Farewell……BIT Mesra
I am tempted to write this blog because college life has officially ended. There are a lot of things that pass through my mind when I look back, and this blog should be the perfect place to come back later to feel what a great journey it was.
The last 4 years in college have literally been a transformation portal which was responsible for completely changing my life and personality. There were ups and downs but I feel grateful for each of those experiences that happened.
There have been a few moments that I still remember, which I think have been the major reason for the person I am today. This blog will contain some of those.
In mid-2016, I got in BIT Mesra. That was a mixed feeling. I was sad because “IIT toh IIT hi hota hai”, and happy because there was a hope that it will turn out good in the end.
In my school days, I was an under-confident person, and to some extent not very proud of who I was. I was good in studies, but I wanted to be much more than that. I missed several opportunities for the things that I wanted to do due to my fear and insecurities. At the end of school, I looked back and I was not very happy with myself.
The thing that was going well was that I was going to a good college (at that time I had no idea). I got my first smartphone and laptop during this time. And for the first time, I was about to travel on a plane to come to Ranchi.
I came for admission to BIT Mesra for the first time with my father. Seeing the huge college campus, we were amazed. There were trees all around and it was a lush green environment. The air of the campus was not like the city air, it was fresh and clean.
After the admission, a hostel room was allotted to me. This was my first time living in a hostel too. It was a small room. My roommate was also from Jammu which made me a little comfortable in the new environment.
On my first day of college, I got to see all my IT classmates along with the students from the EEE branch. Mostly all were really excited. I still was struggling with the decision of joining BIT Mesra. In the English class, the professor asked for introductions from each of the students. I was hearing the names of majorly all the states. It was going well. Then came my turn. I stood up and introduced myself and told them that I was from “Jammu”. Literally half the class was looking back. LOL. To be honest, it felt a little good. Who doesn’t like a little attention? There are many fun instances which happened related to me being from “Jammu”, which is a topic for some other time.
In my whole college life, random incidents happened which I think were planned by the universe, which ultimately led to something unexpected.
In the first semester, there was this technical program called “Sophomores” launched by some folks at IIT Delhi. I randomly applied for it and got selected. It was said that on completing that program you would get a free t-shirt. That seemed exciting. This program had ambassadors in different colleges who were also mentors for the program. In BIT it was mentored by a senior. He provided me with relevant materials and tried to help me complete the program. This program forced me to complete the CS50 course and also learn GitHub. My GitHub user name at that time was “sarthak-sopho”. “sopho” came from sophomores. This was my first introduction to open source. After this program, I got really interested in software development.
In my first year, I used to literally go to every technical workshop possible. It included coding, robotics, electronics, IOT (not free and not worth the money paid. Do not go if not interested in electronics :P), etc because some senior told me to, try attend everything in the first year me as long as it is free of cost. Also, I auditioned for some cultural clubs too like Music Club and Dramatics society but got rejected. I think it was a blessing in disguise because most of my time was now going into doing technical stuff.
In the second semester (in January), while randomly roaming in the IC arena, I saw some people going to the Lecture Hall for a workshop. I had plans to go to some other place at that time. I asked some people about it and they told me that is was about something related to “Google”. I got excited and went. It was a workshop on “Google Summer of Code”. The workshop was basically an introduction to Git and applying to GSoC. The first part was Git, which I knew well (because of Sophomores) and felt very relaxed and confident because most others had no idea about it. Later they told us about GSoC and how prestigious it was. After the program, I went to the seniors who were ex-GSoCers, for some detailed guidance on how to start. They guided with the same advice everyone gives “Start exploring, start contributing”. On the very same day, I started to explore the codebase of “Mozilla”, and started looking at the bugs.
After 2 weeks or so, I was not able to understand much of it. There was huge confusion as each and every codebase I saw was so large to understand. Then I messaged one of my seniors in K14 batch Rishabh Saxena, to ask him whether it is possible for a fresher to crack GSoC. He said “Just try it. If you get selected, then great. If not, then you’ll get selected in the next year. Just go through the whole process once.” This was literally golden advice for me. I also had to install Linux and needed help for understanding some stuff. For that, I again got help from other seniors from K13 batch Ashish Gaurav and Rajat Goyal. I persisted a lot in finding an organization and trying to understand and contribute to the codebases. There was so much frustration, but I continued. So, on 4th May 2017, after going through the whole process, I got selected in the prestigious “Google Summer of Code”, which opened doors for many opportunities later on. After this experience, I understood the importance of asking for help when you require it. It can create a major difference.
In the first year, I was part of only one technical club IETE where I didn’t contribute a lot and left it after a few months. Other than this I was a part of Literary Society because one of my seniors told me that it will help me improve my public speaking skills. In Rostra, the literary fest of BIT Mesra, “Youth Parliament” was an event organized by LitSoc. In school, I always wished to be the part of Model United Nations event, but our school always used to take a particular set of students who were really good at debates and public speaking. I took part in “Youth Parliament”, which was totally out of my comfort zone. I didn’t really perform well in the event. But after the event, I felt really good and I got to meet some amazing people.
During one of the LitSoc events, I was asked to drop some stuff in some K13 senior’s room in Hostel-3. That senior was Krishna Rathi. At that time, I saw Amazon’s brand bottle at his desk. I asked him if he was an intern at Amazon. He said yes, and I talked to him for some time about some technical stuff and his college life. In that conversation, he said something that I still remember to this day. He said “Sirf coding hi mat karna puri college life. Try to develop yourself as a person also. College is not only about getting a job”. This line literally stuck like lightning and I did keep this mind throughout the 4 years of my college. It ultimately became a way of living for me.
Also, one of the things that I am very proud of doing was participating in Apoorv Dramzest. Literally no one expected that I would participate in that event. Why? You can read the experience here.
