My Career Journey from School to my Dream Company HSBC

Early Education and Initial Coaching Experience

This is my unusual career journey from secondary school to college and HSBC. I am from a city often referred to as the “Educational City” Kota, this is where everything began. In the 10th class, I went on to join a coaching institute named Career Point for NTSE and JEE preparation. It didn’t help me much; as all this was new for me, sitting in a class of 80 students. Earlier, I used to only go for home tuition, and I was not able to understand too much from these classes because I was not able to clear my doubts due to what you can call shyness. Also, I was not used to sitting for so many hours, so yeah, coaching was not for me. I chose PCM not for my love for these subjects but my love for all the things we can do with these subjects. I mean, I used to watch “Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman,” and I was fascinated with Astronomy. Somewhere in my mind, I had a dream of becoming an Astronomer, which I won’t be doing in the future as we all know from the title.

After that, in the 11th grade, I went on to join Allen Career Institute for IIT-JEE preparation. Well, after months, I understood that IIT was not for me, so I started wasting my time in a cyber cafe playing CSGO with my friend. There was this thing in the back of my mind that around 12-15 lakh students give IIT, and only a handful of them get selected, and as I was already an average student, I thought, ‘Nope, not IIT.’

Reality Hits Hard

Things went on like this, and the 12th board exams were just around the corner. I think it was more like 2-3 months left for my boards, and it struck me that I don’t even remember a single thing from my 11th and 12th; not a single equation in maths, don’t remember anything about nomenclature in Organic Chemistry, don’t even get me started with physical chemistry and physics. In short, I was gone. I started thinking it looked like the only option now left was a back paper, but then I remembered that 2-3 months were remaining, and from my experience, I knew that if I started studying now, I could score, not well, but at least passing marks. The experience was from 10th; during pre-boards, I scored 31 marks out of 100 in maths, and I was like, ‘I just don’t want to fail in this class.’

My academic journey wasn’t a fairytale of consistent 90s; I was an average student. After 5th grade, my scores never surpassed 80. Throughout school, I consistently fell between B+ to B-, scoring between 70-80 in the grade system. So yeah, after pre-boards, I was like, ‘Let’s try just once how it feels like to try from the bottom of your heart.’ So I did; I started waking up early just to study, revised everything taught in the class. My school (Modern Senior Secondary School) used to take extra classes for students who didn’t score well in pre-boards, and as you can see,

I was one of them. The rest of the students who scored well got board preparation break, so yeah, for maths and science, I studied by myself.

My Marks Were Broke and the Cutoff Was Up – The Academic Comeback

Finally, after trying my best, I scored 81.4, and got 74 in maths. I was happy; I mean, after 4-5 years, I finally got marks above 80. So, from this past experience, I was like, ‘I got time; I can study and pass 12th boards also.’ So I went back to playing games; time went on. 1.5 months were remaining; I understood this academic comeback is never going to happen. But even a drowning man uses his hands and legs just to survive. I did that; I joined tuition just to study for science and maths. In between all this, I used to study from sites like, for theory, I used to study from Byjus,GFG, Physicswallah and also used to watch 12th board one-shot videos of Vedantu.

Time went on, and board papers came. After every paper, I was like, ‘Nope, this is the first time in my life I am going to fail in a paper.’ I started preparing my failure speech, that what went wrong, why I failed. Results came, and to my surprise, I got 71.4. Not much, not even the marks you should be proud of, but I passed.

So now that we have crossed school, the journey of my college starts. As the marks I got, I was not able to get into any IIT or any other college. In fact, I was not even qualified to give papers as the cutoff criteria is 75. So just like that, I searched for a good private college, and the list came: LPU, Amity, Sharda, CU, VIT. Yes, yes, I forgot; I even filled the form for VIT and BITS, but as we all know, until now, what the result would have been, so we won’t be talking about that.

New Life, Old Habits

In the end, I joined Galgotias University and chose Btech in CSE with a specialization in AI and ML. The college was nice, and it was also 6 hours away from Kota. My main motive behind choosing Btech was I was fascinated with all the uncommon things like space, astronomy, used to watch movies like Tron Legacy, Chappie, so robots and AI used to surprise me very much, so I chose AI and ML because of that. Now let’s snap back to reality; so my college started, and I bought a gaming laptop cause ‘I am only human after all :)’.

