I was born and brought up in a small village in Bhagalpur district of Bihar. I wasn’t very studious in my childhood. I might have flunked in a couple of subjects in early school days but was also good in mathematics. I remember it was in the 7th standard that once I got 3rd rank in school, still don’t know how. But that was my first taste of success. The encouragement that I got from my peers, teachers and my family members inspired me to give my best performance. I never looked back since that day. By 10th Standard, I became very good in Mathematics, Physics and Biology. When I was contemplating whether to choose engineering or medical as my career path, a very dear friend of mine told me about IIT. I loved everything about Mathematics but hated Botany in Biology. So, I decided to prepare for IIT.

Getting‌ ‌into‌ ‌Analytics

My friend and I both decided to go to Bokaro Steel City, Jharkhand for our higher secondary school and for our IIT preparations. We got admitted to a very good school and enrolled ourselves in a local IIT coaching centre since we both come from a family of limited means and these coaching centres were quite affordable. We started our rigorous preparation right after 10th board exams and in 2007, appeared for the IIT JEE. Even though my preparations were solid, I could only manage to qualify for the Extended Merit List (EML). I hadn’t cleared the cut-off for Chemistry. It broke me but soon I realized that repenting and wasting time thinking why this is happening to me is not going to help me in any way. I needed to quickly get over it and start preparing for next year. I worked even harder and next year got into IIT Roorkee for 5 years Integrated master’s in the science programme. I wasn’t quite happy with the branch that I got but decided to set the negative feeling aside and rejoice on my admission to an IIT. College life was quite fun. Once I joined college, I decided to make the most out of my stay there. I joined a few clubs and started contributing to them to the best of my potential. One such club was – Entrepreneur Development Cell (EDC). We organized many B-plan competitions, elevator pitches etc. Oh, what a learning experience it was! Over the years, I also organized many events during our cultural and technical festivals. I would encourage everyone to participate according to their capacity in these events. It helps you grow a lot as a person. Anyway, with these fun-filled years, I reached my final year and it was time to decide about the next phase of life. As I wasn’t very interested in pursuing a career in my core branch of study, I decided to go for Analytics. My seniors helped me understand the roles and responsibilities of a Business Analyst and how it involved a lot of Mathematics and Statistics. Right then, I had made up my mind to pursue this further. I applied for a Business Analyst position with Affine Analytics and got through.

Becoming‌ ‌a‌ ‌data‌ ‌science‌ ‌consultant.

I’ve been working with Affine since then. I love my job and we get to solve really cool business problems here. Every day, my work challenges me to be better and helps me to evolve as a professional. With two “Employee of the year” awards and five “Employee of the quarter” awards, I’ve moved up the ladder and I am a data science consultant with Affine now. In the end, I just want to talk about what I have learnt from my experience over the years. Please remember that failures are a part of life and it is a great teacher. Don’t let the setbacks set you back. I have realized that life has wonderful things in store for everyone. We should maintain a positive outlook and keep moving forward. In conclusion, I will leave you with mottos of both my secondary school and my higher secondary school which when read in combination becomes a very powerful message – “Keep Smiling; Towards a Life Sublime”.