merit based. The program was in
affiliation with a top company in USA whose employees would come to our college
, interview us, judge us on the basis of many criteria like marks, extra
curricular activities, recommendations from professors etc. and grant us the
opportunity to pursue Masters of Science at Purdue University with full funding
and a monthly stipend. As if that wasn't enough, the cherry on the cake was
that they would surely offer you an internship opportunity in USA and if you
performed well; BINGO -you get a full time job offer. Sounds too good to be
true right ?It was 100% true, competition was tough but I MADE IT(One of the
happiest days of my life when I found out), I came to USA with the coveted
scholarship and this marked the beginning of my American dream. I landed at the
Chicago ORD International airport in August, 2012 with dreams in my eyes,
determination in my head and belief in my heart that I will work hard and
everything will be good like it has always been. Because after all, hard work
is the key to success right ? Not really, as you read on , you will see how
that was in fact not going to be true for me but little did I know at that time
!!!
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