It was 3 AM in the night.
The biggest telephonic interview of my life- GOOGLE!
And the first question asked was around Load Balancers- which is not the most preferred question for a Fresher’s interview. Since I had studied at Scaler academy, I had some ideas and was able to answer.
Later, got a mail of rescheduling the same round since they did not check my experience.
Hi, I am Prateek Shukla, student of the first batch of Scaler Academy and I want to share my learning experience and journey of the biggest investment of my Life.
Being a topper till 10th, scoring 95% in 12th boards, head boy of the school, I’d lie if I deny that my life was quite sorted until I decided to take a drop after 12th. I prepared well for JEE mains and ended up at IIEST Shibpur.
Stepping out of the only house I have lived until 18, I was very excited to travel a 1000 kms from Lucknow to Calcutta to explore a new life. Like any other fresh college grad, I was exploring a lot of new things- new friends, cultures etc I had lost touch with regular hard work as I did back in school.
It hit me hard after an internship in IOT at IIT Mandi, where I was working passionately for 10-12hrs. It was after 3 years I was doing something productive and worthy.
By this time, friends I looked up to in college had already landed in FAANG companies and were doing great in competitive programming. To be brutally honest, I knew I had “wasted” my college years. It was a big lump in my throat. I had huge personal expectations considering my own background and a lot to prove to my family back home.
I am an avid Zakir Khan fan and his lines ”zindagi kitna dheere chala hun mein, apne aap se bhi peeche khada hun mein” perfectly defined my state then.
Around the same time, I received an email from Anshuman sir for the launch of Scaler Academy. Scaler Academy, being a product of InterviewBit, always had a lot of reliability and goodwill in college. So when I cleared the entrance exam for the first batch, I really enjoyed the structure of the entire course. I also got a mentor from Google.
I decided to work on myself. Completely disconnecting from the outside world, I started being extremely regular with Scaler academy and mentor sessions solving more than 500+ problems and regular classes.
One thing I genuinely admire is the grounded-ness of the co-founders.I considered it a big deal to interact with the co-founders directly but the way they are readily available every time for all kinds of discussions and guidance is a great feeling.
One incident that really changed my preparation game was during a campus drive with Media.net, when I was among the only 2 students selected for the final tech round. I had performed exceptionally well in the first 2 rounds and everyone was very positive for me, until in the last tech round, I screwed on tech theory concepts. My mentor Yashasvi Girdhar sir repeatedly guided me that “It will hurt very bad, if you miss an opportunity because of ignoring theory concepts”. but I never paid enough attention. I was very disappointed. But I learnt an important lesson that day-Always trust the guidance of your mentor. He will sail you through.
Around the same time, I had received rejection in Google too.But If there are 2 people whom I cannot thank enough for endless support and guidance, then it would be my Student Success manager Vinod sir and my mentor Yashasvi sir. They have seen almost all my emotions and were always there to guide me. Vinod sir, especially was a real source of guidance as a friend, philosopher and guide.
I recently joined Nova, a Directi company through Scaler Academy and I cannot thank the entire team enough for being there. I am getting so much to learn with a highly energetic and dynamic learning environment here at Nova.
“Scaler Academy has given me a lot more confidence in myself, and from an educational and emotional perspective, I always had their back “
It was the most effective investment of my life and I deeply credit the Scaler team and Vinod and Yashasvi Sir for never giving up on me!