In life, many things are not in our hands But as humans, what can we do, if something's not in our hands even then we will get stressed about that thing. We have to overthink, why this is not happening with me why did it not happen as I had hoped for? But I've learnt, after all these things, whatever that's not in your hands, and you
can't do anything about it. If you don't know what the result will be,
all you can do is just work. Then I think you should just work, and don't think too much about it. And as we are younger, the life goals are very different, we do not know that much about reality, we just want to achieve what our dreams are at that time. So, when I was a child, I always wanted to be a pilot, and as I got older, I understood you need a lot of money to be a pilot. Now being from a middle class family, that was not possible, that my parents would spend 80-90 lakhs on me. And even then, maybe I would've remained job less, so, it did not happen, when I got in 9th or 10th, then I got to know about HTML, CSS. I then firmed on getting a PC, now even they got stubborn that if I want a PC, then you have to pick IT in 9th, 10th. So even I thought let's take it, we'll just do it, and there's not much in IT in 9th, 10th, they just teach you copy paste, but parents thought something else. But yeah, got my first PC, it had the worse configurations. It had like 1GB ram, and Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor, but yeah, it used to get the work done, I have played a lot of NFS in it, Most Wanted, brother played GTA, my brother played a lot of games in it I then had played very less. But yeah that was the first PC that was the first time, I got to learn or know about programming, I was in touch with technology. Then HTML, CSS just happened, I studied it a little, passed the exams. After coming in 11th, you get to know if you take computer science, then you get very huge packages. There's news on newspaper that 8 people from NSIT got 1Cr package. And they'll be working at Google, and that too not in India, abroad. So at that time, I did know I won't be able to get into IIT, but that seemed a little feasible. So what I did is I started preparing JEE as a normal kid, who took science, so I started, passed JEE, and got into NSIT, and I think that was the turning point of my life, after which I got an actual good peer group got good people. With which I started to work and I understood how much role peer groups and mentors have in your life. But there was no as such a mentor, because I am the only person who actually chose engineering, first in my family. So I explored things by myself, find them myself, understand them myself, try myself, and fail often times. After failing many times, I used to learn. But yeah, I think that is something which helped me become what I am. That I am able to help you guys too. Because I've experienced those things myself, learnt them myself. So, yeah, this is what we'll talk about in this video, I'll be talking about my journey, my mistakes, which you should not do, if you are learning to code, and if you are in your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year, it's cool, wherever the college may be, so listen to this video carefully, do like it, and yeah let's get started. After getting into college, in the first year, as a normal kid I did not do anything, I used to go to classes, miss some of them, used to hang out with friends, and that was it. Doing all this, we got over the 1st year. After 1st year got done, I understood I've taken computer science, I've gotten marks in JEE, but that is not the end. If I want to go in any product based company, in Google, Amazon or Microsoft, in any company, that was not my goal at that time, to get into a big company, the only goal I had was to get a job of more than 12 lakhs, 12 LPA. I want that, I want the 1 lakh per month salary. At that time, I didn't know CTC, stocks, base. That was the only goal I had in mind. So I thought, to do that, I have to study a little, asked around what to study, they had older sisters and brothers, so they had a little bit of idea, what to actually study. So they said you have to do DSA. I said okay, Googled it, reached there, I understood what the questions are, you have to do it like this, at school time I had done Python, so I had no idea about C++, I took a little time to learn C++. But yeah, I learnt it thoroughly, I properly studied C++, I used to understand a enough, and started coding, did a course, after doing the course, I got to learn about DSA, but(x4) in two months, we had done only where normal people stop, that is trees. Just hearing about graphs and DPs,
there was a shock in the whole body, how to do it, how will we do it. And that was a huge mistake, then the second mistake was to give up quickly. To judge the problem in 10 minutes, you are not able to do it, so let's see the solution. And even after seeing the solution, not reading all the editorials, just seeing the solution at the top, moving ahead. Doing this, the college starts in 3rd semester, it has difficult subjects, exams keep coming, have to do a lot of things, and friends told you also have to make a resume. Because at that time there was a Google step international, in India it's only for girls, but outside its for everyone. In second year I thought what I will be able to do, but friend said let's just try it, so we made projects in haste, which were very poor, so there was no hope anyway, but I got to know from that you have to make a resume, you need projects for it, and for projects, the best way is Hackathons. Now if you want to go in hackathons, you have to be a part of a team, so you should know a technology. And in the whole story till now, I had not learnt any technology. So