The art of learning constantly - Abhishek Das, PGP DSBA

Data Science has grown immensely over the last few years. Upskilling in this domain can prove to be very helpful in your career. Read about Abhishek’s journey with Great Learning’s PGP Data Science and Business Analytics in his own words.

I come from a humble middle-class family, my parents have always taught me to be honest and humble as a person. They also taught me to be helping and caring for others and I learnt from them that career and success in one’s professional life should not come at a cost of sacrificing the above. As far as my professional background is concerned, I did my B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering, 16 years ago and currently I have more than 15 years of
experience in IT and related fields. I have worked in multiple MNCs across our country and the North American region. I have played various roles such as a software developer, development architect, database designer and modeler and some client facing roles.

I was working in IBM as an Oracle Database Designer and Architect. The biggest challenge was to motivate and convince myself that after spending 15 years in a totally different domain, industry will accept me in a new avatar and role.

Sitting in today’s evolving workspace, the best that we can do for ourselves is to constantly learn things, which are of higher relevance in today’s world. As I come from a Database background, various flavors of data were always a part of my life. The main challenge was to convince myself that the industry will accept a person with 15 years of experience to change his domain. Once I convinced myself about that then moving into a career that has so much variety and veracity of data to be worked on was an easy choice for me.

“Sitting in today’s evolving workspace, the best that we can do for ourselves is to constantly learn things, which are of higher relevance in today’s world.”

Another challenge was how to convince the recruiters about my profile as I don’t have much
professional and hands on experience in data science and machine learning. I guess, I was bit lucky as well as I didn’t make a whole lot of change in my profile other than adding up the things that I learnt during my Great Learning course. I believe, my overall experience on handling of real time data helped my profile to be shortlisted.

Once I was shortlisted, there were 4 rounds of interview. I had couple of other offers but I didn’t accept as the current one at the Deutsche Bank is the best among them and I got a hike close to 60 percent. I feel great that I have made my first transition. I want to prove myself in my new organization. The faith that my interviewers showed in me and the expertise that is expected out of me needs to be fulfilled.

Anyone looking for a transition in this filed needs to put a lot of hard work and effort during the learning phase. This is an industry where still many new things are coming and will come as well in the near future. So constant study, hands on practice and guidance from the GL mentors are very important. One needs to follow the GL curriculum in detail and also to follow additional study materials that are shared as part of the curriculum by the GL mentors.