A Story My Teacher Told That Changed My Career

The Story

When I was studying 10th standard at Chandra Matriculation HR School, my computer science teacher told us a story. It was about how someone built a software company from nothing and changed the world with it. That story stuck with me.

I wasn’t a topper — I scored 82% in 10th, 67% in 12th, and 70% in my degree. But I had something else: I genuinely enjoyed programming. I liked maths, I liked solving problems, and I liked the idea that you could build something useful with just a computer and code.

That story didn’t just inspire me — it made me choose Computer Science and Engineering as my career. Not because it was trending, not because of the salary, but because I wanted to build things.

Choosing Computer Science

In 2014, I enrolled for B.E. in Computer Science and Engineering at KGISL Institute of Technology under Anna University, Chennai. Four years of learning, making mistakes, and slowly figuring out what kind of developer I wanted to be.

I was an average student by the numbers. But grades never told the full story. While some classmates were focused on marks, I was the one staying back to write code, trying things out, breaking things, and learning from it.

Smart India Hackathon 2017

The defining moment during college was participating in Smart India Hackathon 2017. Our team built Secure Copier — a data leak prevention tool for the Ministry of Defence.

The concept: only authorized pendrives could connect to authorized systems. If an unauthorized pendrive connected to an authorized system, it would format automatically. And vice versa. The goal was to prevent data leaks at the hardware level.

We developed the prototype using Visual Script for the hackathon and won 2nd runner up. We got selected to develop it into a full product, with mentors from BEL Bangalore.

I was the team lead and the primary contributor. We later attempted to build the product using Java, but with the knowledge we had at that time, we couldn’t deliver a proper solution. The project didn’t reach product stage.

But the experience was invaluable — I learned what it means to work under pressure, lead a team, present to judges, and deal with the reality that ambition needs to be backed by skill.

What I Took Away

Looking back, that teacher’s story didn’t just inspire me to choose a degree — it set the direction for my entire career. Every decision I’ve made since — learning new technologies, building products, joining a startup — traces back to that moment in a classroom.

The lesson? Sometimes a single story, told at the right time, can change everything.

This is Part 1 of my career journey. Part 2: The Gap Year That Changed Everything covers what happened after college — the reality check, the betrayal, and the self-learning phase that prepared me for what came next.