I again got to work, and we had done HTML and CSS in the schooltime thought of just doing web development, we started doing web development, got into tutorial hell, just watching tutorials after tutorials, got done with a few courses, learnt React, even HTML, JavaScript, Frontend, backend everything, when I got to code in the Hackathon, I did not understand where to start, so this was the second mistake, and the most common mistake, that we go into tutorial hell, we just keep watching tutorial, just watching videos, and do not understand what its actual use is. So yeah, don't do that. You have to code along with it. And to code does not mean just copy what's shown on the screen, you have to try yourself to code, if you don't do it, you won't learn. This time also passed, we participated in hackathon, got to understand, this is not how things will work out, again started to learn, then learnt again, and doing all this, the 2nd year was finished. After 2nd year got done, we get to know, after 2 months there will be companies, in which we'll get internship. And the goal of earning money, that was constant, and not many people got internships, in the whole college only 10-20% of people get internships. So to get in those 10-20% was also an achievement. So the goal was to just come in, because there will be money after internship, there were some wishes to fulfill, and they were only possible after that. So I again got to work, what I did different this time was we asked a senior, who sat in the internships, where to prepare from, and here its about mentors. So this is something which I learnt a little late, if I had picked a mentor in the 1st or 2nd year, who could've helped me, then it would've been good, and its not like, a year or two older, they do have an idea, but not too good, I would recommend you that someone at least 3 years older than you. They will have, more experience than anyone else, if you are in 2nd year, then they would've graduated, if you are in 3rd year, they must've an year of experience, if you are in 4th year, then they must've gotten at least a few years of experience. So whatever life problems you must be facing now, they would've recently faced those problems, so it will be in their memory, they would know how to solve these things, how problems come, how to tackle them, and it's not like they are inexperienced, so they will be able to give you the best advice. Now this is a problem, in good colleges you do get mentors, but if you are from a tier-2, tier-3 college, then sometimes the seniors also don't have an idea, how to do things. Then here comes a very amazing startup, which I recently got to know about, that's Preplaced, I talked with Sahil who's the co-founder and the CEO, Trying to understand their problem statement, and I felt really good, so what I did is, I joined them to help spread this awareness, how you can find mentors, so the startup is preplaced, if you go there, you will get many mentors, they have industry expereince for more than 7-8 years also. So if you are stuck somewhere, you can ask the mentor, he'll be with you, throughout the process, throughout your journey, and you can definitely check it out. They are curated mentors, not anyone can register there, the team has to reach out to them, and then only that person can be a mentor on the platform. So its very, very selected mentors are there. And yeah, you can get 30% off, use code 'LEVELUP30', because I am part of the team. So I have also gotten you a discount. So if you go, you'll get a 30% discount. Go definitely check this out, I really love the vision. You'll get mentors, so you'll get help, how to do things. And yeah, so my college was good, and seniors, some were mentors, some are working in Google right now, so I just asked them how to do it, they just told me, that did you do graph and DP? I said no. They told me, 'do it'. Because they saw at the intern, nothing came out of it. So I again started learning DSA. I did a little, and then again made the mistake of just doing questions, at the time of internship, I got to know I did not do the questions that I needed to do. Because I did not have any mentor then. But(x3), when I sat in internships, when I faced many rejections for the internship, then Samsung came, and Samsung was paying 50,000, at that time, per month for 2 months of internship, so I was getting a lakh rupees. So I applied, easy DSA questions were asked there, upto trees, graph and DP were not there, so luckily I cleared it. At the time of interview, they asked easy questions, so I also cleared that too. Any yeah, I got an internship offer from Samsung, but I always thought, I can do more than this. But who cares? PPO was for about 16 lakhs, and yeah, I think, the goal was getting fulfilled after getting in college. So after being intern, we started chilling. While chilling, we did a lot more things, worked in fest, work in the socities I was part in, but was less in the Hackathons. But there came an opportunity, there's something called Smart India Hackathon, in which you get to compete at national level. And you also earn 1 lakh rupees. So there was another chance of earning money. There's a team of 6 people, if you win it's divided by 6, but yeah, you still get an experience. Plus you get some money. So I made a team with the friends, we applied, and we got selected in the internal hackathon. We submitted our solution. And we also got selected for the external. And the external date was in April, and from then on the twist in the story begins. Now, Covid came so, like there was some other plan for me, I think just that. So there was no revert from Samsung, and Samsung is a company, where there used to be nothing called as work from home. All the work used to be