The Incredible Experience That Scaler Academy Gives You

Nikhil Bhargav
6 Min Read

My father bought me a computer very early and being fortunate enough to study at a good school, I was also introduced to basic programming in the 10th grade. So, when it was time for college, I knew that I wanted to get a B.Tech degree and it had to be computer science. More than anything, what fascinated me was how lines of code that one writes could go on to solve massive real-life problems.

Due to some reasons at the time, I was inclined  to study close to home, which was Ludhiana, and there couldn’t have been a better option than Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College. Things were going fine, and in fact, I fortunately came across Auribises, a software company based in the same city, in the third year and started working there part-time. It is led by Ishant Kumar, who had been a lead at Samsung. In college, I was lucky to get an internship opportunity at St Microelectronics, a top-tier MNC. By the time college ended, I found myself placed at Infosys.

I had always wanted to be on the product side of things. Thankfully, at Infosys, I got the chance to work for one of their biggest clients – Apple – which gave me a decent exposure to the system design side of things. For that, I’m really thankful to the management there, given the opportunities I got in so little time.

But I also knew that I wanted to learn more and grow faster in my career.

And then, almost magically, Scaler Academy appeared and the course was just what I’d been craving for since early days in college. To be taught by those who are working in decent leadership positions in the industry, is something that gets far less credit than it deserves.

Be it the way things are structured, the curriculum and the whole ecosystem that they have created is a great learning experience. A special mention for the kickass high-level design classes that I loved to be a part of.

At Scaler, you get an environment that pushes you to learn, become better and push harder every single day. On one level, you learn from stellar instructors such as Kshitij sir, Pragya sir, Nihal sir and Tarun sir and then the next day, there are teaching assistants to clear your doubts so you can solve all the problems. What this does is get a chance to look at things from the perspective of others as well.

I don’t think people also realize the importance of a good peer group. At Scaler, when you are solving problems, it isn’t just the teachers behind, it’s also this group of like-minded, talented individuals that you are surrounded with.

And how can I forget my mentor Deep Saxena? There was an instant relatability factor associated as he had graduated from the same university that I had. The fact that he was now working as an SDE-2 at Amazon was somehow immensely satisfying. The technical discussions with him were really exciting as well.

During our very first interaction, Deep told me about the small mistakes he made during his journey, and hence I was able to learn from those. I have been really blessed to have such a great mentor by my side.

I had some bit of experience before joining, but in terms of knowing and applying certain core concepts better, that’s where I thought Scaler could help me improve.

For a while, I struggled to get the interview opportunities and at the time, my student success manager Sandeep was also very understanding and helpful. I’d say it was a difficult phase, but eventually, with so many people giving me support, I managed to bag a few including the one at PayPal as software engineer II that I ended up choosing.

How Anshuman sir and Abhimanyu sir have designed the entire thing is noteworthy. The vision that the two of them have, about changing the face of tech education in India, really sets this apart from anything else out there. I’m incredibly grateful for everything that Scaler has given me, and there isn’t any doubt in my head about them making large-scale positive impact going forward on Indian education.

And before I end, I must thank those who have been there since the very beginning – my family. I’d like to thank them and especially my late grandfather Suriender Bhargav for always believing in me.

I’d end with a few words that have, and continue to resonate with me:

“Even the wisest mind has something yet to learn, so keep learning.”

Share This Article
Leave a comment