IIM Ahmedabad to Praxis. Learning Data, a journey to be relished, each step of the way.Part-3

Hello Finalé. 

A link to Part-1 and Part-2.

The closing chapter of this three-piece article at Praxis is perhaps the reason why almost 90% of the batch enrolled in this program, and I think there is nothing inappropriate- we all have bills to settle, EMIs due, aspirations to fulfil, rents to pay or an iPhone to buy perhaps. But if the only reason to work is to earn, I feel, the strategy might not be so sustainable in the long run. A  part of us should breathe to treasure what we desire or at least strive to find satisfaction in what we are doing otherwise 9+ hours on an average of our life every day is spent like a humanoid attempting to automate a different humanoid and influencing another, producing a civilisation of humanoids instead of humans and that is not so humane. Yes, I am talking about placements.

Although a certification program, Praxis do provide full-fledged placements through campus placements. Nothing extraordinary in the process, but the facility is not common in India for a data science certification program to date. Resume shortlisting, followed by aptitude tests, technical, HR interviews, and salary negotiation (sometimes) is the standard hiring flow. 

T minus a few days to 11th Nov. 2019. The cooperative environment among the batchmates suddenly becomes, well, not so friendly! Pretty common. Mature boys and girls we are. But yeah occasional bursts of sobbing and other forms of contrition were quite usual among the big boys and girls. Yes, Men too!

Cut!

Welcome, D-Day.

A typical D-day commences at 5:30 A.M. and extends till the same P.M. Suited up, formally clothed boys and girls, oh my bad, correction- men and women arrive decked up.  Even the several powerful CNNs would disappoint to recognize the less-fury men that morning. And the perpetual process of GD-PI starts. If you clear, your family starts calling you with all conceivable cutesy, celebrating, and you receive countless congratulation calls. Sadly, if you don’t your repentance kills you, you start to look at yourself as an ineffective, incompetent, and weak individual, or sit down and take a resolution to work hard next time. Mostly. Thankfully Praxis’ placement committee, thanks to Kaushik sir, values this perseverance and companies do line up till March 2020, basically till the end of the course.

I sometimes wonder what it’s like to be the news-bearer guy who brings congratulations as well as “sorry you didn’t make it” to the students. Both from the perspective of a result-driven worker and a human being, this part of his job description is crude! Reminds me of the JD of Ryan Bingham from “Up in the Air (2009)”    

CTC – Churning the Cream churns out the cream or the ones whose stars have no faults on D-Day perhaps. Placements and Life as a whole might look apparently unfair, but if we dig deep, I think there is harmony in chaos. Life doesn't compensate all creams in cash, but in peace, a beautiful life, a lovely family, a purpose which I believe are significant achievements in life. Some, on the other hand, begins with a lag but expedites fast. Although opinions may vary, I always prefer to look at the darkness of life with an optimistic torch. Pessimism is costly. Retails at the price of Hypertension and Anxiety pills.

But somehow, life is straightforwardly fair in one aspect- the next day everyone wakes up late and have severe headache no matter whatever the outcome.  

Wrapping up. My take/ advice from the placements season:

• Other than preparing ourselves, nothing is under our control. And it all commences with basics- love what you are doing, you will soon start doing things with less stress and gradually master what you are doing. It's okay to feel one is at the wrong place and others are so much better, my advice is to keep pushing and enjoying the subject.
• We all try to find a job which is aligned, as much as possible, to what we desire so that we are happy subconsciously with a peer-driven conscious wrapper around it called “Package” but sadly the world doesn’t work the way we want it to, so we all have to reconcile for something less than perhaps what we want or what we deserve. It may sound trivial and not so ambitious but simply put life is a marathon, not a sprint. I too messed up during placements earlier, was annoyed at the system, world, God but it never helped. One thing was etched in my mind that without skills, no company would hire me. Skills come with practice, and the eagerness to practice comes with love for the subject.  So, understand yourself first, understand your strengths and weakness, and capitalize on your strengths. If you make it that day -well done keep it up, if you think you haven’t made it trust me you will get it just keep up with your hard work and devotion. Life doesn’t disappoint passionate perseverant hard workers. All earnings are not cash offerings at the end of the month.
• Healthy competition helps us, but jealousy never does. There will always be people who will get paid more than us, more than the CEO of a popular startup, or even the CEO of Microsoft! My salary is < X. Where should we stop? What is X? Comparing salary is an illusion. All wise men said we are all living a separate life, have varying burdens of our lives, unlike childhoods, diverse neighbourhoods, different future perhaps.
• “If that happened, I would have… “, never works! We would have messed up the same way- A modified repentance perhaps of the same intensity. It was explained to me by one of my therapist friends. I am not sure if it’s a coping mechanism or she can twitch time and observe the outcome, but either way, it helps us slacken our baggage and propel forward happily.

Having said everything, these are my take or learnings. I am not an epitome of perfection. Yes, I did compare myself with others sometimes, I did look at the package first sometimes (especially for start-ups), etc. But the end of the day when the placement high was over and thanks to the lockdown and my age (perhaps) it gave me enough time to introspect and hence the preceding bullet points! Maybe my take would have been different if I didn’t land on any job but again “If that happened, I would have… “, never works! Maybe next time if at all I will try to keep those in mind.

“Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward.” -The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The whole idea of communicating this three-piece article is to respond to those numerous queries of people who questioned me about the program at Praxis. Here is everything about my journey as a PGPDS grad at Praxis Business School. 

Post placements several courses are taught that helps in a deeper understanding of data science and equips us for our upcoming job or career like Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing, Financial Modelling, etc.

I needed a job badly when I arrived at this place and got one. Creamlike life. I also feel the same about many of my friends who are working in Wall Streets, studying in universities where I can only dream of, or earning in figures which is simply huge. But that’s the delusion I realised-everyone has a different Part (-1) of their life, facing their struggles, battling their conflicts or confronting their existence. 

A small snippet from D-Day

So folks, here I conclude my journey on an optimistic note-one from the life of a well-known entrepreneur, another from the pages of a beautiful book (and later a movie) "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Setbacks are hard, very hard sometimes, but even Jack Ma had to get rejected from a not so lucrative job at a KFC outlet to set up his empire.

“..any mistake is a wonderful revenue for you.”- Jack Ma.

And,

"For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, …to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again."

- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Let us all find peace and wander off into the future with one purpose in life- Live and let live and celebrate our worth.