I mean, let’s be real; who studies in the first year? And I was like, finally, I am in college; 4 years are remaining; I will study just not right now. I found out there is a word for this: ‘procrastination’. So days went on and on, and there it was, my first-semester end-term exam. And as a follower of college tradition, we started studying just 1 week before the exam. We didn’t know where to study from; 1 day went on just to find where to study from. I asked many people, friends, classmates, about where they are studying from. They told me for notes and understanding they were studying from GFG, and if you want to learn fast-paced, watch the playlist of ‘GATE Smashers’ for normal subjects and Gajendra Purohit sir for Maths on 1.5x speed, so I did that.

The result came; there it was, a number from my past 7; got 7.02 SGPA in my first semester. I was like, ‘Ah, it’s okay; got 3.5 more years to study.’ Again, started doing all the previous things till the end of my 2nd year, I used to study only for a few hours (max-2) that too not regularly; only on the days when I used to get motivated by watching other people’s stories and watching reels of people showing off their videos. In my mind, I was convinced that even if I will not study by the end of 4th year, I will go abroad for my master’s even searched for various colleges, and one that was stuck in my mind was NTU (Nanyang Technological University), and I was like, I want to go there. I told my parents, and they were like, ‘We will think.’

Reality Check and New Focus

They didn’t know that I am not studying anything because I was convinced that admission is already done; just need to get an acceptance letter from their side (this was at the end of the 2nd year :’)). When I went back for my end sem exam ending holidays, I applied for everything necessary like passport, PAN card. I mean, can you imagine? I was at what mindset that I applied for a passport even before my IELTS exam. After a few months, I again asked my parents that this is where I want to go for my further studies and we need this much money. The answer that got snapped me back to reality. They said we won’t be able to do that. I was like, what am I supposed to do now? I am literally at the end of my 5th sem; companies will start coming for placement from the mid of 6th sem, and right now, I don’t even know 1 language.

Self-Directed Learning and Preparation

Everything about the language I remember was from university classes, which can only make you pass the exam. I was like this is the end; I will leave this college without any job, without any skill, just a degree. That’s when it struck me, nope, this won’t be the end; I won’t let this end like this. So I started searching for courses, sites, and what I want to become. I understood Full stack was not for me as not much time was remaining, and I won’t be able to learn everything, so I chose to become a Data Analyst because in all this, my dream was to join companies like HFTs, Fintech companies, or Investment Firms. So I started searching for courses where to study all the necessary requirements from, bought python courses from Udemy Courses, for C and C++, I used GFG, for SQL and for Data Analytics, I bought IBM course from Coursera. I know it’s expensive, but you can apply for a grant, and if you are genuine, Coursera will give you that scholarship.

In between all this, I found out that DSA is one of the most important aspects of the interview, and even if you manage to solve all the necessary aptitude questions during other rounds, it will come down to DSA. So I asked my friend, people around about where to learn DSA, and many of them said GFG,W3school, Javatpoint. So there I was learning everything I can about DSA , solving questions from wherever I can Leetcode, Codeforces, GFG, and side by side, I was also taking care of my main goal, which was to study python and SQL for the Data Analyst part.

HSBC: Well, That Was Easy! (Spoiler: It was not :’) )

During this learning process, I started reaching out to people on Linkedin for referrals for freshers. I would suggest building connections as much as you can and also try to add all that you learn on your profile. All this was happening by the end of the 6th sem; I used to sit for my placement but was not able to crack it even by the mid of 7th sem. So as I was searching for job openings even in the off-campus, I got a referral in HSBC by an Alumni. I told him what all knowledge I had, and he helped me with the interview process like how many rounds will be there, what type of questions I can expect, and all that. So at the end of the 7th sem, I got the internship joining letter, and there I was, the happiest person. This was not all a fairy story about a person who was winning every time; this was a story about a person like you and me. I did all the mistakes which we all do, somehow or another, but in the end, all that matters is what you did with it. In the end, my internship was converted to a full-time offer. So here I am in my dream company.

Thank you for reading!!