Juggline between college and work can be a nightmare without a proper schedule. I started applying to posts right from the first year of college. To put it simply, it was gruesome.

I applied to around 30-40 applications daily for over 2 weeks, but the interview calls were often unsatisfactory from my end. I was lacking the skills and communication reqired for a professional environment. It wasn't that I couldn't communicate, I just wasn't able to put my thoughts into words for the interviewer to understand. My blank resume wasn't helping either.

So, I stopped for a brief moment, and thought to myself

"maybe applying to technical positions wouldn't be the most logical thing to do right now."

I, then completely revamped my approach. There were two primary objective that I had to follow. Learn more about technologies and put them into words better. I knew I could write because I had been writing on Quora for quite some time, and so I decided it was best to go for the position of a Technical Content Writer.

The Journey Begins

I started applying to technical writing positions top, bottom, left, right and center. I sent applications day and night and was able to land myself a gig. Though it didn't pay as much as I wanted, it was something.

A month of work turned into two, and then three and then a year. I applied to more and more jobs along the way and landed myself multiple jobs in the span of 2 years, and the pay was good too( On some months it crossed 1L+). However, with so much work and college alongside, juggling between the two became cumbersome.

When I paid more attention to work, my grades suffered, when I paid more attention to college, my work deteriorated. It was because of one fundamental quality I was lacking.

Pledging: A Fundamental Quality for Work

I was flexible with my daily tasks, and with flexibility came frustration. It distracted me from my goals because I put greater emphasis on managing my schedule than on the actual task itself.

This was when I read an article on Pledge, it took the idea from the book "The Good Life" by Rolf Dobelli. A pledge, in its simplest form, would mean that you have to stick to whatever goals you have set and can't deviate from it even 1%.

And so, I started out with a pledge, system, or a work ethic. People call it by different names, though it all amounts to the same meaning.

9-5 was college( I squeezed in my workouts during break time and did whatever shopping or eating out I had to do by bunking classes, because who attends engineering classes anyway?), 5-8 was study, 8-11 was work, 11-1 was projects, and then I read for around 30 minutes.

This was hectic, almost a pain to get used to , but it improvised my grades and workflow to a great extent. I had my peace of mind knowing that a client or manager won't call me outside of my work-hours and that my college studies won't interfere with my work.

If I had any free time in-between these schedules, I'd have worked on improvising my socials, or applied to more jobs.

Transitioning from Writing to Tech

After working on my technical content writing for around 1.5 years, I was confident of my skills and communication. However, applying to technical posts would set me back to a very minimal pay again, and the applying-interview process is another headache.

But, on the flip side, I already had a long list of connections, be it from freelancing, clients from work or my employers itself. Everyone knew I could write, had the technical knowledge of how something works and was familiar with me from all the meeting we had. Why not approach them?

And so I did. This by far was one of the best decisions. Even when they didn't have an opening, they'd refer me to a connection of theirs and every meeting went flawlessly. Yes, I did do a few blunders along the way, but that's a story for another day.

What Am I Doing Now?

I'm currently in the 4th and last year of college, working for 5 firms at the moment, 2 of which are from multinational technical content writing companies and 3 for Tech.

The journey so far was tiresome, filled with ups and downs, but all in all, I wouldn't change a thing about it if I had the chance. (Though if given the opportunity I'd have made better financial decisions, I'm very irresponsible with it:) )