My journey towards Technical Writing

Today, I feel a sense of fulfillment to have setup and booted a hardware board. It means a lot to me, though several other people are involved in various stages of developing embedded systems. The company for which I work designs embedded system solutions that can be used for various purposes such as for industrial, networking or for the automotive domain. As a technical writing professional, my job is to describe how to use a product (which might be a device, software, or a set of hardware blocks) in a simple and non-technical manner. It also involves using the steps described in the manual to check whether we can accomplish the documented task. Most of the documents we create are meant to be used by technical people who might be using our device in their product.

Semiconductors are part of every electronic appliance, industrial sensors, automotive electronics, and their scope of applications is increasing everyday. A reference design board, in the context used here, is a general purpose hardware board that can be customized for a specific application.  A typical hardware board comprises of an SoC (system on a chip) with associated peripherals for connectivity. Besides hardware, it has software and firmware that help it to accomplish the purpose for which it is designed. Boards designed in my company are used for networking, the Internet of Things (IoT), Advanced Drive-Assist Systems (ADAS), and wireless applications. 

As a fresh engineer from college, I had never imagined that I would be working in the semiconductor industry one day. One of the reasons was that jobs in this stream were not so common at that time. (I graduated in 1995). I did not know much about Engineering jobs at that time. Some of my College friends engineering had got trained on software languages and would join jobs with software companies. Some had applied for further studies (doing M.Tech), whereas others were preparing for competitive examinations to pursue jobs in the government or semi-private sector).

I was a disappointed lot when I graduated. I had scored a little less than 60% (58% to be precise, was my graded average) in my final year. That too, after I sat for exams for the second time. I repeated all my exams in the final year. There was a clause in the examination rules that if someone opted for appearing in the back papers, only 67% of the marks obtained in the back paper would be counted in the final mark sheet.

I was pretty sure, if I opted for giving only some of the exams, my pass percentage would drop considerably. So I made up my mind to repeat all the subjects. Somewhere in the second and third year of college, I felt miserable and stuck-up as I could neither understand the subjects being taught in the classes, nor confide in someone to tell all this. All the studies were going on at a very fast pace than I had imagined.

I also feared being scolded at taking a decision to change my branch. When I joined college, my branch was civil. I had scored good marks in the first year and that gave me an opportunity to change my branch. I had seen my father, who is a Civil Engineer, spending long days at work. He was a workaholic and hardly had time for family activities, and still it was quite hard to meet the family expenses.

Civil Engineering was considered a tough branch for women, that time. Though this impression has changed quite a lot since then. I drew inspiration from my close friend, who pointed out that both software and electronic engineers would be performing desk jobs, but you might need to be on the field, if you are a civil engineer. 

Having the opportunity, I did change my branch, and initially I was quite happy about it. However, what followed later on was a complete wreck. The classes had already begun and a semester was almost complete. I had the giant task of recovering the classes missed. My experience here has been that learning electronics is basically digital in nature. If you understand it, fine. If you don’t, you really do not. There is no middle path. You cannot go ahead and master electronics without understanding the basics of it.

I had a nauseated feeling as I sat in the lecture halls, as missed out on most of the concepts that were being taught. The professors were teaching advanced subjects of which I had yet to master the fundamentals. I did attend classes, but everything went over my head. Eventually, I began losing interest in attending the classes, due to this. Even my close friends observed this behavior of mine asked me the reason for it,  but I could not muster the courage to tell them this blunt truth.

I feared being laughed at and losing self-esteem. Somewhere, my ego came in between. I had always been a topper in school time. It was hard for me to confess that I couldn’t understand a thing in class. I also needed to fulfill the criteria of at least 60% attendance to classes. I lived in false hope that I would understand and recover, as the examination time came near.

 I attended one of the best colleges, had a branch of study, which everyone strived to achieve, but was lost inside. I went to attend the classes, was there at the college, and attended whichever class was held. Despite all that, life had lost its charm.

Back there, when I returned home during College holidays, I would just stare listlessly at my books trying to read some of them. My elder sister mentioned once, "the boy over the street (our neighbor) is doing a project in IIT Delhi. What are your plans, dear". I was silent, as I did not have any future vision in mind. Doing and completing Engineering seemed a difficult and distant goal.

