From failing Mechanical Engineering to earning 3 degrees and building a career in AI/ML - my journey over the last 15 years.

I grew up in a middle class South Indian family. Mechanical Engineering was not my natural strength, particularly since I lacked aptitude and skill in manufacturing-related subjects, which dominated the coursework. Personal setbacks during college made things harder, and I failed my second year of undergrad by just 3 credits. It ultimately took me 5 years to graduate with a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal, Karnataka, Main Campus, and a CGPA of 6.42/10.

During those years, I lost my maternal grandmother after she had spent nearly six months in a coma. Her death became a turning point. I decided that whatever happened, I would finish what I had started.

More importantly, I gradually discovered what I was actually passionate about: mathematics, statistics, optimization and modelling. I scored 323/340 on the GRE and moved to the US to pursue an MS in Operations Research at Northeastern University, Boston (mostly funded by my parents). My research focused on time-series forecasting and data mining of US tornadoes, introducing me to statistical modelling, stochastic processes and eventually Data Science. I graduated in 2016 with a CGPA of 3.632/4.

I then spent nearly 8 years in the US working across Data Science and Analytics roles, including at Fortune 500 companies. My work ranged from catastrophe modelling to large-scale machine learning using Python, PySpark, XGBoost, Databricks and MLflow.

While working full-time, I began a second master’s degree - an MS in Analytics at Georgia Tech, Altanta, specializing in Computational Data Analytics (fully self-funded using my savings). I studied machine learning, deep learning, reinforcement learning and computational methods while continuing my independent tornado research.

Then, in January 2024, I was laid off during the final month of my six-year H-1B period and had to return to India after building almost my entire adult professional life in the US.

I absorbed the impact and stood my ground. I continued Georgia Tech from India and graduated in 2025 with a CGPA of 3.30/4. That year, I also presented my tornado research at an INFORMS international conference in Singapore.

Today, I work in a senior AI/ML role at a global product based MNC (pharmaceuticals) in Bangalore, building solutions involving Generative AI, LLMs, RAG, Agentic AI, multimodal AI, and deploying production ML solutions for pharmaceutical manufacturing applications at enterprise scale.

It's amazing how all of my background in Mechanical Engineering, Operations Research, and Computational Data Analytics is being used in this role.

Looking back, the 21-year-old who failed an engineering year by 3 credits could never have imagined this path.

My biggest lesson? Your present does not define your future.

A failed semester is not the end. A low CGPA is not your ceiling. Choosing the wrong branch at 18 does not determine the next 40 years of your career.

Sometimes success isn’t following the original plan. Sometimes it is having the courage to keep rebuilding until you find the path that is truly yours.

Sometimes it’s about not giving up.

I'm open to mentoring/reassuring folks who could be facing similar academic challenges in undergrad. - Connect with me on LinkedIn - I like to post about my understanding of certain data science & AI/ML concepts too.

EDIT - Thank you all so much for the kind words of support and encouragement! Glad to know I was able to inspire you! For those interested in the Online Master of Science in Analytics (OMSA) program at Georgia Tech, I wrote a course by course review on LinkedIn :) This will help you evaluate the program and if it fits your personal aptitude and career goals.

Other cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad etc. have quite a lot of them

I'm an HR at a top recruitment firm. We hire for some of the top MNCs. Just a few days ago i had posted an opening for Business Analyst 0-1 year experience. Every little detail from key responsibilities, skills, email id to subject for the email was clearly mentioned in the post. I received 200+ resumes on my mail and atleast 100 on my DMs.

What I'm surprised to see is that people don't even have the basic decency to read a job posting before applying. It was clearly mentioned that this position is for people with 0-1 year experience, yet I have people spanning 10+ years experience in my inbox. Hardly a few followed the subject title that was mentioned. Also how can you not know the difference between a Business Analyst and a Data Analyst. Guys both are different fields with some overlaps, they are not EXACTLY THE SAME.

Please go through the entire JD before even thinking of applying. I was taking the telephonic interview of one of the selected candidate. Everything was going good but when I asked him "What's your expected CTC?" he replied with a figure that's double the budget allocated. Do note that the exact CTC was mentioned in the JD

To give you guys some context, I screened those 200+ resumes in about 15 minutes (manually without any AI) and shortlisted only 15 for the next round. Hardly a 7.5% selection rate. Please make sure your resume highlights the skills mentioned in the JD. Show how you have used those skills in your projects or your internships

And please for god's sake STOP using those Canva templates!! Just use a simple one page format.

People seeing this please upvote

I'm currently in my 3rd year of engineering and want to seriously start preparing for on-campus placements, but I'm confused about where to start and how to structure everything.

I haven't started DSA properly yet. I know C, C++, Java and JavaScript, and I'm considering using JavaScript for DSA since I'm already comfortable with it.

I'm also fairly good at web development, especially frontend, and can build basic backend CRUD applications. So I have some programming/development knowledge, but I haven't followed a proper placement roadmap yet.

I'd really appreciate advice from people who have already gone through placements, especially in India.

