I did Industrial production engineering from Osmania University and then did Masters of Science from UT Austin. I graduated in 1995. Since then have been working in technology and program management. Worked at NCR in the US and then moved to India in 2002. My professional journey has always been in PMO, delivery management, implementing ERP applications, and setting up offshore units for US companies. I am currently working at Allstate as Sr. Manager and Head of Global IT Outsourcing Analytics and Category Management. Read further to learn more about my journey with Great Learning’s PGP Data Science and Business Analytics Course.
It was 15 years ago in 2005 where Fidelity Investments was setting up a data analytics team in India. That was new to me and being a maths and statistics lover, I was keen on pursuing my career in this field. With two young children, I took the courage to enroll in a data analytics course in 2008. However, with work and personal commitments, I could not do it and dropped off the course. From 2008 till 2020 I spoke to many professionals and continued to aspire to study. I did an introductory course in 2015. That was very interesting and I wanted to pursue deeper studies. As the pandemic hit in 2020 Mar, I continued to aspire to stay in AI/ML, I did enquire about the course and however was not sure if I would be able to do it. It was not easy to gather the confidence to study after 25 years of formal education. There are two things that made the difference and I enrolled. One is that the GL Program Manager offered a one-month trial period before I could decide and second, my good friend saw that I had enrolled and she registered herself. Then there was no way to back out and the journey started and the most satisfying and rewarding journey. Deeply thankful to Mohini for her support and constant engagement.
I was researching the curriculum of several institutes and had downloaded the brochure. One of the key drivers for narrowing down to GL was some of the flexibility it provided, the trial period, and assurance on ongoing support. I was apprehensive of the online medium that I may miss on the discipline. I think once I started and had a good peer study group that virtual working helped to manage time.
Mentoring sessions were absolutely fabulous. It summarized the online learnings and helped in completing the projects. Very knowledgeable mentors with a lot of industry experience. The hackathon, the ongoing projects, and the capstone project made me practice the concepts taught in the course. I have learned a lot by writing reports, optimizing the models, and working through the business cases. I am now confident when I am doing projects at work that are comprehensive and well researched.
I would advise that analytics is a key skill to gain and extremely important irrespective of the domain one works in. Its application is far, wide, and deep. It not only develops analytics skills but also, critical thinking, problem-solving, research, and report writing.
