Electrical Engineering to Analytics: Bharath Bethapudi

I’m an electrical engineering graduate who worked in the core sector for over 5 years before realizing that if I wanted to stay relevant and evolve, I needed to upskill. Choosing Analytics was a no-brainer considering that the domain is growing like a weed and is a growth-churning machine for professionals. But it required some serious effort and perseverance to make a transition. I moved to E&Y after a series of interviews and starting working on analytical projects.
Soon after joining E&Y, I realized that this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. I had no prior experience in Analytics and hence my initial days were a bit of a struggle. My role required me to work on tax prediction for telecom clients, statistical modeling, and making dashboards. Thankfully, E&Y had a 3-month long training program that helped me understand the basics and get started on my projects.
But, my knowledge was still very limited. I wanted to grow faster and perform better in my role. Lack of formal training would hold me back every now and then from excelling in my role. That’s when I decided to pursue the PGP-BABI program. When I was promoted to the role of an Advanced Analyst, my job became even more challenging. But the concepts, tools, and techniques taught during the program boosted my confidence and helped me immensely at work.
My work now employs R, Tableau, and Spotfire extensively. Thankfully, R and Tableau are covered comprehensively in the program which helped me get a better grip on my work assignments. I could easily apply my learnings to work and approach problems with complete confidence, in contrast to the uncertainty that would loom over me.
I liked the blended nature of the program. One weekend a month gave me the comfort of a full-time program while the online modules provided me the flexibility to learn along with my job. This industry-relevant program is very well structured. The faculty and industry guests are seasoned and well-informed, and the concepts taught are explained using data and case studies. The Capstone project also helped a lot as it taught me how to design the framework for a project. It streamlined my problem-solving skills and provided me the opportunity to do a project start-to-finish. One of my peers in the program had advanced analytics experience and as a result, I got to learn a lot from him as well.
If you wish to pursue analytics as a career option, there are a couple of important things to remember: First is something that our parents told us ad nauseam, that there is no substitute for hard work. It has never held more meaning for me as it did during my transition to analytics. And secondly, this is a field that required continuous learning. You should participate in hackathons and Data science competitions along with the program.