With time, our fascination with getting an “A1 job” has only grown. We start to make planned tradeoffs between academics, organizational work and sports starting from our freshman years. Organizations get ranked based on how “successful” their alumni have been and clubs are formed (or joined) to inch closer to the perfect CV, the perfect interview and the perfect job.

In a nutshell, we turn placement season into the environment we’re the most comfortable with; a fight-to-the-death competition for the best job on campus. After all, the more others want something, the better it must be. As über-competitive Indians, that’s how we make most of our decisions.

It’s been three years since I went through the same phase and acted the exact same way (though at the time, I would have disagreed). I’ve since had several juniors ask me how to make these decisions, forcing me to think about this and talk to my peers and seniors in turn. The next few paragraphs are words of friendly advice, from a senior to a junior.

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