BS (Data Science)
Every year, students across India are asked to make a choice. Mathematics or Biology. Engineering or Medicine. For most, that decision marks the beginning of two very different careers. BVS Madhavi never believed those worlds had to remain apart. Medicine hadn’t been her first choice. Yet once she found herself there, curiosity kept pulling her towards technology. She wanted to understand algorithms with the same depth that she understood anatomy. When her mother came across the IIT Madras BS Degree in Data Science and Applications, it felt less like another qualification.
So, while pursuing her MBBS at Andhra Medical College, she began another journey. Looking back, even she laughs at the improbability of it all. “I seriously don’t know how I even did all of it.” Managing overlapping examinations, assignments, and two entirely different academic worlds often left little room to breathe. Yet somewhere within that demanding routine, something unexpected happened.
“I think a lot of different neurons must have grown in these last four years,” she jokes.
It is a light-hearted remark, but one that captures her journey rather well. The BS Degree changed the way she approached problems. Medicine and technology, often treated as separate disciplines, gradually began to complement one another. Over time, she found herself increasingly drawn to the intersection of the two, eventually building a career in Clinical AI. Today, she works as a Junior Clinical Scientist at Nference, generating real-world evidence in Oncology.
This transformation, however, wasn’t confined to academics. Madhavi speaks just as enthusiastically about everything that happened outside of it. The confidence to lead, network, and step outside her comfort zone grew alongside her technical skills. As the Event Head of ‘Dream2Dance 4.0’ during Paradox 2025 and the Outreach Head of ‘Pravaha’, the IIT Madras BS Degree Dance Society, she discovered that bringing people together could be every bit as rewarding as solving technical problems.
Paradox became more than an annual fest. It became the place where she rediscovered parts of herself that years of entrance examinations and medical school had quietly pushed aside. Dance, debates, basketball, conversations with strangers, and friendships formed across disciplines reminded her that education is as much about people as it is about subjects.
That same instinct to work across disciplines soon found expression beyond campus. Her interests expanded from medicine and AI into space medicine, leading to two research publications with the International Astronautical Federation and an invitation to present her work at the International Astronautical Congress, Sydney. Along the way came opportunities such as being selected twice as a Harvard HPAIR delegate.
If there is one lesson she wishes she had learnt earlier, it has little to do with grades.
“For the first two years, I focused mostly on theory,” she reflects. “Then I realised I should have been building more real-world projects.”
That insight now shapes the advice she offers every learner entering the programme. Network with people, seek internships early. Build solutions for problems that genuinely matter to you. The coursework, she believes, is only the beginning. Real learning starts when knowledge meets the world outside it.
The choices that seem absolute at seventeen rarely remain so for life. Madhavi’s story is proof that the most meaningful careers are often built not by choosing one discipline over another, but by finding the place where they meet. Somewhere between Medicine and ML, she found exactly that.
~written by Shambhavi Shekhar
