‘Kabiliyat hai toh success milne se koi rok nae sakta’ -- these words by Sushant Singh Rajput are how I describe my foray into the field of engineering. I come from a business family of Surat, and before me, nobody had ventured into this field. Everyone in my extended family stuck to joining the business -- doing what they knew and where they had a lot of experienced people to guide them. I would have probably done the same, if it hadn’t been for a speech that I heard before my 10th exams.
My coaching sir had invited his ex-student, who was studying at IITB, to talk to us about engineering. His words inspired me to take this chance. So when I got admission in BITS Goa, I felt ecstatic. But honestly, I hadn’t thought beyond that. I had no idea what I wanted to study, and while filling the form I just selected electronics as my preferred branch based on my marks.
My first year was spent on exploring Goa and enjoying my freedom after working hard for 2 years. In my second semester, we had to learn C programming -- I started coding after that, and there was no looking back for me. I would spend hours practicing it. But when we started our core subjects for electronics in the second year, reality sunk in. I hated the topics -- it felt like a drag. The only thing that was keeping me sane through this was my new found interest in coding.
After much deliberation, I decided to continue with electronics just for the sake of the degree, but I wanted to build my career in computer science. So I asked my friends for platforms where I could practice, and they suggested a few. I found a few other platforms too, but nothing was organized.
A couple of weeks later, I got an email from our student president regarding a coding bootcamp organized by Scaler Edge. I thought why not, and registered for it. Naman Sir and Abhimanyu sir conducted it, and I was really impressed! I was still looking for a good online learning platform to study the basics of computer science, so I spoke to my senior, who had been a teaching assistant at Scaler Academy 2 years ago. He recommended joining their new Scaler Edge program highly, so I enrolled for the August batch.
I must say that Scaler Edge lived up to the high praise I had heard. The curriculum was exactly what I needed -- well planned, and well executed too. The instructors were all great, but Kshitij sir’s classes were excellent. The way he taught the concepts was so amazing that I didn’t even need to study it again -- it got fixed in my head. I could directly solve problems after his lectures.
Vibhor Vimal was the TA assigned to me, but he feels more like a friend. He constantly keeps motivating me, and pushes me to always do better. He keeps reminding me of the importance of managing my time between my college studies and Scaler course. But what I like most is how prompt his replies are whenever I ask him any doubts. It helps me continue with the problem without breaking the flow.
In my first session with my mentor, Ronit Kumar from Philips, he asked me what I wanted to do. I told him that I wanted to become a web developer -- I want to develop an app that will make lives easier. But I wasn’t aware of the many different paths that I could take -- full stack, dev ops, back end, front end -- he explained these tech fields to me so that I could make an informed decision when the time came.
Another thing that I feel is invaluable is the community that I get to be a part of at Scaler Edge. So far I have only interacted with my batchmates, and everyone I have spoken to is doing something different and is highly ambitious -- and that is very inspiring. The peer group is an excellent way of building connections not just for now, but also for our future.
Scaler Edge provides a proper path -- I was doing things randomly before -- but now I feel like I am finally on track. Frankly if I had not joined Edge, I wouldn’t be coding at all. I hardly get any time as an electronics student, but because of Scaler, I have a disciplined routine that keeps me on my toes, and focused.
Before I joined this program, I was a 3 star coder on HackerRank, and last week I achieved a 6 star rank -- I could achieve my short term goal in just 3 months, and I felt so proud of myself!
I have been asked about Scaler, and I tell everyone that I love the two Cs the most -- the curriculum and the community.
I would like to end this with Anshuman sir’s words that he told us in our first session -- 'if you work on getting 1 percent better every day, you will become 37 percent better at the end of a year.' I have these words pasted on my wall, and I look at them everyday. Thank you Anshuman sir, for giving me my life mantra!
