Did you know that 13 years ago I had a dream of getting into MIT and that this was the whole reason I moved to the USA from India? Truth is I almost forgot that this was my dream myself! Because it did not come true then and I just kept on going with life and my career without MIT.

Disclaimer: This is a personal blog post and does not represent any official information pertaining to any organization.

But the other day, it started to finally sink in… I work at MIT Lincoln Lab now!

I haven’t told this story to many people but 13 years ago I moved to the USA 🇺🇸 for school pretty much with the goal of going to MIT. As much as I really wanted to get in for undergrad, I didn’t make it in!

Disappointed was an understatement for how I felt back then and I didn’t share it much as I was quite embarrassed!!

I thought maybe I had been too ambitious.

I had applied to only FOUR schools 🏫 as I was SO focused on MIT and didn’t know much about anything else in the country.

When my dream of getting into MIT did NOT come true, I was super sad but kept pushing and just picked the school with the least amount of tuition dollars out of my 3 options – NC State!!!

There I had a wonderful education and so many opportunities that then I quickly forgot about my sadness and embraced #education at NCSU #gopack !!! I couldn’t be happier about my college experience there as I really did not have a single class or professor there that I didn’t thoroughly love ❤️ and I worked in three research labs during my undergraduate tenure there. AND LEARNED A LOT!!!

As an international student at NC State, my experience was AMAZING!!! So I moved past my dream of getting into MIT and did not let that be an obstacle.

My closest friends in the country are ALL people I met in college. Many of them were my classmates or dorm-mates. 💕 These are the people I STILL hang out with. We meet in each other’s cities where we all have great careers, take trips together, etc.

I applied to MIT for grad school too and didn’t get in. Then I interviewed there for a postdoc and somehow that didn’t quite work out either although I came close!

And then I kept going to the next and next thing and almost forgot about my MIT dream until this current opportunity came up!! It’s amazing how the universe is conspiring to fulfill all my dreams and ambitions! Apparently, even the ones I nearly forgot about or didn’t know I had as I detached from them and focused on what was at hand!!

But today I remembered how 18-year-old me was so crestfallen for not getting into MIT back then! I tried so hard and it just didn’t work out at that time. But I’m proud of her for keeping on keeping on with life.

Well, now I work at MIT LL!!!! (We saved money on tuition too!)

And I couldn’t be more excited to have smart colleagues and awesome research opportunities here. In many ways, I am glad for the order in which this happened. School elsewhere and job here. I love it!!! I like this plan way more than my own plan haha!

Boston is expensive. So, I’d rather have a job here I think 💭 than be a student 👩‍🎓 although I’m sure that’s great too.

Plans, attempts, and efforts are all necessary to keep moving forward but most importantly it is essential to be open to the higher plan. This is the plan that you didn’t even know existed until the universe shows you. 🤍🙌🏼🙏

Check out my post on the three ways of working for the federal government where I cover working at MIT LL (current job).

3 ways of working for the federal government and on choosing technical roles

PS. Please post a comment below. It will help me out!

Referral alert!! If you would like to be referred to the recruiting company that helped me find my job at MIT, then message me on LinkedIn with your interest and I will be happy to connect you.