What does it take to become one of the first from your family or town to go to a great college?

In this series, professionals discuss their experiences accomplishing something for the first time. Read their stories here, then write your own using #IWasTheFirst in the body of the post. 

Before I began working at edX, the leading nonprofit online learning destination founded by Harvard and MIT, I was fortunate enough to accomplish something that would pave the way for everything that would come later: I became one of the first from the small town of Mangalore, India to attend the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

For many, going to a good college might not seem like a big deal. But to put things in perspective, when I was in high school, more than 300,000 students took the IIT entrance exam and only 1% were admitted. Even today, IITs admit only about 1% of those who apply.

What does it take to become one of the first from your family or town to go to a great college? When I set out with an ambition to attend an IIT, I had no frame of reference of how to approach the challenge of getting admitted into such a selective institute. At the time (this was the early 70’s) the Internet and search engines didn’t exist. I couldn’t Google “How to get into IIT?” nor could I post the query on Quora or Reddit.

I somehow had to pave my own path and create my own roadmap to success. Along the way, I learned a few lessons that I hope are helpful to those seeking to improve their lives through higher education – especially non-traditional students or those from backgrounds where college isn’t the norm.

The following four strategies don’t only apply to getting into college; they can be helpful for anyone aiming to be the first to accomplish something that requires more than just finding an answer online.

1.  Find a mentor.

It’s easy to sit back and say, “Achievement begins with ambition, so dream big and set your sights high.” But when you come from a place where success isn’t a given, it can be hard to imagine what the world holds for you and what you can accomplish.

This changed for me when I met J. L. Saldanha, a math teacher in 9th grade at my high school, St. Aloysius. When I first met Mr. Saldanha, I wanted to be a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force. In the end, he had a better understanding of what I should do with my life. One day, he told me that I should attend one of the IITs.

He didn’t just set a goal and walk away. Because the IIT entrance exam was far more demanding than our state-level public-school curriculum, I had to prepare well beyond anything we would learn in school. In class, Mr. Saldanha pushed me to become a better student in math, giving me assignments on top of my regular coursework and tutoring me outside of class with problems from challenging math textbooks.

One of the the most important things Mr. Saldanha taught me was that I was capable of something that went far beyond the life I pictured for myself. Without him, the journey to IIT Madras would have never started.

2. When you don’t know what to do, do a lot, so the odds of hitting upon the right thing increase.

The most important aspect of achieving something for the first time is also the most obvious: hard work.

When you’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done before, hard work becomes even more important, because it makes up for a lack of knowledge and experience. Hard work is also the only aspect of your journey that you can completely control. In the absence of one clear, no-fail approach, your best bet is to do everything you can think of to achieve your goal.

In my case, in addition to math, there was chemistry, physics and English for which I had to prepare, with absolutely no idea how to ready for these subjects.

Unsurprisingly, my journey to IIT Madras was filled with starts, stops and wrong turns. But when you’re working in the dark, you have to become comfortable working without clear instructions to success. I randomly worked on lots of problems in lots of books from libraries in chemistry and physics. It’s like panning for gold, and frankly, I must have lucked upon some useful nuggets. When charting a new course, you have to accept the inherent inefficiencies and understand that it will never be a linear journey to meet your goal.

Being the first to undertake something means being willing to take the scenic route – not the express lane. Don’t worry about making mistakes, and remain confident that if you work hard and course-correct when you need to, you’ll stand a better chance at finding success.

3. Don’t be shy about networking.

LinkedIn might be an awkward place for me to admit this, but it here goes: networking can be a little uncomfortable. It still is for me.

Asking people you know – and often, people you don’t – for help isn’t always easy, but it was a critical part of my experience. And as I’ve learned since, it’s essential to accomplishing anything.

Networking begins with believing that what you’re pursuing is worth the time of the people you’re reaching out to – and that with their help, you stand an excellent chance of achieving your goal.

Asking someone for advice is also predicated on the belief that they too have relied on others on their own path to success. I asked dozens of people including teachers, business people, friends, relatives about ideas for how to prepare for IIT Madras. 

For example, a few months before the IIT entrance exam, I was speaking with a family friend at a wedding and, after I mentioned my desire to attend IIT Madras, I uncovered a fantastic resource – they knew an admitted student at the Institute who happened to also be attending the wedding. He graciously provided additional invaluable guidance for my preparation. I would never have discovered this if I hadn’t been willing to approach anyone and everyone about my endeavor.

In doing this, I learned that, for the most part, people are eager to help once they understand your goal and your passion for achieving it. When others become invested in your success, doors that were previously closed begin to open.

4. Pay it forward.

Once you succeed at breaking through and becoming the first, your journey must not stop. When you are the first, you are also responsible for paying it forward.

What does that mean? It means that now you have uncovered the process to achieving something previously assumed impossible or out of reach, you must share your knowledge with others looking to achieve the same thing. For example, now that I know what parts of my preparation really paid off in my achieving my goals, I can help others refine their own process and focus their energy. This responsibility of paying it forward has also informed decisions throughout my entire life, both as a professor at MIT and in my work with edX. 

One of the reasons my experience was so hard-fought was because, where and when I grew up, there weren’t many options for high-quality higher education. Now, times have changed and there are a number of new and innovative ways in which people can obtain access to education.

Now, free online resources, like edX, provide people with the opportunity to prepare for higher education, test the waters of higher education, or even get higher education without having to pass an entrance exam. At edX, we are working to ensure that we continue to increase access to high-quality education from the world’s best institutions and that we empower learners with the ability to learn valuable skills and meaningful knowledge.

Preparing for college might look a little different today than it did when I applied. Improving your life and advancing your career through education can now begin with an Internet search, but the same strategies that helped me overcome daunting hurdles, are still essential for achieving lasting success.

Even today, when you’re trying to be the first to break through, you can’t always Google your way to success. Sometimes, you’ve got to start from scratch. But, I have found that that is far more rewarding than finding your way from an answer in the search bar.