Jatin Gupta from NU’s Class of 2020, BTech CSE talks about what it took to make it to IBM as a Data Scientist

I would take this opportunity to both relive some of my fond memories of campus life as well as share some of the insights from my time at NIIT University (NU) and as a professional.

At NU, the great relationships I formed with fellow students, faculty, and the leadership are among unforgettable experiences and opportunities. I feel the current batch is deprived of this key source of learning – we had the opportunity of freely moving around and having lots of interactions all day. On the other hand, the swift setting up of a virtual campus is something NU should be commended on. The email contests, webinars, social media use and online conversations with faculty and leadership are great efforts towards making up for the physical interactions.

Hopefully the restrictions will lift soon and the current batches will make it to campus to enjoy everything it has to offer. Personally, I found the walks on the Mobius Ring pathway very calming, and my regular walks there resulted in great friendships.

Students can look forward to picking up many skills in addition to their degrees. The most valued skills I picked up at NU included:

1. Adaptability: This brings me to recall the saying of the great author –  Leon C. Megginson: “It is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent but the one most responsive to change.” Today’s hot skills will be obsolete five years from now. Adapt, pick up latest skills and constantly learn.
2. Communication skills: Overlooked by many in the technical field, but an essential workplace skill.
3. Endeavour to learn: The moment we stop learning, we hit a saturation point. One should not stop learning, especially in a field such as mine, which is constantly evolving.

Currently, I work as a Data Scientist at IBM. I work with the Cognitive Business Decision Support team on projects in Statistical Analysis, Exploratory Data Analysis, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Natural Language Processing. For the past three months, I have been working from home and I expect this will continue longer. IBM is a company that works very collaboratively and we have moved to using virtual workspaces and collaboration tools.

I wish the current students well and hope they develop a niche for themselves, mastering whatever they choose to do. They should also try to get maximum industrial and volunteer experience while at NU. This is also a time for exploring resources online and perhaps even undertaking additional certifications in their fields.