BS (Data Science)
Three days before the interview for this article, Diya Nathwani was in a room where a million-dollar deal was being signed. It was a coincidence, she says, almost laughing it off – the same way she laughs off most of the remarkable things that have happened to her. At 23, Diya is a creative consultant, an IIT Madras BS in Data Science and Applications student in her final term, and somewhere in between all of that, a person still figuring it out.
Coming from a Tier-3 city, Diya didn’t have a lot of exposure growing up. In fact, she joined the degree because of her brother.
“I joined this program just for the sake of it because my brother was joining it… that one month, I was so immersed in learning. It got me hooked.” She sailed through the qualifier exam, but perhaps the most profound takeaway was the fact that it gave her an equal opportunity to prove her merit. Diya was part of the first batch of the degree, having a front row seat to the genesis of Paradox and some of the societies that make the degree what it is today. “I watched the degree grow from a baby,” she says, looking back fondly.
“It was the beginning of a journey I didn’t even know I was starting.”
It started with a short film. Raahat, the Mental Health Society, was putting one together on the topic of depression for Paradox, and they needed someone to act, so Diya sent in an audition tape without thinking twice. She had thoughts about the script, and she shared them. To her surprise, they listened. “They were so open to my participation that they actually made me the scriptwriter.”
What followed was a deep dive into everything Paradox had to offer. She went from scriptwriter to content coordinator to content super coordinator, somewhere along the way also helping organize Paradox in Margazhi. She describes those days with a kind of exhausted fondness, “We wouldn’t sleep the whole night. We would be working, dedicated, and at the same time enjoying.” She left that chapter of her life with something she hadn’t arrived with – the confidence that she could actually do this, not just as a hobby, but for real.
She was managing design teams, guest lists, sponsors, and hospitality, often all at once. By the time Paradox wrapped up, something had quietly shifted. The encouragement she’d received, from peers and professors, had made something click. Writing wasn’t just something she was good at. It could be something she built a life around.
The first step was an internship at IITM’s International Centre for Clean Water. From there, each move grew out of the last, content editor at a private firm, then strategist at an AI startup, and then eventually, out on her own.
But ask Diya what IITM actually gave her, and she doesn’t lead with the opportunities, though they changed her life. She leads with something more reflective.
“You are on your own. You can make this degree your goldmine, but it completely depends on you.”
For Diya, it meant not having to make the tough choice between Data Science and Creative Writing. For someone from a Tier-3 city with no blueprint to follow, that freedom wasn’t intimidating.
Diya doesn’t have a neat plan for what comes next, and she’s made peace with that. “I let life happen to me,” she says. “That’s how I started with IITM. That’s how I still am.” And honestly, given everything that she’s achieved so far, it’s hard to argue with that approach.
– written by Nikita Nanduri
