Like any other college student, my ultimate aim was to land a good high-paying job. And for the most part, I have achieved that.
But my journey has massively evolved my outlook. Don’t worry, I will get to it. But first, let me take you to the time when I made one of the most critical decisions of my life.
I completed my schooling from DPS, dwarka (Delhi). While usually everyone develops a fear of mathematics in school, I adored the subject. In 11th and 12th, I saw the similarities between solving coding problems and mathematics problems. This got me interested in solving more and more coding problems. I sat for the entrance exams and while I managed to secure a decent rank, it wasn’t enough to make it to the IITs or NITs of my preferred branch. I was conflicted at that time. I either had the option of taking a gap year and reappearing for entrance examinations or taking admission into a university that wasn’t my first, second or even third choice. You know a gap year is every student’s nightmare; every batchmate moves ahead of you and you haven’t even crossed the starting point.
I took my time in deciding as I knew the impact that either of the choices would have on my life. It was my brother’s final word that helped me decide. He recommended me against dropping a year. His only suggestion was to balance the gap by compensating in college. Consequently, I joined IP university and took my time to settle in. It was in my third year that I completely delved into the field of competitive programming and practiced a whole year to strengthen the concepts.
Well, my graduation went pretty smoothly but I knew that the lack of opportunities would create problems for me. Being an over-aspiring individual, I had always dreamt big. I am not bragging but I know if I set my mind on something, I will not relent before achieving it. However, the biggest problem was securing even a single interview with any giants. I cracked Amazon’s coding round but subsequent follow-ups didn’t come through. I was pretty bummed out by that. After these instances, I realised that my concepts required some work. That’s where Scaler Academy stepped in. I joined Scaler during its second or third batch I guess. At that time, no other platform had done what Scaler was doing. So naturally we were a little apprehensive about the course. But I knew I had made the right decision when the course began.
I think now the lectures are just 2-3 times a week. But for initial batches, when I had joined, the lectures were 5 times a week. On top of attending the lectures as a part of the online course, we also had assignments. I would try completing all the assignments and questions on the same day itself otherwise submissions used to get piled up. It would get very heavy with my job. I remember being so short on time that I would even miss my hours of sleep and compensate for it during my lunch breaks at work. I never complained since I knew what I had signed for.
Apart from the tight schedule, interviews were also a challenge. It wouldn’t come as a shock to anyone in this field when I say that the tech interviews are brutal. Even if you have the best knowledge and experience amongst all the candidates, there's a fair chance that you can still get rejected. But my outlook underwent a major transformation when I heard a guest speaker at Scaler. He said- “If you knock on 100 doors, 10 will definitely open for you.” This advice has stuck with me since then. Instead of taking failures as downturns, I started taking them as feedback.
I have been working at MakeMytrip for almost 2 years now. Even today, I believe that securing a good job doesn’t mean that your struggles are done with. One way or the other, challenges and struggles are going to follow you wherever you go. If you see them coming, you will deal with them much better of course. All my years of learning have also made me realise that the key to professional success is being a good engineer- someone who can make a difference. And if you are good at what you do, you will doubtlessly end in a good place.
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