Nothing amused me. My diet had turned very less. I hardly spoke or interacted with anyone. On my Birthday, my parents arranged a birthday party, and called all our neighbours and children.
I did'nt want to talk to anyone and I did'nt. All the children enjoyed the party and left saying, "Didi to bolti hi nahi hain".
My parents were troubled to see me. They once  took me to a  reputed Pscychologist in Allahabad. He asked me "why dont you go to College and attend classes. I was silent even then. I couldnt make the long story short and he didnt have time to hear me out. Outside were a long line of patients, who had paid fees to see him. I didnt know where to start or end. After two minutes, when I did not reply, "Anxiety neurosis" he wrote on a piece of paper, and there we, were, back home again.

As I muse back in time, I remember that all along my childhood, I had often dreamed of being a doctor. Biology was what came naturally to me. It was not that I was studying very hard in Biology. Out of my 3 to 4 hours of studies, I devoted only 1-2 hours each day to Biology and I could score well in it. My mother had brought me up, saying that I would become a doctor one day. I had worked hard to fulfill her dream too. I scored cent percent marks in Biology and everyone in my family was overjoyed to hear about it, when the results came out. 

However, as fate had planned for me, on the date of the AIIMS competitive exam, I fell ill and gave the exam when I had fever. My name was not there in the selected list of candidates. I had not strived to appear in other competitive exams for Medicine. I did not want to take admission in one of the local colleges, they were private colleges and would cost a lot of money to study there. I had then changed my mind and opted for Engineering.

The reasons I had in mind at that time were like:

• It needs a lot of study to do Medical.
• It is more expensive than doing Engineering. (5 years + internship)
• I will need to do dissection to be a good doctor.
• That's not all, after M.B.B.S, you need to pursue higher studies to be a good doctor.

I concluded that pursuing a Medical degree needed more money, than my family could afford at that time. After all, we were four brothers and sisters, me being the third. My father had already sent my elder sister to a reputed girls College in Lucknow, and she was pursuing B.Sc while residing in hostel, at that time. College education was quite costly and I did not want to be a burden on my parents.  I really empathize with my father, for having tried to pursue technical education for all of us siblings, even today.

My father always wanted us to have English medium education, though he himself was educated in a Hindi medium school. It cost him a lot, in those times. I remember that after paying all school dues, uniform, books, house rent, there was hardly any money left for household expenditure. My mother always faced the brunt of having a meager household income. The question of entertainment, dining out, movies didn't even arise, till we were in college. However, we did get to visit many tourist places when my father availed his Leave Travel Allowance once in two years. 

I still sometimes regret my decision, after all these years.

School life

I now sometimes wonder whether I am the same, shy person, I used to be in College.

When I tried to speak anything, my voice could not be heard properly. Someone once remarked that my voice felt as if coming out of a well.

Though we were not well off, I saw various schools and education opportunities were always good. I happened to study in several English medium private schools, Army school, Kendriya Vidyalaya, owing to the frequent transfers of my father, who was a Central government officer.

Once in my school days, when my father was posted at Udhampur (J&K), an incident happened when the school bus (a 3 tonner vehicle) could not come to pick us up and we were told to make own arrangements. My classmate, whose father was a Major General in the Indian Army, offered to drop me home in her father's Jonga, to which I had agreed (as the other alternative was too hard; I would have to walk about 7 kms on a hilly terrain). While we were both sitting in the Jonga, there was pin drop silence. Neither she spoke, nor did I even utter a word. I did'nt even say thank you. Thinking of this incident, I recall I was very shy and reluctant to speak to persons who were just my classmates. 

When I set myself free

Somewhere in the final year of my Engineering studies, I realized I was going nowhere. I had gone home to Siliguri (in West Bengal, where my father was posted at that time) after my examinations and the results for the final year exams were going to be published soon. As I was having an after dinner walk with my elder brother on the Hill Cart road, Siliguri, I remember my elder brother's words in  colloquial language, "Goo kha rahi ho kya, ghanchakkar kyun ban rahi ho." (Are you having shit, why are you taking steps one forward and then 2 backwards?)