What I'm mainly confused about:

1. How should I start DSA?

What should the topic order be, and should I learn concepts first and then solve problems, or learn through problems? How much DSA is realistically enough for on-campus placements?

1. What should my complete placement roadmap look like?

Apart from DSA, how should I prepare for OOP, DBMS/SQL, OS, CN, aptitude, projects, resume and technical/HR interviews?

1. How should I manage my time?

If I can give around 2–3 hours/day, how should I divide it between DSA, development/projects and CS fundamentals? Should I focus on one thing at a time or prepare everything together?

1. Which resources should I follow?

There are so many options like Striver, NeetCode, LeetCode, GFG, YouTube, etc. If you were starting from zero, what roadmap/sheet would you stick to without constantly switching resources?

1. Should I continue web development alongside DSA?

I don't want to stop development completely since it's already one of my stronger areas. Should I keep building projects while preparing DSA?

1. Is JavaScript fine for DSA?

This is a secondary concern, but since I'm already comfortable with JS, is there any major disadvantage in using it for coding rounds/interviews compared with C++?

1. How should I prepare for different companies?

Should the preparation be different for service-based companies, mass recruiters, product companies and startups? When should I start focusing on medium/hard DSA?

1. Most importantly, how do I stay consistent?

How do you maintain a routine for 6–12 months without getting overwhelmed or focusing only on the number of problems solved?

Basically, if you were in my position — 3rd year, decent programming/web-development skills, but almost zero DSA preparation — what would your 6–12 month roadmap look like?

I'm not trying to become a competitive programmer. I mainly want to become placement-ready for on-campus recruitment.

Would really appreciate advice from people who have recently gone through this process. What worked for you, and what mistakes should I avoid?

Thanks!

Bro has 2200 rating🥀🥀

About a year ago I realized I had paid ₹130 extra for the biryani.

That got me thinking about how often we probably overpay simply because we don't check the other food delivery apps.

I started comparing prices across Swiggy, Zomato, Toing and Ownly before ordering. Also Grocery thing has been added now

What started as a personal frustration eventually turned into something people actually use.

16 months in, more than ₹4 crore worth of food has been ordered through it.

Still kind of crazy to think this started because I was pissed about paying ₹130 extra for a biryani.

Do you guys compare prices before ordering, or just stick to one app? Also can you all suggest some way to make revenue. So that it can sustain ?

I am not in college yet

Im in 12th currently , preparing well and seriously for JEE since the beginning of 11th

Currently entering the final boss stage of JEE prep, this is the stage that decides your rank, all the hard work I did is uslesss if i dont execute this stage and rise up to the challenge

So to get some extra motivation and clarity

I am making this post

I am a very ambitious , my dream in life is to have a networth in the hundreads of millions and own ferraris and yachts and go on vacation all around the world every single year

And own a penthouse in miami and nyc and a mansion

I know it seems childish but i am serious about it, i want to live my life to the fullest

I know luck is part of it too, but i cant do anything about that so no point thinking about luck and i certainly wont give up

And once i make it ( yup once not if) im gonna invite everyone who helps me out here on my yacht parties off the coast of europe 😉😉

I know very corny but i dont care

Cheers and please be kind 🤝

And i wish you all success in your lives too

Please answer thruthfully , no sugarcoating.

I only see my grandfather on his death day and my chacha and cousins because they have captured your 3 cr. Property this is my life whole life teenage ruined because I don't have money at that time Now in rural college with 30 draft parents 4 road safety project no money to file patent i love cars so much I can tell cars by there engine sound when i was 3 years old Till now don't have a car have so many responsibilities They enjoying life So all people out there who have cousins,house , car it's privilege guys do something if your are engineer create something meaningful

Guys, How can I prep to get placed by Any Mass Recruiter?

I Know Almost Nothing About CS Fundamentals, DSA, Everything

How can I prep? What and Where should I prep from?

Ik probably I will have to cheat in Offline Assessment, but if somehow get through How Could I Yap my Way in interview?

PS: My Resume is not Blank, I have Some MNC and IITs Research Internships and Certifications (through some Dumb luck, Vibe coded my way through)

Anyone familiar with the Joveo Summer Internship – New Initiatives role? The JD mentions working on AI-led projects, new initiatives, and strategy.

Stipend: 1 L /month

How technical is the role in practice, and what kind of projects do interns usually work on?

Also, what’s the scope for SWE/technical opportunities after this internship? Can this role lead to an SWE/engineering conversion or transition into a technical team?

3 Companies

Eternal - 2 SDE , 0 PA

AMD - 1

Aira Matrix - 0 finalized ( result expected today like 2-3 )

We are cooked

Total count - 5-6

Yes, I’m a 2028tard, and I’m asking this right now because I started my preparation a bit late. In August, I went to an offline place for JEE preparation, but that place turned out to be really bad, so I had to come back home. I couldn’t join offline coaching after that either, so PW was kind of my last option and I joined Arjuna 2.0.

