What Is A Fellowship???

By a SWAR Fellow who is still figuring it out (and is okay with that)

Picture this: a guy who couldn’t clear UPSC prelims, sitting in a field he had never heard of, working on a project he didn’t know existed, in a village whose name he couldn’t pronounce eight months ago , and somehow, making it work. That guy is me. And if you had told me this is where I’d end up, I would have laughed, probably nervously, and then gone back to stressing about my next attempt. But here I am, nine to ten months into something called a fellowship, and every time someone asks me what I do, I reach for my most rehearsed answer  “more than an internship, less than a job.” Clean. Simple. Conversation moves forward, the other person nods like they understood, and everyone goes home happy. But here’s the thing  that answer is for other people. When I ask myself what a fellowship actually is… honestly? Even after all this time, I pause for a second. And maybe, just maybe – that pause is the most important part of this whole thing.

Let me take you back to a time when my self-confidence had gone six feet underground. I couldn’t clear UPSC prelims. One line, simple enough to read, but those who have been on that road know how many sleepless nights live inside that one sentence, how many “what will people think” moments, and one heavy, suffocating feeling that whispers – “maybe you’re just not worthy enough.” Self-doubt is a strange thing. It takes one snapshot of your failure and says, “See? This is who you are.” And I was starting to believe it too.

Then came the fellowship. And I want to be very clear – this is not a Bollywood-style motivational plot twist. But what the fellowship gave me at that exact moment was the one thing I needed most: a chance to prove that I could learn. The person who didn’t even know the ABCD of livelihood is today making a major contribution in a livelihood project. Let that sink in for a moment. This didn’t happen in a day, not in one training session, not in one phone call. It happened through a process – a process of being thrown into real work, with real stakes, real people, and yes, real failures too. In a way, fellowship is like a trial run before the actual game begins, a chance to explore a sector, understand it, and find out what you’re actually made of. They say coal becomes a diamond only when pressure is applied. Maybe this program was designed with exactly that in mind – to take young people who have potential buried inside them and create the right conditions for it to surface.

Now let’s talk about field life for a second, because if anyone tells you this process is easy, please do not believe them. Managing different stakeholders, navigating complex ground-level realities, building relationships where trust doesn’t come easy , it’s a full workout, mentally and emotionally. And between us, some stakeholders are exactly like that one fufaji at every family gathering who is perpetually unhappy – your good morning is wrong, your work is wrong, your chai is probably wrong too. (We’ll dedicate an entire blog to that character someday, he deserves the spotlight.) But handling all of this, staying consistent, and still pushing the work forward – that is what actually prepares you for the real world. No classroom does this. No textbook writes this chapter.

When I look back at how SWAR fellowship program is designed, every single component starts making more sense now. I’ll be honest – when I joined, I didn’t know what my project would be, where I’d be posted, what the geography would look like. Literally, my entire life had changed overnight and I didn’t even have a map. Looking back, that uncertainty was not a bug – it was a feature. It built something in me that I can only call mental strength. The decision to keep fellows in the same state creates an invisible safety net – you’re never truly alone. The NGO matching, more often than not, turns out to be surprisingly well thought through. The regular calls are a quiet reminder that “hey, you’re part of something, and someone is paying attention.” And then there’s blog writing – yes, I know, I’ve been guilty of skipping it for long stretches , but when you’re buried in fieldwork day after day, consciously sitting down and asking yourself “what am I actually learning?” becomes rare and precious. The blog forces that reflection. The midpoint training, the completion bonus , none of this is random. Every piece was placed with intention.

So what is a fellowship, really? In the simplest, most honest words I can find – it is the process of understanding yourself. It doesn’t give you a degree. It won’t let you write “Employed at XYZ” on LinkedIn without a follow-up explanation. It’s hard to describe in interviews. But what it does give you is a mirror – one that shows you what you’re actually capable of, not what your worst moment convinced you that you were. It gives you a field where the challenges are real, the learning is real, and the growth is painfully, beautifully real. And most importantly, it gives you a community where you are not an experiment – you are a person. For me, that was everything. The self-doubt that UPSC left behind? Fellowship is slowly, steadily proving it wrong.

I’ll say this clearly and without hesitation – if you get the chance, do a fellowship. I recommend it strongly. And yes, I’m aware of the slight irony that I’m saying this while my own fellowship isn’t even complete yet. But the journey from the person who joined with zero clarity to the person writing this right now – that gap, that distance, that growth – is the whole point. Whether my journey has been interesting or not, my manager , mentor and co-fellows are better judges of that. But one thing I know for certain: I am not the same person I was on day one. And maybe that is the truest, most complete answer to what a fellowship actually is. See you in the next blog – and until then, if you encounter a fufaji-type stakeholder, handle them diplomatically. You’ve been warned.