Mystory@Neeraj Agarwal: How my chosen course and college experience shaped my career

Mystory@Neeraj Agarwal

As every other student in our nation, Engineering was the predestined course for me. Even before I knew what it was all about, it had been declared and unanimously accepted by all (except me) that Engineering would be my course of study. Since the decision was now made, all I was expected to do was prepare and crack the prestigious JEE examination.

After months of hard work, it boiled down to the decision between the prestigious institutes and a course that I always wished to pursue. Computer Programming always intrigued me, ever since I was first introduced to JAVA programming in Class 8th. I developed such an interest in it that it did not seem like work anymore, it was something I truly loved and was passionate about. And as they say, if you pursue something you are passionate about, you never work for a day. So when it was time to make the decision, without a second thought I chose to pursue BTech in Information Technology at IIIT Allahabad. The reason was that IIITA is considered one of the premier IT institutes in the country and is known for its coding friendly environment and excellent facilities. And I must add, it has been a beautiful journey with the world of competitive coding and application development since then.

How I cracked college admission

IIIT Allahabad conducts its admissions through the Joint Admission Process with other NITs and Government Funded Technological Institutes. This process takes the JEE Mains rank as the criteria. Given the very few examinations for which I appeared (only JEE Mains, JEE Advance and BITSAT) to be precise, the options were limited. I had the option of ISM Dhanbad, the newer IITs and BITS as well but given my own branch preferences, and the reputation IIIT Allahabad has built for itself in the field of IT in the very short time span since its inception, I chose the BTech course of IIIT Allahabad.

My preparation like all the other IIT aspirants was done through coaching. But instead of going for a popular coaching far away from home, I decided to join one of the nearby coaching centres so that I could devote more time to my self-study and evaluation. I have always believed in self-study and continuous effort as the key to every achievement. I had prepared for the engineering entrance examinations in general, with some concentrated effort towards IIT JEE in particular.

Anyway, I believe destiny has a role and happily accept that IIIT Allahabad has proved to be a great decision for me.

What I gained from my college experience

The first semester of my college life was spent mostly in adapting to the new environment and coping with the pressure of performing well in exams. Being away from home for the first time and meeting new people, it was a drastic change and I both enjoyed and feared the transition. Nevertheless, having caught up with my new life in the second semester, I developed an interest in learning Web development which later helped in many projects and in my summer internship.

In the second year of my college, I worked quite hard and it paid off well, as I was offered two month summer intern in Morgan Stanley as Technical Analyst. Though a major part of my second year was devoted in playing Counter Strike and FIFA, I focused majorly on learning data structures and algorithms and also developed a keen interest in competitive programming. I took part in several online competitions and solved problems on various online judges to refine my algorithmic skills. Having qualified the ACM ICPC Amritapuri regionals 2015(the most prestigious set of competitive coding contests all over the World)and bagging the 55th position all over India at ACM ICPC Chennai Regionals 2016, I believe all my dedication and hardwork paid off. I participated in several other inter-college competitive coding contests as well, which proved to be an experience in themselves every single time. I gained both in knowledge and exposure with every passingevent. Some of the notable achievements in the department being that I was the Runner-up of Insomnia – 2015, the annual ICPC-Style programming contest conducted by MNNIT-Allahabad and ranked 151 in World Codesprint 6 out of 5000 participants, organised by HackerRank. In the final year of my college I have been involved in teaching first year students the basics of competitive programming to promote the culture and nurture freshers for better performance from our college in various National and International events.

Some subjects of my curriculum which intrigued me were Artificial intelligence, Discrete Mathematics, Design and Analysis of Algorithms, and Machine Learning.

College life affects every student and gives them some of the most important lessons for their life. It comes with its own set of setbacks and rewards and I can proudly say that now towards the end of my college life, when I look back at the time I have spent here, I have many fond memories and positive experiences to cherish. College has definitely helped me become more social and expressive and interact with different kind of people. I have also actively taken part in sports and various other casual and fun events organised during college fests. Through my college term I have worked on some projects on Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing and several useful applications including a portal for competitive coding for the juniors we are teaching. If given a chance, I would definitely like to work on better projects and real life applications which could benefit other people as well and help me learn new technologies.

About the Author:

I am Neeraj Agarwal, a final semester student of Information Technology at IIIT Allahabad. I am truly passionate about Computer Science, and have explored all aspects of the field including Competitive coding and application development. Apart from this, I love music and watching Anime. You can always find me doing any of the aforementioned things anytime and anywhere.