My mother also asked me, Amita, "You are wasting our family's meager resources, and that is a sin. If you are not interested in studies, and are think of getting married to someone, we are ready for that too!" That was the final trigger that pushed me into doing something and to get out of my lost state.

I soon realized, it would have been difficult even to get married to a simple person, without a proper degree, let alone have a decent job. So I set upon this goal of just passing the exams and getting a degree, though I was convinced that I had taken a wrong decision in opting for the Engineering degree.

It was at this time, I decided to set myself free. I talked with my junior peers in hostel, looked at the course material, saw which chapters were easy. I set myself a goal...of just passing the exams. I thought it was a still achievable task (given that the pass percentage was just 33%).

This time my mind was focused on the aim and not having to attend any classes helped a lot. I devoted all my time to reading the course books by myself. I tried reading the simpler chapters of the numerous voluminous books. I talked to some of my seniors and classmates to understand difficult topics. I took up the strategy of solving theretical problems, instead of the complicated mathematical ones. I analyzed the previous years papers and saw the commonly repeated questions.

I had failed in few lab subjects too. To make up for these, I fixed appointment with the Lab-in-charge faculty, and they gladly agreed and gave permission to me to perform the lab experiments by myself, where needed. They even made me understand the experiment, equipment used, and provided guidance on these. Usually, in the class time, lab tests were performed in groups, and the boys of our group took the lead in making the connections for the test set up. They could do it easily, whereas I just used to remain a silent spectator to their activities during the classes.

More importantly, I confessed my shortcomings, to myself and one of my close senior friends, who was there in hostel, pursuing M.Tech. As I did that, I broke my hesitation about speaking of my trouble and current situation. I guess, this allowed me to accept the situation and made me prepare for  it.

Luckily, I passed the exams this time, with the grace of God. I fell short of scoring first division and got a meager 58%. However, qualifying the exam and getting the degree opened new doors for me.

Later on, even after 10 to 20 years, not passing in my exams has been a nightmare, which I often had.

Back home after Engineering exams

There, in Siliguri, I did search for a job but didn't join it, as it was a very low paying one.

Once my father got transferred to Delhi, I took a job in a reputed coaching institute, then studied for a professional software course and tried to pursue a job in the software industry. However, it being a time of recession, I got placed in a content development company. Since then, I have been several years in the writing and editing profile. Eventually, I took up technical writing as a career.

Writing has many specializations apart from technical writing. It is one of the evolving professions these days. One can be a creative writer,  write blogs or articles, write for online marketing, proposals and newspapers. Technical writers, often referred to as Technical Communicators, convey in simple terms how to perform a task using software, hardware, machine or a device.

Final words of advice

I would like to persuade every student who has opted both for Maths and Science, to pursue his choice of subject, rather than looking at the immediate returns. To excel, you need to specialize in your area. It would be extremely hard to specialize in an area that does not interest you.

However, no decision can be judged wrong or right, as over the years, you could develop expertise in the chosen area. It is how well you can stick with your decision and make the most of your opportunities that matters.

Connecting the dots

There is some truth in this theory, I believe. After some twists and twirls, we do arrive finally at the position, we are destined to, one day. We might have hurdles, sometimes, we might not realize our situation, and we may have pitfalls, but we must overcome them after a struggle. We should overcome our disappointments in life and try to do our best in the current situation.

I am now a documentation expert, mainly in the domain of electronics and software. As a documentation specialist, I think that domain knowledge is quite important. Connecting with the audience and knowing their needs and expectations is also a prime aspect in Technical Communication, these days. Writing properly and to the point is very essential.

My interests ahead

I want to be able to contribute something towards medical facilities for poor people. I see lots of  people- helpers mainly, suffering and deprived of simple medical care, mostly due to unawareness and lack of money. Most of such people resort to quacks in the locality, who charge them big amount of money for very basic medicine. (as these people do not have money to pay for the fees of the well qualified doctors).

Providing such people about the basic facilities, and basic medical care, is something I feel good doing. I want to be able to devote time to take up this voluntary task in my later years, as my children grow up.