BS (Data Science)
The interplay between concepts and domains has been a historic originator for ideas that change how we observe the world around us, and Veekshitha Thamanna was one such person who could perceive that overlap. Coming from a background of Commerce, having completed her B. Com and pursuing a Chartered Accountancy, she would soon come across a genesis of creative vision. Upon reading an article shared by her father, she stumbled upon the IIT Madras BS Degree in Data Science and Applications. While it is not central to her domain, she could visualize intelligent taxation systems, business intelligence systems, automated audit systems, fraud detectors and much more.
Having her interest piqued, she enrolled and the first few months followed a familiar rhythm of lectures, assignments, and quizzes.However, when the programme gathered momentum, there would be times when her schedule looked impossible. She would have an exam from 10 to 12 in the morning and a quiz at 4 in the evening, or how she ended up taking three projects in her last diploma term and had back-to-back Vivas. She persevered and emerged transformed, now far more adept at balancing her time, schedules, and subjects.
Those same projects became a foundation for how valuable hands-on experience can be. Pararox’23 amplified that experience; she was surprised by the diversity of people from all kinds of backgrounds and found herself inculcating something from every conversation. To broaden her horizons, she took part in events like ‘Pitch Perfect’ and ‘Research Summit’, letting her meet many new people and make friendships that would last.
Through this journey, she understood that she would have to surround herself with people who knew more than her.
Continuing on from her networking activities, she decided to step out of her comfort zone and became a part of the Civil Services Society. Therein, she got elected as an organizing wing subhead and later, as the joint-secretary. She even dabbled in management roles, conducting events like ‘Hack For Change’ in Marghazi’24 and as part of the Paradox organizing committee, held ‘Dream2Dance 3.0’ and 4.0 in 2024 and 2025 respectively.
Her interests grew broader and she began looking up tutorials of Cloud Computing. With enough knowledge and confidence under her belt, she enrolled in the Azure Learning Series of 2025, wherein she got the best project award for Vision AI Powered Diabetic Retinopathy Prediction. She continued her journey, taking part in workshops on Google Cloud and Generative AI. The pace was demanding, but worthwhile.
Her curiosity eventually led her to NPTEL, where she completed courses such as ‘Data Mining’, ‘AI: Constraint Satisfaction’, and several HSMG electives, each adding both depth to her understanding and strength to her professional profile. Her future plans remain loyal to her initial vision as she continues building projects and slowly integrating her two domains, viewing them as complementary and laying the foundations to become the bridge between ML and Finance.
As someone who found much of herself in the social world, she advises her fellow learners to keep putting themselves out in the world and keep building up their soft skills, communication and networking, something many don’t do until their graduation years.
At the same time, hand-on experience will always be a greater hallmark for knowledge than memorizing theory, and in her own words, “Action beats Thought.”
~written by Krishneal Dutta
