BS (Data Science)
Undiscussed goes the miasma of anxiety and academic pressure befalling those who are capable yet unable to break past the nigh insurmountable walls set by entrance exams. Sujit AL was bogged down by such a miasma, taking a gap year to try and better his chances, and in such a time of uncertainty, the wind clearing the fog came without warning. Having enrolled into Sri Ramaswamy Memorial Institute of Technology, moving to Chennai, a completely new city for him, was the start of his difficulties.
During this transitory time, he discovered the IIT Madras BS Degree in Data Science and Applications. Even then, convincing his parents that Data Science was a legitimate career route proved arduous. With the help of his Physics teacher, he was finally able to win them over, and with a fee waiver to ease his entry, he enrolled.
His foundation and first year were marred by anxiety and depression. Navigating a new city, managing two degrees and dealing with academic workload were all pressure points that would eventually mould him into a more capable person. As he acclimated, he found Nirman, a pre-incubator for student-led startups at IIT Madras, where students can work on projects, and got involved in an opportunity under Rutag, a company led by one of his peers based on action in rural-technology. At the same time, he was offered a position as Chief Technology Officer of Zixi, a software-driven video company and due to time left over, he decided to take that as well.
Near the end of his Programming Diploma, he also found himself working under Professor S. Varunkumar, Mechanical Engineering Department, IIT Madras as a research intern aiming to implement Computer Vision Models using Raspberry Pi. However, as the degree continued to ramp up, he could feel it would be difficult to handle so much. He backed away from a few of his projects and ventures and focused solely on the BS and offline Degrees and the research internship. Currently in his Degree level, he has two patent papers in the processing through his works.
In between all of this, he also ventured into Paradox as a volunteer, then moving to becoming a coordinator in Paradox’24, where he would communicate with company representatives alongside a super coordinator and settle deals. At that time, he was selected as the deputy secretary of the AWS Cloud Society, on which he decided to focus on fully, helping the group reach over a thousand connections on LinkedIn and arrange meetups and summits with over a hundred attendees.
It is without a doubt that the Degree has had a major impact on his life. The information he gained from it and the exposure to contacts through Paradox allowed him to expand his ventures and seek new frontiers in his career.
As someone who was not confident or capable of meeting new people, now in his Third Year, he is working as a research intern with high confidence.
When someone carries the name of IIT, they also carry the weight and expectations attached to it, and Sujit knew that and chose to respect it, working hard to do his part of responsibility. Now, aiming to pursue research and placements, his life-journey echoes the pragmatic ideal of building projects in public, sharing knowledge and to keep meeting new people. The Degree and its collaborative environment inculcated those traits and he only proliferated them, pursuing and catching opportunities in whatever he dabbled into.
In the age of AI, skills of communication, community and management are learnt not through coding, but through actual experience.
~written by Krishneal Dutta
