At Accredian, we create accomplished and empowered Data Leaders. We groom our students to dominate the world of Data Science and AI and reshape their future. We value what our students bring to the table. We share their vision and support them during their journey and ensure that they carve a niche for themselves.
We’re proud to have tutored exceptional students all across India. Today, one such exceptional student, Anirudha Acharya stands in the spotlight.
Student Name: Anirudha Acharya
Current Organization: DXC Technology
Batch: CDF – April 2019
Total years of experience: 10 years
Malvika: Hi Anirudha, before we begin, could you tell us more about your current work profile and your career trajectory so far?
Anirudha: I completed my Electronics and Communication Engineering and I joined CSE in 2010.
So I’ve been working in the same organization, which is called DXC Technology now.
Currently, I am a Mainframe Developer and my responsibilities include connecting with the business, with the clients and the technical leaders and taking the clients requirements.
I was also responsible for the development of the new features for the insurance product which we work on. And as we are on the mainframe platform, we also have most of the part in the maintenance of these applications.
Again, we have divided this among multiple teams and we take care of the policy administration part of the application. There are a few US insurance companies and our products have been working with them.
Malvika: What got you interested in Data Science & Machine Learning?
Anirudha: A few years back when I was looking at what was happening in the real world, like what happens when I log into YouTube- why certain types of videos are always recommended to me?
Then Google introduced spam folders separating all these random messages; tabs like Social, Promotion, and automatic classification, it got me interested.
Eventually, when I was discussing with one of my friends, who is a Data Scientist in one of the major retail companies, he actually introduced me to this concept of Machine Learning, recommendation systems and he suggested me few online courses.
One day I landed in Manav’s session on Data Science. So that is what actually got me more interested in Data Science and Accredian programs.
Malvika: What all tools and packages in Data Science & Machine Learning have you mastered in your Data Science & AI program at Accredian so far?
Anirudha: Basic tools such as NumPy, Pandas, which are used for numerical manipulations are interesting.
Scikit Learn is another major package, most Machine Learning algorithms are
derived from. The more advanced algorithms I’m interested in would be Tensorflow.
Matplotlib is my go-to algorithm for Data Visualization.
Malvika: What is the goal of Data Science? In your view, how has Data Science evolved in the last few years?
Anirudha: Evolution of Data Science has been huge actually.
When we got to realize the importance of data, the two great fields of Data and Science came together and the growth has been massive.
Data Science is becoming more of an art. Nowadays, the business doesn’t really take what we put as a scientist, but they want it presented in artistic forms with Power BI and Tableau, The evolution of data has been massive and the entire industry is evolving towards less traditional ways of solving problems.
Malvika: What are some of the initial challenges you faced when you got started on your Data Science journey and how did you overcome it?
Anirudha: As I told previously, this friend of mine introduced to these courses, I was happy doing that.
But then one fine day I realized I needed something more as well. So I enrolled in Accredian then I can say a few personal challenges took over me.
It was quite a challenging time for my family and me but being involved with the Accredian programs and assignments helped me professionally and my family supported me personally.
Malvika: What are the current trends and applications in Data Science that you are most excited about?
Anirudha: If I can say, what helps human beings in their basic day-to-day activities that they use the latest technologies; the background for it being data.
China’s automated face recognition during airport check-ins, very basic, but the technology behind is huge. This very simple thing is what will help us really save a lot of time, a lot of effort.
There is one other thing which I read somewhere like in the medical field, the AI-based system has detected breast cancer more effectively than doctors would eventually do.
This is what excites me more and more about Data Science.
Malvika: Which are some of the blogs that you read? Which are the top two Data Science & AI influencers you follow?
Anirudha: The first course which I took was from Coursera- Andrew Ng. So I follow him very much.
As part of Accredian Thursdays, Dr. Kirk Borne was invited to speak to students. DJ Patil is another influencer I follow online on LinkedIn and other social.
Malvika: At Accredian, students are encouraged to build high-quality GitHub profiles. Have you built a GitHub portfolio and how do you think this will help you?
Anirudha: I have built my GitHub portfolio and started to upload all my projects there one by one.
GitHub is known as the actual resume for Data Scientists where we can display our work. Suchit’s session on GitHub was very informative to us because when we see a profile, we see a lot of things and Varun’s work on that we need to learn more from and we need to create something similar. It will be really useful in marketing ourselves for these jobs.
Malvika: Crafting a great Data Science resume is a critical part of getting shortlisted for Data Science roles. Tell us some ways in which you have improved your resume as part of Data Science Career Launchpad.
Anirudha: The resume workshop was one of the very helpful and informative sessions.
What basic mistakes we always make in traditional resumes for software development role is length. My resume was something about 5-6 pages.
Recruiters do not have that kind of time to deal with for every single application. Questions like how to put my Data Science work in my resume were a major confusion in my mind.
After that session, it was very clear how it needs to be broken into different parts like to create a master resume, letting all my points stay there and created role-specific resumes for which I put up only the major points from that master resume and created a single page and very impactful resume as learned from that session.
Malvika: Accredian’s mission is to Groom Data Leaders of tomorrow. What do you understand by a Data Leader? And how is a Data Leader different from a Data Scientist?
Anirudha: Data Leader is one who understands the revolutionary potential of data; merging science with business with the foresight of creating the data concept while also separating hype from potential and asking the right question with vision and purpose, which will lead to transcending traditional organizational barriers, enabling them to move faster.
Malvika: What is your advice to anyone wanting to start a career in Data Science?
Anirudha: You have to understand there is not always tomorrow.
An advice which I would give to everybody is we have to dive deep today. Take the initiative today and start learning things, get into some program or process.
And while we think that we sit in a class and learn everything, I think Data Science is something which wouldn’t happen that way and getting your hands dirty is very important.
So get started today and enroll in some program or self-learning is also a good option. But that takes more motivation and focus to get there.
Malvika: How has your journey with Accredian been so far? Do you have any comments on how the curriculum has been structured, the faculty and the support team?
Anirudha: I would like to thank the Accredian team for keeping me busy with material and helping me develop that discipline.
Special mentions to Suchit and Deepesh both of them have enough knowledge and what I really liked was the patience level when students ask thousands of questions and the way they handled them.
The way Deepesh writes on pen and paper and explains those things are lovely. This way the core topics remain clear and we can easily remember those things.
Most of the institutes won’t take much effort for candidates and simply focus on finishing the course curriculum.
What Accredian is doing is really appreciable; so many workshops for resumes, GitHub, Kaggle, soft skills, this interview are all the things which will definitely help all the students. I know it takes a lot of hard work and I’m really thankful to Accredian.
Malvika: Thank you for your time, Anirudha. All the best for your future!
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