I was born and brought up in a very small town in UP. While the level of schooling and education was adequate, the guidance for taking up engineering as a career option wasn’t. Whether it was coming to NIT, Delhi in 2014 or ending up at one of the greatest banking technology companies, I had to do it all by myself eventually.
Before beginning my graduation from Delhi, I had done my schooling at Shamli, UP. I knew that I wanted to take up engineering as a career choice but the guidance of actually reaching there was totally absent. There wasn’t even any concrete coaching option for preparation for entrance exams. I prepared on my own and got into NIT. However, I had to compromise on my course choice as I got into Electronics and communication technology in NIT. It was a difficult decision as, since grade 10, I had an interest in computer sciences majorly and wanted to pursue it. Letting go of this nurtured dream and settling for ECE was one of the hardest things I had to do but that’s life I guess.
I accepted whatever I got and decided that I would continue learning computer science on my own. But the college work of ECE didn’t involve computer sciences much and I hardly got extra time to explore my interests. For the initial three years of graduation, I had to sever my interest in computers completely and focus on what the course mandated. But you know, your wishes have their own magic of making their way to you. In the last year of graduation, I was able to transition my course to computer sciences.
Rediscovering my interest in computer sciences made my graduation great. I still remember that during that time, I was working on a weather app. It wasn’t something extraordinarily new or huge, but developing it without having any formal computer science background was an achievement for me in college.
After completing my graduation, I first worked at Fidelity International for about a year and then worked at Talentica. Within just a few months of working at Talentica, I realized that my learning still has a long way to go because I felt under confident while dealing with a lot of aspects of my job role. My time at Scaler helped me gain confidence by practicing. It also helped me gain a sense of autonomy while choosing my companies. I mean before the course, I settled for any company as long as I could crack the interview. But now, it is the other way around. I don’t need to worry about cracking the interviews and in fact, I can choose the companies by considering things that matter the most to me like the work culture and environment of the company. This kind of autonomy has further reinforced my confidence. And honestly, you need this autonomy to be satisfied with your job.
My only regret is that I started upskilling after a few years of working in this field. I feel it is important to start early. To become good at what you do, you have to work hard and go beyond what everyone else is doing. Whether you choose to do that earlier or later in this journey will of course be your choice. According to me, beginning earlier is better as it makes the process of reaching your dream companies much faster and smoother!
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