Having had us build a website of our

Having a strong predilection for mathematics from my elementary school days, I always thought of pursuing a career wherein I get to use and grow my logical skills.

And what’s more fitting than the field of Computers. With that notion in mind, I enrolled into a Web Design & Development workshop, introduced by my friend, being held in our city. It taught me the fundamentals of web, mainly HTML/CSS and by the end of the workshop the instructor had us build a website of our own and have it hosted on a free server.

Fascinated by the power and reach of the Internet or the Web, I thought of honing my skills further and therefore built a free website for my school, for which I received an appreciation from my school principal and it made me an overnight star in the school. From then on my love for computers has been growing exponentially. The affection towards computers had left me with no other but one stream to choose for my undergraduate studies, i. e. Computer Science. So, I chose  Amity University, the no. 1 private university in India, to help me excel in the field of Computer Science and Programming and it surely lived up to my expectations. The well-built curriculum was so effectual that it not only helped me get acquainted with the theoretical aspects of computers but also fostered me to implement them practically.

From the very childhood, I always had a knack for spoken languages, but during my bachelor’s I realized that my skills of using programming languages was nothing short of adept. Programming Languages like C, C++ were two my favorite ones, so I always preferred using these languages for problem solving and implementing Data Structure in college Lab sessions, which were, by the way, my favorite time of the college. Pleased by my performance, my lab teacher suggested me to partake in some coding competitions, so I did and lived up to their expectation by winning 1st prize in two competitions in a row. Additionally, I won one more in the consequent semester. The enthusiasm for Programming languages was not limited to college schedules, I actively participated in coding competitions hosted on websites such as CodeChef, Hackerrank, etc, to refine my knowledge of basic data structure such as, Stack, Queue, List, Tree, Graph.

As the difficulty grew, I had to learn some advanced programming concepts like Recursion, Algorithms, Code Optimization, Dynamic Programming. Therefore, I enrolled in an online course Algorithm Design and Analysis on Coursera. com and completed the course by scoring good grades in the final assessments. Moreover, in my 3rd year the motivation for coding inspired me to create a coding group, named ‘ BugCoder’, in my college, for which I gathered all the coding enthusiasts and instilled the zeal for group coding. To my astonishments, the online course and the group aided me in improving my performance in competitions. Now to explore the vast expanses of the computer field, I interned at Easyway PDDN IT Services after 2nd year, where I underwent training on Qt(C++) and then later worked on developing a cross platform GUI for a Point of Sale system. This experience gave me my first insight into working in a professional setting.

The knowledge I gained during the internship proved useful in my Pre-Final year project: Amity Examination System— a cross-platform Desktop application using Qt(C++), XML, TCP/IP —which I aspired to build since 2nd semester. Impressed by my project the professors asked me to use the application in conducting pre-placement preparation tests by making me the coordinator of the Pre-Placement tests. Later on, as part of my curriculum I built a messaging app called Babble Messenger for my final year project. The app was built specifically for Android platform, which made use of Java, PHP/MySQL and Google Cloud Messaging API. The main aim of this project was to improve the communication between team members working on a single project convenient. Apart from programming languages, subjects like DBMS, Operating Systems, Theory of Automata also interested me a lot. My scores in these subjects reflect my interests of these fields.

One other subject which caught my attention was Artificial Intelligence and from here onwards I thought of learning the bits and pieces of this vast field. So, after my Undergraduate degree, I wrote a review paper on “ Introduction to Artificial Intelligence & Associated Technologies” which discusses the meaning and applications of Artificial Intelligence along with its merits & de-merits. The paper has been accepted for publication by International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication (IJRITCC). I joined Virtusa full-time in November 2016 and first went through their training in Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

Here, I worked with RPA technology in a tool named Automation Anywhere that is used to automate tasks that earlier required human interaction. The tool really interested me and I started exploring the tool. There were then some assignments based on the RPA technology, wherein my performance was one of the best in the batch of 60-70 employees. After the training period, we were assigned with some final assignments to solve real-world corporate problems and I topped the final assessments. After having proved myself in the training period, it was time for some real projects. Impressed by my skills, the trainer recommended me a Support-cum-Development project where I needed to handle development as well as interact with the client.

I became a bridge between the company’s development team and the client team. This helped me learn how to interact with clients and understand their business requirements and then translate them into technical specifications. This significantly improved my communication skills. There are days when I am inundated with the work and can’t tick every problem off my to-do list. This is how I learned about prioritization and organization. My manager also gave me a ‘ Knowledge Transfer’ task wherein I had to teach my juniors all that I had learned. This task further increased my learning as I could reflect back on my knowledge. It also further honed my leadership abilities.

Now that I’ve learned a few programming languages, data structures, algorithms, automation, I believe I’m ready to grasp the knowledge of the field of Artificial Intelligence and I am with a strong opinion that your university is going to help me learn and excel in the field of AI. 5 years after my Masters, I see myself as a part of the Artificial Intelligence Product team of any of the tech giants like Google and Facebook. I’d also like to work with Start-ups aimed at improving education using artificial intelligence.

In the long run, I intend to pursue the path of entrepreneurship in collaboration with other like-minded professionals. My aim is to set up a product-oriented startup with focus on developing applications for various platforms. We would be catering to a suite of products for the education industry. I also plan to set up a platform where best of the best professionals can share their knowledge, so that beginners from anywhere with very few resources can also access quality education and guidance. Achieving this career goal is going to take a lot of knowledge, a very strong skill-set, some clever networking, and the knack of seizing the right opportunities.

I see University of Southern California as a means to gaining all of these. The curriculum at USC aligns well with my career interests. I’m particularly excited to take classes in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Science. I also look forward to working with Prof. Kevin Knight.

Besides the curriculum, I look forward to interacting with a global cohort of classmates. There is a lot to learn from them. A Master’s degree at USC will allow me to forage friendships and build networks that will prove useful both professionally and personally. Further, USC offers me the opportunity to connect with recruiters and managers from global firms. I wish to make full use of this opportunity as this will be a first step to kick-start my global career.