Coding my way to success

I had been into competitive coding and web development from Class VI. At UPES, I got the opportunity to sync my passion with my career and become a Software Development Engineer. This is my story

I enrolled in UPES in 2016 for B.Tech. Computer Science with specialisation in Open Source and Open Standards program. Currently, I have an offer for Software Development Engineer from Samsung R&D, which I got through campus placements at UPES.

From my school days, I was fascinated with computer science. I had been into competitive coding and web development from Class VI. My love for computers grew with every passing day. When it came to choosing a college for engineering, the obvious choice was UPES.

UPES offers a wide variety of specialisations in Computer Science, a key differentiator from other colleges in India.

During my time at the university, I had several enriching experiences. The campus is always buzzing with activities. I also made some great friends whom I know I will stay in touch with forever. I tried new things and always got support from my peers and faculty.

I was exposed to entrepreneurship in college itself. We have an E-cell in UPES, which provides incubation support to budding entrepreneurs and start-up ideas by students. In addition to this, we also have student chapters and clubs for both extra-curricular and co-curricular activities. In the 4th year, I was the Student Placement Representative (SPR), which gave me a chance to test my skills as a leader. While I was the SPR, I learned many professional skills, which played a key role in shaping me for bagging multiple placements offers from the college.

UPES’ faculty constantly motivates the students to do their very best in every endeavour. Dr. Rajeev Tiwari, my mentor at UPES, is incredible, and the lessons he gave will stay with me forever. I did all my college projects under him, and even when the road ahead was not clear, he made sure, the students kept going and create niche quality projects. The projects I did were always selected among the top three of the respective semesters.

UPES’ Career Services (CS) team was just like a family to me. We spent most of our time of final year with them. They supported every student during the placement season, which in my understanding, was the toughest time for each one of us. Mr. Aditya Singh of the CS team was especially admired by the students for his continuous assistance.

The transition to the online mode of education was smooth at UPES since it already had the collaboration with Blackboard, which had online lectures for every subject. Online tests were also conducted on that platform, and we were acclimatised to it from the first day of our college. We were also given access to all the courses on Coursera, which is a well-known global platform for online courses, specialisations, nano-degrees, and professional courses.

Hence, in a nutshell, UPES made sure that this COVID situation did not hamper the overall growth of the students. I will forever be grateful to my university.

(The writer is an alumnus of the UPES School of Engineering, B.Tech. Computer Science, Class of 2016-2020)