Other than this, I got into this habit of taking part in Hackathons in college. It is the quickest way of developing a project, to be honest. I used to form Hackathon teams with my friends mostly. We won many of the college Hackathons, and also ultimately went on to secure runners up position at Hack in the North, which is one of India’s largest student Hackathons. My friend Abhishek and two of my seniors were a part of it. The experience is documented here. Also, in the fourth year, we won the Microsoft Codefundo++ hackathon from our college, and that felt really great. My friends Ranjan and Shivam were my teammates in that. :)
The summer vacations after 2nd year were totally devoted to preparing for companies that would be coming to our campus for summer internships. After the vacations, I gave on-campus tests for just 4 companies Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, and Microland out of many companies that came for hiring interns. Didn’t get selected in any of these. I started doubting my hard work done in the previous years but didn’t back out. I ultimately realized that getting an internship/job at a particular company also involves luck.
I started applying off-campus to many companies. I was really desperate for an internship only because I didn’t want to spend my summer vacation again preparing for something that I already did before. (This is a very wrong attitude TBH :P)
In October, I got shortlisted for a Facebook interview, without any referral. I think it was because of GSoC. The interview preparation was very heavy. But I didn’t get through. Getting an interview from Facebook was a huge morale boost.
In November end, I got shortlisted for an off-campus interview of Intuit. Later in January’19, I had the offer letter of Intuit in my hand. I was very happy because Intuit is one of India’s best places to work at. I was really excited to join Intuit.
Even after getting an internship, I didn’t really stop applying to companies because I was well prepared at that time and really got addicted to giving interviews. It became fun at one point in time.
One day in February’19, I got an email from a recruiter at Amazon Berlin, about the position for Software Engineer Intern. I was amazed again because this time also I didn’t take any referral from anyone. I agreed to go through the whole interview process. There were 4–5 interview rounds in total including the online ones. The entire process took nearly 1.5 months to complete. The rounds went pretty well. I was hopeful that I’ll get through but also had a doubt because it was a foreign internship.
After a few days, I got an email saying that I excelled in the interviews and they were offering me a software engineering intern position at Amazon, Berlin. I literally could not believe it. I was going to GERMANY!!! This was a dream come true for me. It was supposed to be a 3 months long internship. They asked for my joining dates.
After a few days, I got the email that I could start my internship latest by June due to visa approval time. And my internship will get over by August end. This didn’t seem possible because my summer vacations usually end in the 2nd week of July. Irrespective of this fact, I went to the college administration for asking for permission. They simply declined due to a min. 75% attendance issue. I didn’t feel good for many days.
The recruiter tried to offer me a position at Amazon India, but I declined due to some reasons.
The internship at Intuit was awesome at another level. The work culture there is absolutely amazing. I got to meet some people who became very close to me like a family. I had documented my experience here.
After getting a PPO at Intuit, I did some other things also related to my career which I cannot mention here :P. Enough of internship and jobs. Let’s jump to clubs.
During my college life, I was really proud to be a part of two prominent technical clubs of college: IET and ACM.
I got into IET in my second year of college. I didn’t apply for it in the first year, because I missed the recruitment test. IET was really special for me. The main reasons for this were that I got the opportunity to organize and volunteer in technical workshops, which I absolutely loved and I got to meet some amazing seniors here. I met Subham Sanghai who is still like a mentor to me for literally anything and Rajat Jain who guided and inspired me a lot in terms of personality. There were other seniors too, who I learned a lot from and who became very close. Also, I got to know some of my batchmates and juniors, who were really nice and fun-loving people and also inspired me a lot. I was active in IET for approximately two years. In my final year, I got involved mostly with ACM.
ACM is a club where almost every computer science enthusiast of our college thinks at least once to get into. I was also once that student. I became the “Web Master” of ACM in the fourth year. Being a part of ACM, I managed an online event known as DevHack, which received a participation of 100 teams and around 250 commits. Also, we organized a Linux installation fest after so many years in college, which was a huge success as not a single “Windows PC” stopped working. xD
It was a good time in ACM because there were more responsibilities and ownership of the events, and also most of the people were my friends. The struggle with the administration is something that almost everyone in ACM K16 will remember for a long time. LOL
Organizing Hack-a-BIT in the final year was also a new experience, which is also a topic for some other time. :)
There are a set of people in everyone's life that influence your life in major ways. In college, you belong to a group of people, who you call your gang. I also have a gang of some very very talented folks who are literally the best in their respective fields and are also most importantly delightful human beings. I am sure they will perform great in their life. The time when all of us got placed in our respective companies, we changed the name of our Whatsapp group from “Berozgaar” to “Placed”. xD
It is said, “You Are The Average Of The Five People You Spend The Most Time With”. This quote felt so true during all these years. We helped and encouraged each other to be the best version of ourselves. And this is a rare quality you can find in very few people these days.
I would like to thank all my friends for all they have done for me. _/\_
The fondest memories that I have are basically just spending time with some special people. Some of them were my seniors, some of them were my juniors and mostly they were my friends. And in this process, I became very close to some of them and formed some deep friendships at some point in time. Some may not be an active part of my life today or might not be in the days to come, but they were the main reason why college life became so memorable.
Now that the college has ended, I feel a little sad and nostalgic. There was so much freedom and I got the opportunity to try so many things that I may not ever get to experience again. I nearly became the person I wanted to become when I started with this beautiful journey. I am still striving every day to become even better. And I am very satisfied and happy with it. I am also ready and excited about the new phase of life ahead and feel that BIT has prepared me well for that.
Thank you, BIT Mesra for happening to me!!!
You’ll be missed a lot. :)
Signing Off!!!
Sarthak Gupta — BE/10585/2016
Information Technology
