The job I aimed for and how I got it
Let me give you a quick background. I’m a CS Engineer from a modest yet successful college in India. I was born and brought up in the same country, in a small town named Tumakuru, 70KM off north of Bengaluru (The Indian Silicon Valley). My family is decent by financial standards and there’s nothing great about my upbringing except that I had great parents, really encouraging friends and a great extended family.
So, let’s get started.
Landing a successful job at the end of your engineering education is the dream we all carry with us right from day one. But let me tell you this, many a time, we tend to focus more on the event, the end-result of our successes than the process that goes behind it. In this article, I will lead you through the process that got me my first job thereby fulfilling first of my dreams instead of merely discussing the event.
1st year
I started my first year in the month of August 2016. Back then, my approach to education was that of taking down notes on every lecture religiously and slogging through them thereafter. I believed that it was enough to become a successful engineer. Although this wasn’t the way forward, it did have its own perks. I got to be the second-highest scorer of the first semester and the truth be told, it did give me a sense of achievement but only to be realized later that slogging notes and memorizing definitions don’t add to the cut.
There was a necessity to do more and go beyond academics. I did do a number of extra-curricular activities such as enrolling myself into a dramatics club and learning how to drive, but much of my first year was wasted into writing exams that were purely memory-based and in trying to fare them.
2nd year
Although the summer vacation preceding my 2nd year wasn’t great given my terrible miscalculation of a relationship and stupid indulgences. I was soon knocked into reality. I suffered from massive breakdowns and had to undergo stupid break-up recuperations. It wasn’t cool and it wasn’t going to be easy. There were scores of sour words exchanged and it did hurt a lot. But who was to foresee, that break up was a blessing in disguise.
I was able to gain greater control over my time after sailing through the melodrama and as a result, got to read a lot of amazing blog-posts and books on improving productivity, intrinsic value, self-worth, financial security, so on and so forth. I soon realized that the whole purpose of my enrolling in engineering studies was to be an engineer who shall solve problems. To make my parents proud. Give back to society in whatever way possible. It was not to cry over a passing cloud. I immediately put myself back into the equation and got my shit together.
Following the above debacle, my 2nd year took off. This time, I started looking beyond my curriculum (Not to be misinterpreted that I completely shunned it. I shall discuss it’s role soon. Everything has its own place, you see). I registered myself in a number of skill-building courses (particularly those intended at teaching computer programming and building apps) on Udemy and set myself a strict routine to adhere to. I took interest in the family matters which I previously seemed to have ignored and it gave me a sense of belongingness and completeness that we all yearn for as human beings.
My interest in education piqued as well, but not to slog notes or go bonkers in note-taking amidst a lecture, but to learn. I started seeing beyond academic rewards viz-a-viz grades/marks and took a genuine interest in the subjects I had enlisted in. From afar, they were all computer-oriented subjects, teaching you the nuances of it. But after the initial fear of the unknown, the books took a drastically different shape. There were life lessons embedded in them and every page so turned had something to teach me of great men, who had done a great many deeds despite having very humble beginnings. Meanwhile, I did learn a lot about my course as well and a great many credits go to the authors of those books for whatever little skills I have today.
I also started participating in several hackathons, events, and paper presentations. I won some, finished second in some other, and in some, I learned. I’m of a firm view that those were some of the much-needed stepping stones in the making of my skills in places beyond academics such as those pertaining to soft skills.
And then, the mighty third year arrives.
3rd year
Third-year was a very rigorous year. It was soaked in learning scores of things and building several elusive applications that were previously only a dream. I had started taking all the more interest in the subjects we were being taught and then, to be frank, I also did rant about them. You see, it’s intrinsic in humans to blurt our emotions and sulk when the going gets tough and I’ve been a victim of it as well. But once the dust settled, I promise you, I wasn’t the same person again.
In my college, 3rd year is supposed to be the placement year. Towards the end of the academic session of the 6th semester, companies start knocking our doors for in-campus placements and us, the measly students panic!