done on the office desktop you cannot bring laptop to the home, so it was certain that Samsung won't have the internship, so in April your truly started coding. This time, we grabbed onto the seniors who were placed, tell us, where to study from, what to do. Those who've graduated currently working in Adobe, Amazon, Google, we talked them with about how to study, how to have interviews, check my resume, we got all these things done. And started preparing. This time, we did not leave graph, DP at all. I did like 350-400 questions, I practiced questions properly. I gave time to understand the questions, I read editorials, and after doing all this, we sit for the placement season. I was in NSIT, so we do get on campus opportunities, Its a very good college, so you have on campus companies there. But due to Covid, Google, Microsoft did not come, Amazon came a little late, and the first company that came, was Atlassian, and second company was Curefit. The test for Atlassian does not get cleared, I felt a little bad, but next day was Curefit's test, and for Amazon. Because Amazon also came, I did Curefit's test, the hopes were less, and then gave Amazon's test, there were high hopes in that. Next day result comes for Curefit, I was the last one who got selected, and yeah, the name was in the end. It was a list of 13 people, I was the 13th one. Just cleared the cut off somehow. With too many bumps. But yeah, my interviewing skills were little better, so I gave interviews, there were 3 rounds, I was able to impress all the three interviewers, and only 3 people got selected from the college. And I was one of them. So on day 2, your truly cracked the placement, and I think all of the mistakes that I made last time, I did not repeat them. I thoroughly read editorials. I did not do questions just to achieve the numbers. I did to understand them. And I took help from my mentors. I asked them what exactly is there to do. Did not pretend to be smart, I'll do everything myself. You should ask people, those who're already experienced in this. And yeah, so life again seemed beautiful. 18 lakh rupees base salary, and ESOPS, and many things were there. So that dream of 1 lakh reached to 1.5 lakh. So I achieved more than what I thought of. But again, life had its own goals, so Covid came again, second wave, third wave. Curefit said we are doing some internal restructuring, their co-founders had a fight, something happened. And they delayed the offer, now being a startup, that also healthcare and fitness, if you are not able to get out of the home, then how will you do all this? So I thought, if they are delaying, then it is possible they may also revoke. But Curefit being a very good company, they didn't do that, but you don't know that, you just try to stay afloat. I tried, I started giving more interviews, again got rejected at a few companies. I gave interview for Salesforce, Intuit, and a few more. But nothing happened, some companies test's were not cleared, some had interviews. But then came Microsoft. Microsoft did not come into campus in that year. So they just mailed their current interns, if you've any friend tell them that we are going to hire, we are doing an off-campus drive. So do apply by going to this link. I applied. The test link came. I participated in the test link, gave the test, did all three questions, did all three of them in different languages, one in Java, one in C++, and one in Python. So if you know multiple languages, sometimes it is very helpful. The test got cleared, 1st, 2nd and 3rd round of interviews also happened, I performed pretty well because I had worked hard, the mistakes I had made again during the rejections, I didn't do them, and I got an offer from Microsoft. In this whole journey, you must've learnt a few things, one is believe in yourself. If you think that you can do it, then only can you do it. The first step is that, if you think I don't know anything, I won't be able to do anything, how can I do it, there are more smart people than me, don't take tension, you are very smart. Keep faith in yourself, keep practicing. Second thing is, don't run for numbers, did 500, 900 questions, 1000 of them, do 200, 300, 400 questions, but do quality questions. The one's that have actually been asked. If you are learning a new concept, and don't repeat the same type of questions, just do that until you don't start getting the approach. How this question should be approached. Thrid is mentors, if you are from Tier-2, Tier-3 college, and you don't have access to mentors, definitely check out Preplaced, I would highly recommend you guys, check that out because I myself have gone through the list of mentors, their experiences, and they are really experienced. A lot of knowledge. And they will be properly able to help you. So yeah. Besides, you guys tell me, what type of videos do you want to watch. This was the whole journey, these are the mistakes which I did, and I would ask you guys to not do. The first line of code I had written was in 9th class, and yeah currently I am working at Microsoft, as a software engineer, and in the last 2 years, I have done a lot of things, I've delivered a lot of features, did a lot of coding, helped a lot of people. So I think I've come a long way, and the goal of having 1 lakh, that too had been completed. So yeah, thank you so much for watching this video. I hope you liked this video. You can tell me which types of videos you want more in the comments section. Because I think you have gotten a bit bored from the podcasts, but still do let me know, what type of videos do you want, we will be experimenting a lot, I've thought of a few amazing ideas, which I will be sharing with you soon. And yeah, we'll meet in the next video, until then, Bye!
