Like a lot of Indian middle-class families, I also aspired to be a civil servant after my graduation. I gave multiple attempts in the exam but was not able to qualify. I decided that I need to get out of this exam cycle and return to the IT industry that I left a few years ago. But the biggest problem was that I was not tuned to the new technologies and my programming skills were rusted. So, I decided to get into a boot camp where I can re-skill myself in a time-bound manner.
I heard about the Masai School from my friend. One of his friends with a similar profile like me was already a student in Masai and he provided genuine positive feedback about the course. I researched a bit about the Masai School and learned how the Income Share Agreement works. I looked upon some of the placements completed by Masai School and students were getting good placements. I was impressed by the fact that there is no upfront fee for the course and you have to pay only if you land a job above 5 LPA. Skilled web developers are a red-hot property in the market right now and I decided this profile would be suitable for me to transition back into the IT industry.
I joined the Masai School December batch and our batch started on 20th December 2021. On the very first day, I noticed that our batch with a strength of about 550+ students had participants from all over India. People were enthusiastic about learning programming from the remotest corners of India. I understood that this is the real power of online education which has democratized quality education to the remote levels of society.
Our first week was all about the introduction to the Masai School. The new batch was welcomed into the Masai family. We learnt about the idea behind Masai School and how it is inspired by the Masai Mara tribe of Africa. We had our orientation on the curriculum that would be followed in the next 30 weeks of our journey and also had a session on the placements of Masai School.
We were also introduced to the Instructional Associate (IA) system that is being followed by Masai School. The IA would be there to solve all the academic doubts of the students. We have daily evening standups with the IA where we can ask our doubts related to the course, assignments, or anything else.
The real course started Week 2 onwards. We were introduced to Javascript and the basics of computer programming. The approach followed is very good so that a person from non-CS/IT background can also learn programming. We have our daily assignments where we can get practical experience on the skills learnt that day.
Masai School also believes in the holistic personality development of a student and hence we have daily communication skills sessions. I realized that a person’s career success is hugely determined by his soft skills. A person who is not able to present his ideas clearly to his boss or even his team members cannot succeed in the long run even if his idea is great or he is a great developer. You will fall behind your peers who are good at communication as well as people skills.
Now, I come to the much-feared 9–9–6 routine that is followed by the Masai School. During my civils preparation, I was already following a similar routine so this was not a big issue for me. Although I was a little anxious about the routine initially as I did no programming for the past few years. But for any new student who is not used to such a disciplined routine would find it very difficult or even crazy. But believe me, the routine will eventually increase your productivity in the long run. I learnt a very important quote on the orientation day.
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.”
So I strongly believe that such a routine is necessary to build self-discipline if you really want to turn your goal into accomplishments.
So this was my two weeks experience at Masai School — a Transformation in Education. I am really looking forward to my Masai journey for the next 30 weeks. I am excited to learn the MERN stack and have hands-on experience by developing projects. I have made a new year’s resolution to become a Software Development Engineer this year and I am pumped up to convert my goal into an accomplishment after I complete my course at Masai School.