My College life started in 2018 and ended last year in 2022. I got admitted to the National Institute of Technology Raipur in the Chemical Engineering branch. One of the Premier institutes of the country [NIRF rank lies between 60-70] after completing school. One of those colleges which admits a high number of students & has so many branches to offer with a good placement record amongst IITS & NITs.
Life:
Those 4 years in college were great, really transformed me, and shaped me into a better person. The first year passed by exploring, and experiencing new things for the first time- Fests, canteen jamming, scooter rides, and hostel. Developed my likings & interests. That’s where I started playing basketball.
In my second year, I got serious about my studies and continuously scored 8+ GPA and started going to college daily [100% attendance in 3rd sem.], after college practiced with the college basketball team and eventually represented the college team at the InterNIT Basketball competition.
After the competition we had a trip to Coorg, that was a really amazing experience. Overall, 2nd year of my college was one of the best years of my life to date. And all of this happened just before the Lockdown.
Lockdown Changed everything, as it turned online and was an altogether different experience, where we studied & gave assessments online.
I did 2 industrial training at PSUs & 2 Research internships at IITs. Wrote 1 research paper, worked as a content writer & was an SME at Chegg. So, I gained a really good & valuable experience in the final 2 years of my college. That really helped me in life & placements and life as well.
Learnings & advice:
- Never settle for less
- Keep pushing boundaries
- Explore in the first year, but then start implementing whatever you think you want to do.
- College life: study, learn, enjoy, follow a passion, involve yourself in co-curricular, and build your career & personality.
- Don’t take too much pressure, it may impact you & everything associated with you. But, know how to handle pressure.
- Be serious about your career from the start, try to figure it out early. So that it’s hassle-free in the last year and you can focus on the target.
- Having good relations and communication with seniors and alumni network, they come really handy.
Placements:
Like any other student, I started placement preparation by the end of 6th Semester [May month]. I had roughly 3 months, and with the commencement of August month, companies start visiting campus. During that time my concern and priority was Core companies, but at the same time, you do get excited when you see offers with good packages and friends getting placed.
Also, I wanted to sit for 1 or 2 companies and experience that pressure and Interview atmosphere at the start, so that I am used to the process when my target company comes. But destiny had decided something else. I got selected within those 2 attempts.
My Strategy:
- I started with Aptitude- studied from Indiabix and other online sites, and prepared all those apti. topics and practice questions, formulas.
- Next, carried out in-depth studies on Interviews- Situational & HR questions. Researched online and made answers on my own for every question that I felt was important [Sharing doc. Link in comment].
- Believe me, this had a very big role in me getting placed.
- Lastly, I practiced for GD and worked on my speaking skills: practiced in front of a mirror & people.
- P.S. I had a good understanding of SQL & Excel- since in school I had worked on SQL for 2 years and worked on EXCEL during my Internship at IIT KGP. So I studied them just before the interview.
I gave Deloitte’s Interview but got rejected [as expected because I hadn’t studied anything apart from HR & Situational questions, nor had I written any skills as such on my resume apart from SQL]. Next, I got selected for o9 Solutions and couldn’t sit further in the placement session as I already had an offer.
But, I was really happy after getting placed in a company with a good role & package, most importantly so early within some days of the session. Excited to see what the future holds, as it was completely out of the box.
Conclusion:
But one thing that I feel most of us have in common is to go with the flow- We studied for JEE, got selected, and filled CS, IT, etc. branches at the top of the list of counseling [priority], but eventually got settled with the branch we got. Like, I got admitted to ChemE; with time developed an interest, and now I am ready to take up a role as Chemical Engineer.
Ask yourself today: What do I want to do? What do I want to become?