Stepping out of your comfort zone and choosing to upskill yourself can present you with a number of great opportunities of a lifetime. Read about Santosh Powar’s journey with Great Learning’s PGP Data Science and Business Analytics.
I am a bachelor in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters in Public health (Health Economics and Finance). I was a Healthcare Project management consultant and used to work mostly on developing State Advisory reports, Detailed Project reports. These reports include financial Feasibility, Human Resources planning and biomedical equipment etc, Market research and Public Health research was my main project deliverables.
While developing any sort of report or deliverable, I was using only excel and PowerPoint. Whenever I used to see competitors’ reports they were comprehensive in terms of insights and presentation which I was lacking, so to overcome this and explore new tools. I decided to go for upskilling myself with data science.
Due to the pandemic, all the client projects were put on hold. Hence, it left us with very little in hand. I then decided to go for a job where I would be able to create a synergy of my domain knowledge, experience and data science. So I started looking for an opportunity in the development sector.
I got a call for an interview from The United Nations Children’s Fund (United Nations agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide) for Gujarat state. The position was State consultant for Data and Knowledge who will analyse data from all the public health programmes and develop reports and recommendations for better performance. I gave two interviews and a sample analysis report on the covid situation. The interview was taken by the Additional directors of programmatic areas and UNICEF Health Chief.
The journey was glorifying because of my group mates, mentors and the flexibility provided by Great Learning. Curriculum touched almost all major topics in which domain knowledge is required in any type of industry. I wanted to take this opportunity to give special credit to my mentor and mentor session because it helped a lot in the practical application of concepts learned.
It was like a dream come true to work with UNICEF and the state health department where you have access to so many resources and get a chance to interact with experts.
I would like to say this to everyone who has an interest in Data Science, just go for it and push yourself if you wish to make a difference. I would like to end my journey with the quote, “two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”
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