Read about the experience of Hemant Goyal (Information Technology, Batch of 2009). Hemant currently works for KPMG in the IT Advisory Practice with a special focus on e-Governance Consultancy.
Ever since conceptualizing the Student Experience Section of NSITonline and forcing the other team members to collect experiences of NSITians I have been procrastinating to write about my own experience at NSIT and how it is relevant and closely associated with what I have achieved till now.
To give a short summary to those who don’t like to read too much, this is what I did during the 4 years at NSIT:
- Engaged with Innovision & Moksha teams during the first and second years of NSIT and worked throughout the night and supported my seniors in whatever capacity I could
- Worked as a volunteer for CSI-NSIT, Crosslinks, and worked on a small Artificial Neural Network Project under Dr. Shampa Chakravarty (it’s a different matter that I never took this project forward because of the elaborate Math involved)
- Worked under Anand Gupta Sir for various projects, and also managed to get a research paper published in an international conference. The paper was in the area of Databases, Privacy, and Access Control. I also conducted workshops at IIT Delhi and prepared tutorials and wrote software through which a new standard (XACML) could be learned
- Participated in the Microsoft Imagine Cup and our team managed to qualify the pre-final stage of the competition. I worked on a tool that involved Speech Synthesis & Speech Recognition (nothing fancy or research based, mind you)
- Started the NSITonline project (still contributing to it, and hopefully the results are nice), contributed to CSI-NSIT as its Chairman (organized events, improved its processes, etc)
- Worked as a volunteer for Indiaschool House Fund and helped the group manage its Web Operations
- Contributed to One Laptop per Child through the Google Summer of Code Internship, and Summer of Content Internship program. I worked on a tool for integrating speech synthesis into the $100 laptop (notice the connection between this project and the Imagine Cup Tool – I was starting to reuse my knowledge and experiences)
- Decided to apply to the Harvard Business 2+2 program – Got a chance to visit Harvard Business School for an interview – although I did not get accepted – it was a great experience nonetheless
- Got accepted at XLRI, PMIR but decided to postpone my plans of doing an MBA
- Got accepted at Aricent, and Deloitte Touch Tohmatsu LLP through campus placement and went to Deloitte’s Hyderabad office for an internship. I also managed to get an Internship with Yahoo when it came to campus, but I did not follow up on this opportunity as by now I had realized that I wanted to move into Management Consulting
- Made sure that I studied hard before all my exams and thankfully I managed to keep my aggregate percentage at around 75%
- Applied to KPMG, IT Advisory and got accepted through off-campus placement. I now work with KPMG, Gurgaon in the IT Advisory team. I am part of a team that has a special focus towards e-Governance Consultancy. To learn more about e-Governance you can visit : http://mit.gov.in/default.aspx?id=115
To put things precisely:
- Please make sure that you study hard and understand and appreciate your courses – The concepts ARE used in the industry. Please don’t get fooled by people who tell you that marks do not matter. They certainly do make a difference but then marks are also not everything
- Please utilize your 4 years at NSIT – You can experiment as much as you can and get an exposure to a lot of things – Everything you learn will be used somewhere or the other. You will realize that in the future. Your diversity of experience will also make your CV stand out during college placements, and will give your recruiter confidence about your abilities and skills
- Contribute to NSIT in your own way and help it grow. Take initiatives to improve whatever you can in your college. Try not to get into useless politics and bad-mouthing –utilize your time and spend it on constructive and not disruptive activities
- Work on your written, and spoken communication skills, and develop confidence in your abilities – it is absolutely essential to be able to clearly deliver your ideas – that too in the most confident and convincing manner
- Network – Connect with your seniors & juniors in NSIT, teachers, anybody and everybody. Every person can help you in some way or the other at some point of time in life. Learn to identify the strengths of your peers and try to utilize them, in return contribute your skills and always try to help whenever you get a chance to. Manage your relationship with your peers well – there is famous saying – don’t mess with the geek in your class; you might just end up working under him someday. Respect individuals around you.
- Never compromise on quality. Always deliver the highest quality content and force your peers to do the same.
- Now that you are in NSIT, don’t think that the journey is over. Remember the journey has just begun. Work hard, remain focused, have fun, and make the best of these four years
My apologies for writing an article with absolutely no flow of thought and just lots of points – that is how the four years at NSIT were – lots of experimentation. Hope that you found something useful in this article. All the best for your journey in NSIT!
Hemant