I am confused. When I got out of college i thought I had a plan. I
would work for 2 years and then I would go off to university. I wasn't
supposed to change jobs in those 2 years.

To say that things got fucked up, would be an understatement.

In the course of these two years I discovered/realized a bunch of
things.

Work!

I used to think that I would hate working and after two years I would
get into a decent university and everything would be
amazing. Somewhere in the middle I got drawn into the world of DevOps
and I fell in Love with it. I absolutely love my job as a DevOps
engineer because it fits very closely with what I love.

As a DevOps Engineer I get to play/interact on interesting projects
with multiple teams that directly improve the lives of my colleagues
and myself. I get to play with high-level tools like Docker/AWS etc and
also low level tools to help debug TCP/UDP connection level issues. I
am secretly proud that I can read tcpdump logs. :-)

At Shaadi, things are complicated enough to keep me interested and the
number of things that I want to do to improve the existing system will
easily occupy me for the next 3 months. So, things are really good
here. I'm learning a lot and I am discovering new skills that I did
not know I had.

College and Studying

I have been having cold-feet about applying to colleges for the last 4
months. About a year ago I was 100% sure that I wanted to go to
college. Now, I am not so much sure. But now with Covid-19 I think its
only good that I did not apply.

Things have also developed for me on the academic front as well.
During the last two years I realized that my mathematical background
isn't good enough for me to get into a math-heavy course. Most of the
courses need you to have some heavy mathematics in your undergraduate
level for you to be eligible. BCA was probably the worst decision I
ever made but my friends from college are again the best people I know
so I don't know what to make of that.

For some reason I used to think that people who do the theoretical
sciences are better than people who do the non-theoretical sciences
and as a result I tried very very hard to be one of the theoretical
science people. Its a belief that I have outgrown. If I were to
categorize myself I would say that between the theoretical and
practical spectrum I stand with somewhere in the middle. I can read a
100 page paper with decent comprehension and at the same time I can
come up with wild hacks to get something done.

I am actually considering studying distributed systems and
computational modelling in college. I still need to explore the
computational modelling space a bit. Having worked significantly with
distributed systems for the past 2 years I am positive I would love to
study this field in more detail. Databases is also another thing I am
looking at. Let's see.

Learning

I do not think that going to college is a necessity, however there is
a chance I might want to get into academic research and that
definitely requires a person to go to college.

On the other-hand learning is something that is always going on. It
never stops. New things to learn have always motivated me. For me the
difficulty is not getting started, the difficulty is staying on track
and see something through. Having a bunch of half-finished books and
projects is a commonality in my life. There is just too much to learn
in this world that its criminal to not even try.

Philosophy

I have been listening to a podcast called the "Philosophize This". I
never knew that I would enjoy reading and learning about
philosophical ideas so much.

I am halfway through the podcast and I plan to go through it again. I
really like the skeptics and the work of the existentialists. But in
either case, I don't know enough to comment. It's just fascinating to
read and think about.

Freedom

Since applying to college isn't a priority anymore, I feel a lil bit
more free. I can explore ideas/courses that I didn't previously
explore because now I do not have a deadline hanging over me.

Its quite nice. I read books/things I enjoy which are not directly
related to what I want to study in college. This feels like a HUGE
development.