Written on April 14, 2019
It's always fun to share what we learn from our experiences. People always take it and don't for various reasons depending on their beliefs and values. This article will be a perspective of my experience, which I already had in engineering, to my first Internship office experience.
August 2018: My placement season was just getting started, and there was a heated atmosphere among the students to get placed. I was parallelly trying to accomplish two things. One is looking actively for a Job or Internship because my thought process needed to fit the companies. Because I wasn't looking for an option to live the rest of my life; instead, find a mission that best suited my understanding and curiosity.
I applied on the Career portal and made it to the final round but failed. After, again 20 -25 days, I tried again, and this time, I got selected to work as Student Experience Intern for Google India Scholars till December 1st week. I had two options, college placements or Internship in Delhi. I chose the latter one, which later proved to be the right decision I made for myself.
There's one letter that I'd like to put down, which I wrote to the team on my last day at Udacity Office, Delhi.
There's one letter that I'd like to put down, which I wrote to the team on my last day at Udacity Office, Delhi.
Family!
That's what I call you.
Today's my last day at work as a Student Experience Intern with you. One year back, I learned about Udacity; while in parallel, I saw communities as one of the great ways to improve the education Experience. My strong desire is to be a part of the team.
Once I made it here, I learned a lot of things exceptionally. You'd never believe it, but weekly updates, and emails, and all-hands are what always inspired me.
After I got in here,
I learned to call home every 3 days and started reading books, which I never used to do before.
I began to love parathas, while it was just rice all the time in Chennai.
I began to enjoy traveling, which I did for the first time when I got a Hop-in, Hop-off Bus.
I made my way so deeply to understand what you speak. Terms like CACS, OKRS, Sunset, Enterprise, B2C & B2B, sync-ups, metrics, Funnel, conversions, and leads, began to make sense as well as gave me lots of inspiration to make my way to a few of the leadership team and talk a bit of stuff that makes sense about how can we make it better on a mission to democratize education.
I began to learn how to present my thoughts in the simplest way, and I'm still working on it.
For the first time, I lived far away from home, went to the office every day on the metro, learned to make a budget and map my spending, and sent Amazon gifts for mom, dad & my brother.
I used to be always in my own world of computers, work & strategies in my passion and never understood this word called work/life balance everywhere I read. But spending time with you all, in team parties & Diwali parties, every fun Friday made me feel like family.
Great time, which I'd never ever have again. It's hardly 2.5 months since getting into this beautiful team and learning exceptionally, which will contribute a lot. In fact, after getting in, I was able to present my experience in an all- hands, was able to speak in a weekly update, saw a significant Shift in HQ leadership, saw Career Services growing up, witnessed Enterprise hitting massive, able to see Google India Scholars reaching 50% graduation soon, Saw an incredible team growth in Student Services, heard an Entire Geo shift for a better future!
All this was possible because of the culture, flexibility, and opportunities you provided as Team India - Udacity.
Let's keep in touch!
Best,
Saif Ali Shaik
Diverse Learnings
One of my responsibilities was to help Google India Scholars graduate from the Nanodegree program, help them technically, and engage them to stick to their learning.
First Team
I was precisely part of the Student Experience team alongside Akshit Jain. One of the best learnings that I've had,
It could be a better company, but the first manager will significantly impact how you see the rest of your career.
It's a Wonderful team who I worked closely with - Entire Student Operations (Each and everyone) and my best mentors along the journey, Amisha and Priyanka. I'll miss you all, guys. (By the way, It would be weird if I mentioned the names of each and every one.)
Curiosity Cut Down: Marketing and Technical
Well, it has this naturally occurring curiosity of things working together. It's straightforward to say we're on a mission to democratize education. But how you achieve it is a different story altogether. Thanks, Rohan and Amit, for connecting with everyone else and explaining to me all the questions I poke them in regards Marketing, Technical & beyond.
A Conversation with Google Program Manager
I got this opportunity to connect on Google's Mobile Developer Fest happening in Delhi, this time not as an attendee but on behalf of Udacity. When the event ended, I was grateful that Mathang shared time with me until he got to the airport in the cab. I had vivid views and learnings about Data, Metrics, his journey to Google, and a few life suggestions to enjoy my current time.
I was already a rare guy to be seen by my friends and classmates on my Campus due to a blind run towards something always. The internship in Delhi just was too far for my campus mates. As such, I left the college already.
Finally, after 3 - 4 months, when I returned, It was expected to take 5-6 weeks for the final semester to complete. By the time I stepped in, it was already one week gone. I re-started coping with friends and the environment; an SMS bomb was dropped on the 8th day -- Today is the final day of the 8th semester no more working days.
Altogether, I miss every person on the team during my time there.