Protégé Mentorship: SDE

In continuation with our Placement Mentorship Series, we bring to you Karthik Iyer (Chemical’20, IIT-R) who shared his journey and experience and finally getting placed with a job of his dreams.

EVALUATION AND HEADNOTE

Q. What all points enabled you to have an edge in comparison to your other peers in that field?

I had a few projects and GSoC on my resume. I didn’t do anything just for the sake of it. I followed my interests and explored the domains I liked. I made sure to keep my concepts clear. This helped me answer the questions convincingly and get my point across.

Q. What all points can strengthen the resume? And how can we, as students develop it now?

Internships and projects will strengthen your resume. Try to avoid repetition and mention projects that show the breadth of your skills. Keep the descriptions short, with just enough terms so that the interviewer has things to talk to you about. In the specific case of software development, open-source contributions or open-source programs like GSoC and outreachy are a great option. If this doesn’t work out contributing to open-source projects unofficially, also has value. Try reaching out to startups or people who can provide freelance work. This might be a more viable option initially instead of applying to corporates.

Experience Buzz

Q. How much do you agree/disagree with the fact that ‘CGPA matters despite not pursuing one’s branch as a Career’ & why? In case one’s interest doesn’t match with his/her branch of study, how should one manage to pursue the same under the constant pressure of maintaining a good CGPA?

I used to worry a lot about this initially. But I realized later that worrying about CGPA and your interest is not going to help. If you’re not interested in your branch, it’s best if you direct most of your efforts to getting better in the field of your interest. There’s no doubt that maintaining a good CGPA is beneficial. It’s at least an indicator that you can work well and get results even if the work is not what you prefer. If you have goals in your mind, you can decide what CGPA you want to maintain. And accordingly put proportional efforts into your academics and your interests. In case you want to pursue graduate studies, a higher CGPA will be very helpful. But if not, somewhere in the range of 8.0–8.5 will keep you in the safe zone and enable you to pursue whatever you want without thinking too much. Most of you must’ve realised after your first year that studying every day and solving loads of questions is not the only way you can score. Most of you probably study for exams a week before. Honestly, it’s not difficult maintaining a decent CGPA with this method. You just need a little bit of discipline and balance. Try not missing classes and complete assignments on time. Half your work is done. If you do this and study a week before exams, you’ll be able to get a decent grade and find loads of time to devote to your other interests and skills.

On a related but different topic, try not to be very rigid with your interests in the beginning. I wish I had understood this earlier on. I was interested in a domain and couldn’t find a lot of guidance from peers or seniors. I tried exploring it on my own and later, approached a professor from the CSE department for a project. I wanted to get some experience and explore the research side of things too. Unfortunately, the professor didn’t work in the same domain but was ready to offer work in a related area. I let go of the opportunity. I realized that at least at the beginning of your learning phase you should stay a little flexible and narrow your focus once you gain some experience.

General tips for the readers

It’s important how you present yourself in an interview. A lot of people are technically strong, but you also need to know how to navigate through the interview. It’s important that you drive the interview and not the other way round. Mention terms and concepts in your answers only if you know enough about them and can elaborate if asked to. If you’re not proficient enough in something, you shouldn’t hesitate to let the interviewers know that your knowledge in the domain is limited. Faking an answer is not going to help you. Instead, you can tell them that you’re not sure but you can try to answer according to your limited understanding of the topic.