Beyond STEM: Why Hyderabad’s Brightest Students are Ditching IIT Dreams for Commerce and Arts
K. Preetam Reddy, an MCom student and placement coordinator at OU, chose finance over the IIT route despite receiving free IIT coaching after Class X.
Mrittika Banerjee I Dc
HYDERABAD, MAY 12
When K. Preetam Reddy received free IIT coaching after Class X because of his performance in maths and science, engineering seemed like the obvious next step. He walked away from it anyway. So did Abhay Tiwari, who came from a modest background, scored 95 per cent in MEC intermediate and now runs his own startup. Dr Preethi Karlapudi described herself as “an average student” until she emerged as a double gold medallist and qualified NET-JRF in the first semester of her M.Com at Osmania University (OU). At the University of Hyderabad, PhD scholar Anjana M. Nair is preparing to spend a year at the University of Texas at Austin after receiving the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship. None of them followed the route Hyderabad’s education culture celebrates most. Not engineering, not medicine and certainly not science.
“There is always that unsaid pressure, right, that are you taking the right decision,” said Abhay Tiwari, founder and business coach, who studied BCom Honours at a city institute. “At the end of the day, it is your own drive that will matter the most.”
Six years after graduating in 2020, Tiwari now runs his own consulting firm, which he said recorded ₹27 lakh in revenue last year while working with more than 100 business owners. He had scored 95 per cent in MEC and secured 15th rank in the state entrance examination for the course.
In a similar case, K. Preetam Reddy, an MCom student and placement coordinator at OU, chose finance over the IIT route despite receiving free IIT coaching after Class X. “I realised finance would be the best path for me rather than stressing myself and going to IITs,” he said.
After taking MEC in intermediate, Preetam studied chartered accountancy alongside BCom. He cleared CA Foundation in 2022, later secured seventh rank in Telangana in CPGET and joined OU for MCom. He also cleared CS Executive Group 2 in his first attempt and recently built a placement-related app after teaching himself AI tools online. “People think non-STEM students are backward in technology but there is no such thing as STEM and non-STEM anymore. Everybody has access to technology now,” he said.
That idea surfaced repeatedly across conversations in Hyderabad. Commerce and humanities no longer fit neatly into narrow categories. Dr Preethi Karlapudi, assistant professor (PT) in the department of commerce at OU, said Bhavan’s College changed her academic life after she joined BCom Honours there.
“I was an average student until 10th and intermediate,” she said. “I became the gold medallist in BCom Honours.” She later secured another gold medal at OU and qualified NET-JRF in her first semester and first attempt. “A lot of people think Commerce is only for students who are not good at science. But commerce is one of the most flexible streams because it teaches students how businesses work, how money is managed, and how decisions are made in the real world.”
“A lot of engineering colleges have come up, but students are not up to the mark of the market,” said Prof. K. Raghuveer, principal, who has spent 46 years with his institute. “Even with communication skills or anything, they are lagging behind.” He said companies visiting the college now offer packages going up to ₹10 lakh annually.
When it comes to humanities, Anjana M. Nair’s work at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) sits far from the language of placements and salary packages. Nair, a PhD candidate in the department of history, School of Social Sciences, received the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship for 2026-27. Her research studies crime, deviance and spatial marginalisation between the 2nd century BCE and the 8th century CE through Sanskrit theological traditions and literary texts.
None of these students speak about their choices as acts of rebellion. They speak about practicality, interest, work, survival and curiosity. American poet Robert Frost wrote of a traveller pausing before “two roads diverged in a yellow wood”. These students simply chose the road that made sense to them at the time and kept walking long enough for it to lead somewhere.
