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Spring Before College: What Class 12 Felt Like From the Inside

4 min readUtso Sarkar

March 2024 is an awkward month to write about. You are not in the climax of exams anymore. You are not in college yet. You are in the hallway between outcomes, refreshing portals you pretend you are not refreshing.

This is a personal post about that hallway — as someone who had already founded and shut down a food delivery startup, shipped apps under Strato Inc, and still had to wait like everyone else.

The Waiting Room

JEE Main results had started arriving for some rounds. Advanced was ahead. IIT admission was a summer problem, not a March certainty.

Meanwhile:

I announced nothing. March is not a good month for announcements when your future address is still unknown.

What Strato Inc Meant in March

Not a venture-backed company. A publisher account, a portfolio of small Android projects, and the muscle memory of having run something real called Strato Foods.

That history changed how I heard advice:

“Start young” — I had. It did not make waiting easier.

“Founders don’t need degrees” — maybe. I still wanted the degree. Roorkee was the plan if the numbers cooperated.

“Build a personal brand” — I had a Play Store presence. That was enough brand for March me.

flowchart TD
    A[March 2024] --> B{Outcomes pending}
    B --> C[JEE / IIT hope]
    B --> D[Strato Inc maintenance]
    B --> E[Identity: ex-founder + student]
    C --> F[Summer decision]
    D --> G[Skills stay warm]
    E --> H[Patience practice]

What I Was Reading

Less startup Twitter, more syllabus leftovers and the occasional ML paper when guilt allowed. GPT-4 and DevDay were months in the rearview. The vibe shift was from “wow, demos” to “okay, what is actually useful for a solo builder.”

I was also reading admission forums — the universal humiliation of teenagers comparing ranks. No post makes that dignified.

Honest Feelings

Impatience. I had shipped products. Sitting still felt unnatural.

Relief. No restaurant ops emergencies anymore. The Strato Foods chapter was closed; March was quieter.

Fear. What if the exam did not go well? What if the building years counted for nothing in the only game parents could easily explain to relatives?

Pride I did not say out loud. I had done more than most classmates. Saying that aloud in March would have sounded like coping. Maybe it was coping. It was also true.

What I Did Not Know

I did not know which hostel I would sleep in come August. I did not know which friendships would survive the move to Roorkee. I did not know that college would change my schedule more than any framework announcement.

I definitely did not know what company I would start in 2026. March 2024 me was not planning that arc. March 2024 me was trying to land somewhere worth going.

Takeaway

The spring before college is underrated as a life chapter. You are not the person you were in class 10. You are not yet the person campus makes you. You are in between — and in between is when you notice what building has already taught you.

Patience. Triage. Shipping small. Shutting down honestly.

Those lessons were mine before any admission letter confirmed a campus name.

When the letter did come, it would say IIT Roorkee, Mathematics and Computing. March me did not have that PDF yet. March me just had work, wait, and the stubborn habit of opening Android Studio after dinner.

That was enough for one month.

--claps