Never say never. - I gave 3 attempts at JEE (95-97), did not make it to the IITs - I missed the cutoff at BITS Pilani by less than 0.5% - Ended up in a Tier-3 college - Studied hard, topped a lateral entrance exam to migrate to to a Tier-2 college More than IITs, the fact that I missed BITS Pilani by a whisker hurt me all those years. An institution I admired so much - I was so dejected that I would shut my ears when anyone mentioned the name. As fate would have it, I then returned to BITS Pilani to do my Masters in 2002-2003. And few days back, life came full circle when BITS Pilani awarded me with a Startup Excellence Award for my & my team's work at @vanshivtech at our Alumni event in Jaipur. Sometimes life doesn't give you what you want at 18, so it can give you the grit to earn its respect at 48. Keep walking. One day, you won't just walk those halls- you’ll hold their trophy.

IIMa destroyed Indian engineering. For decades, the brightest engineers either went abroad or headed for IIMs straight out of college. A culture of rewarding management talent over engineering skills evolved. This rot went deep & resulted in a mess we are in. Thoughts?