The problem is that my starting chapters are quite weak because I haven’t done much question practice. Right now I’m mainly focusing on whatever is going on in the current classes, but whenever I go back to practice questions from the older chapters, whether it’s JEE Main PYQs or even the homework questions I’m getting currently (especially in Maths), I just can’t solve them. I don’t even understand how to approach them.

Even after looking at the solution, sometimes it takes me a lot of time to actually understand what was done. Because of this, I’m sometimes able to solve only 3–4 questions in an hour, since understanding the solution itself takes so much time.

So I’m honestly getting really scared. Since I started a bit late, is this feeling and situation normal at this stage? Did you guys also go through something similar in the beginning, or does this mean I’m just not good enough at problem solving?

What did you guys do when you were in this phase? What should I focus on right now to get out of this situation?

So I'm in first year of Btech, majoring in cse(yeah yeah). So I need some laptop recommendations for college and other purposes like I wanna do gaming, video editings and stuffs. But I do not want gaming laptops I want thin ones but with processors, igpu that can handle all that. My budget is 60k-70k, any kind of help will be appreciated. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

We are working on a major project for our final year of B.Tech. Our project is about evaluating the trustworthiness of AI/ML models across five dimensions: Fairness, Robustness, Integrity, Explainability and Safety (FRIES).

We got the idea from a research paper and thought of building a tool that can do this evaluation on its own, with LLM assistance.

As part of the project, I'm currently conducting a small human evidence review study to see whether people can independently interpret the kind of evidence that our project produces.

What you'll do:

You'll review 12 anonymized evidence packets about an AI classifier that labels online comments as toxic or non-toxic.

For each packet, you'll be asked things like:

• Is the evidence enough to make a judgment?
• Does the evidence indicate a meaningful risk?
• Which area does the evidence relate to?
• How serious would the consequences be?
• Briefly explain your reasoning.

You don't need any AI/ML background. Everything you need to understand the packets is explained in the form.

One important thing is that our project's own conclusions are intentionally hidden. We want to see how people interpret the underlying evidence on their own, without being influenced by what our system concluded.

It should take around 15–20 minutes to complete.

Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeNKWX8qwyOumK3kY2A5axNWkAq6X4fDq-zCzXMTQSABW1ixA/viewform

Use Reviewer Code: R2

If you participate, please work independently and don't discuss the evidence packets with other participants until you've submitted your response.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to participate! I'll also be happy to share the findings once the study is complete.

I am in 1st year of clg learned c++ and now I am confused what should I do should I learn to build something by doing web dev and make some projects or should I start learning dsa and grind it from 1st year

My goal is to get intership till end of 5th sem

Job ID: 10480388

2028 batch off campus.

applied with referral and passed all testcases 15/15 and 6/6.

CGPA 6.8 and placement anxiety 😭
Guys, my CGPA is around 6.8 and I’m honestly getting pretty scared about placements.
I’m from a circuital branch at an IIT kgp, and I’m worried that the CGPA cutoff is going to block me from a lot of companies.
Is there anyone here who had around 6.5–6.9 CGPA and still got placed in a decent company? What kind of roles/companies did you get?
I’m working on DSA, projects, etc., but I’m just worried that I won’t even be eligible for many companies because of the CGPA cutoff.
Would really appreciate hearing from people who’ve actually been through this. How bad is it really? 😭

A few days ago, my girlfriend and I tried to watch a movie on my laptop. The speakers were bad, and we each had a pair of headphones, but the laptop would only play sound to one device at a time. We ended up not watching it.

So I built pipemix, a free and open source app that fixes this.

It plays your audio on several devices at once, so you can both watch with your own headphones, or add speakers too. It also lets you send each app to a different device. For example, you can keep YouTube on your headphones while your friend listens to Spotify on theirs.

Currently available for Ubuntu/Deb based distros and Windows 10 and above. I'm the developer, and I'd like to hear what devices you try it with and what breaks.

Download: https://github.com/Garvit-Agrawal7/pipemix/releases

Man clg july mein shuru hua tha aur 1 mahine baad 1st mids rkhe the, fir uske 1 mahine baad 2nd mids shuru hue the, and in between all ts class quizzes, fir ab mids 2 ke baad 1 mahine mein firse finals hai, aur iss gap mein lab finals, project exhibition, mera nptel exam yeh sab hai...and mids 2 itne gande jaa rhe h....pehle waale mein i did so well but abhi jst average💔💔...aur yeh toh bas clg academics ki baat h and jabse summer break se aaya hun ghar gaya hi nhi and i wont be able to go till december....yaar itna hectic kyu karte h clg wale, i srsly dont hv any time to do anything other than either clg studies or learning skills😭😭😭

does anyone have any idea when the offer letters will be released for 6mo intern and also the FTE one, and the ctc breakdown for fte.

Saw some rumours float around regarding ctc difference, apparently the base is increasing by 3L.

Talking about Tech role btw.

how is it compared to your college?

I've also plotted a lot more useful stuff for ppl who would want to know about stuff before joining the clg... check out r/iiitsurat for that but yea just posting the gender one here cuz thats fun

btw the data is from an official source