An Indian woman living in the US has a warning for international students working part-time jobs abroad: don't let the paycheck become the plan. In a video that has gone viral, she urges students not to settle for survival jobs abroad when their real goal was always a degree-aligned career.

The woman, who posts under the Instagram handle 'dillitonyc' and goes by Sonami, said comfort and familiarity can quietly make people lose sight of why they left home in the first place, according to India.com. For the large number of Indian students who take up cashier shifts, retail counters and cafe jobs while studying in the US, UK and Canada, that's a familiar trap: the job that was meant to cover rent for a semester somehow becomes a five-year routine.

Why this message matters for Indian students abroad

Sonami's point isn't that survival jobs are wrong. She said there is nothing wrong with doing them while studying, per India.com. The issue starts when graduates stay in those roles for years simply because the paycheck feels secure and the routine feels convenient.

She noted that many international students arrive abroad with ambitious plans, but the high cost of living often pushes them toward part-time or low-level jobs just to cover basic expenses alongside their coursework, per India.com. That's the trap facing thousands of Indian students who land in Boston, Toronto or Manchester with a specific career in mind, a corporate role tied to their degree, only to find a part-time job that pays enough to get by. Rent gets paid. Friendships form. The discomfort of chasing an actual career fades, and so does the urgency.

"Don't let your comfort zone become your destination," Sonami said in the video, according to India.com. It's a line built for a 30-second clip, but the idea behind it is one every international student eventually has to sit with: is this job a bridge, or has it quietly become home.

The comfort trap, in her own words

Sonami described how, over time, many graduates settle into a predictable lifestyle: stable income, a familiar friend circle, routines that don't ask much of them. These milestones feel like progress, she said, but they can just as easily discourage people from applying for the corporate jobs or industry roles tied to what they actually studied, per India.com.

Her advice was direct: keep applying for positions in your field. Stay consistent. Be patient. It's not glamorous advice, but it names something international students rarely say out loud, that the hardest part of studying abroad often isn't the degree. It's staying hungry after you've already found a way to survive.

She extended the same logic to students with entrepreneurial plans. Financial stability and a comfortable lifestyle shouldn't be the reason someone shelves a business idea, Sonami said, urging aspiring founders to keep learning, planning and taking small steps even while working a survival job, according to India.com.

Other reports carry the same warning

A separate Malayalam-language report on the same clip, from Asianet News, carried the same headline framing: an Indian woman warning students abroad not to settle in survival jobs. That corroborates the direction of Sonami's message rather than reversing it, students shouldn't get stuck in the survival job, they should keep pushing toward the career they actually studied for.

Why the video struck a nerve

The clip has drawn heavy engagement online, with international students and young professionals weighing in on the value of deliberate career planning, per India.com. One commenter summed up the anxiety behind the praise: "Comfort zone is forever dangerous!"

That reaction points to something wider than one Instagram video. The pull toward comfort isn't limited to survival jobs abroad, it shows up inside workplaces too, where people quietly stop pushing for growth once a role feels safe. TUI has covered how that same instinct for comfort can leave professionals blind to warning signs at work that they'd otherwise catch if they were still paying close attention to their own career trajectory.

For Indian students weighing a semester's worth of shifts against a career they crossed an ocean for, the advice lands as a simple gut-check: is the job still serving the goal, or has the goal quietly become the job. Sonami's answer is to keep asking that question, out loud, on a schedule, before another year slips by on autopilot.