“Results are never linear, but your efforts should be”
This is what I have observed and learnt in this field. I always tried keeping my efforts constant and I am glad it worked out! Like any other kid, I developed a relationship with computers early on. With a video game on the screen and that initial impression of Technology in my mind, there never seemed a better thing in the world. By the time I was around junior college, I had realized that it’s all about interest and passion. I had both for the field of technology. It was in 11th grade that I wrote my first program and it reinforced my interest for good. I mean seeing the impact of just a few lines lit a spark in me which is still burning bright towards technology.
At the same time, I was also sure that I wanted to study the software engineering side of it. I was ready to compromise with the level of college but not my choice of field. However, my resolution couldn’t shield me from the challenges that my early college life threw at me. With the majority part of college being theoretical, the practicality was something that we kept grasping at in vain. The coding culture was not good and competitive programming was out of the discussion altogether.
I knew that I needed to explore the field more and so, towards the end of my college, I joined Scaler’s course. Initially, even that wasn’t easy as I had college commitments too. I often ended up missing some of the live sessions and later watched their recordings. At the same time, lockdown happened and I got extra hours to practice as commuting to college wasn’t required anymore. During this time, not only did I clear my backlog with Scaler but also spent extra time practicing.
Towards the end of my 4th year, I gave a lot of interviews but as life would have it, I ended up getting rejected from 6-7 companies. From this phase in my journey to the current phase, when I am employed at Qualcomm, I have stuck to my Scaler mentor’s advice. He always told me that even if you are doing it all right with 100% effort, you won’t necessarily get immediate results. This advice has changed my life as it has helped me with the acceptance of the fact that even while you are putting constant efforts, you have to keep in mind that it might take a while to see results and that’s okay. All those months of practice during the online course and the subsequent guidance culminated when I got placed at Qualcomm through referrals. In my case, while not immediately, prospects did make their way to me eventually. Since then, my love for tech and software systems has only increased with much more to be learned yet.
Despite my academic and professional commitments taking a good chunk of my time, I have tried to keep up with my interests outside of this field too. I am a big sports enthusiast and like to play various sports, especially Cricket. I also enjoy going out on long trips. I feel it is important to keep up with your interests outside of this field too because these things help you deal with a lot of stress coming through this field.
Apart from this, if you are looking for takeaways from my story, I would have to concur with my mentor’s saying: “Results are never linear, but your efforts should be”.
At the same time, I was also sure that I wanted to study the software engineering side of it only. I was ready to compromise with the level of college but not my choice of pursuing IT. However, my resolution couldn’t shield me from the challenges that my early college life threw at me. With the majority part of college being theoretical, the practicality was something that we kept grasping at in vain. The course content being old and somewhat outdated didn’t help matters at all. Due to these things, the coding culture was not good and competitive programming was out of the discussion altogether.
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