So as every other religious student, I had started my preparations for the placement as well. To be honest, it really started with the 6th semester but there certainly was an urgency being felt much before that.
During my early 5th semester days, I had enrolled myself in a beautiful course on flutter by Angela Yu (my favorite tutor so far). It was a great experience and I for once was learning the single most sought after skill of app development by many computer science students. The small incremental successes that I was tasting during this time had prompted me enough to undertake a freelancing project for a young startup later in my 6th semester. Little did I know, I would start making money (no matter how meager) way before seeing the light of my graduation. That was my first client-facing exposure and trust me, it wasn’t easy.
Anyways, all good and good, during the mid-5th-semester, we were informed of a supposedly upcoming company, or really a startup, to our campus for placements that really caught my attention. I wouldn’t want to disclose its name for security concerns and partly due to my obligations to their privacy mandate given that I’m still not their official employee. But it would suffice to know that it immediately became the dream of many and some called it quits right before it started, given the company’s rigorous requirements. I wasn’t sure of myself either. It felt too far high to be reached easily yet challenging enough to make one uncomfortable.
And then the circus began. We all started preparing for it. I particularly concentrated on my key lacking areas and also indulged myself in strengthening my core skills. Apart from the said impetus, there were other important factors that came into the picture such as the insights about the company from the seniors and listening to paltry knowledge about the same, held by my friends that added to the push. We all wanted to get in and take the first major leap into our careers.
Well, for over the next 3 months, we did prepare as well as write several examinations simultaneously. We were feeling more battered and nervous with each passing day. Our 6th semester (yes, we were in 6th semester then) was concluding soon and with its conclusion, it would bring the dance of placements.
And then, on one fine day, we receive a mail from our placement department to immediately fill out a form hosted by the above-mentioned company. It was a plain form, trying to gauge our honest traits and intrinsic compatibility with a startup environment. It asked us such things as our 3 favorite books and our take on work-life balance. It took me good 45 minutes to fill the form to my satisfaction and then muster the courage to hit submit. And woof. There goes the form and a week-long wait begins. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Results arrive and I was selected! It felt great to have successfully cleared the round one but it felt terribly bad to see some of my friends not being selected as well. They were good and absolutely deserved to be there.
Well, moving ahead, we then were invited to take an online coding test from our respective homes. This again was an eliminatory round and once again, it felt bad to see more of my friends being rejected.
Fast forwarding, I had to sit through 4 more rounds of the interview process which were conducted on the company premises, and to receive an offer at the end of such long fateful wait was insanely mind-numbing. Seven of us were selected from our college and we sighed a deep breath of relief. The struggle was real, but the result: far more rewarding and fun.
Role of family
Family is the single biggest blessing anyone can ever get no matter how broken it is. If you have one, you got to respect it. My family, in particular, was very supportive of my endeavors and had mostly been very open-minded about very many things. I have had the liberty to grow and see much at the very early stages of my life and I really believe that it was very important. Like all, even my family had several ups and downs, but who is to say? If there aren’t any hardships in life, the cruise-ships don’t feel that awesome, do they?
Role of friends
I’m a firm believer in the saying:
You are the average of the five people you spend your most time with and to be successful, you got to get them right.
My friends have been amazing support system all across my non-familial life and I’m ever so thankful to them for being there, filling in the gaps in my life, and being typical arses as every other stupid friend in this world is! 😆😆
Role of academics
If nothing, my academia was very successful in introducing me to some of the best subjects and courses in my industry. I’m very happy that unlike our initial beliefs that an institute shall teach us the latest and greatest technologies, my college was adamant about teaching us basics right. They did a great job of making sure we learn the fundamentals through and through! I’m really thankful for that!
Well. That was my journey. There is more to it than I can manage to type but what’s with the details if not lived thyself? So go ahead and grab the experience yourself.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope it added some value to your life. 😁
