Blogs

5107

Hello Rashmi, I just thought of sending a small thank you note for the support you have extended as my student mentor.  As you are aware, I have had an exciting journey while pursuing my research master’s work at Liverpool John Moores University arranged by upGrad. However, it was not a simple decision to join the program as I was not sure if I could devote the time needed to perform well in the time-bound learning process, especially after spending close to 15 years in industry having multiple responsibilities from both professional and personal fronts. However, this turned out to be a great decision.  I am extremely happy to tell you that I have already completed and submitted my mid-thesis work and am working towards the final thesis on my research topic. This has been possible only because of extraordinary learning opportunities upGrad and LJMU provided. Apart from that, I am highly impressed and extremely thankful for the support you have provided as a student mentor. You have kept me engaged starting from keeping me organised, providing the resources, and arranging personal learning calls with industry experts; all of that certainly helped me to succeed. In addition, I want to thank my Prof. Dr. Manoj J. and guide Mr. Minesh M. for motivation and understanding extended for project work. Looking forward to having similar wonderful learning experiences in the future.  Thank you again. Regards, Sandeep Bhalekar Data Analytics and Data Science Professional www.sandeepbhalekar.com

by Premal Jain

12 Jun 2020

Blogs

5083

Dear Mayank Hope you are safe and healthy! Amidst today’s pandemic and grim environment, I write to you today to share a special note for a special person (in upGrad) who has been very supportive and effective in my journey. I’m Tejveer, currently enrolled in your PG Diploma Program in Data Analytics. I wanted to share with you the fact that it’s quite an intensive program. That, and more.  As a student of this program, when I got first introduced to Bhavika (my Student Mentor), my first thought was that she would be resolving our technical issues. But as I moved on, I got to know that Bhavika would be offering support with the coordination aspect of our program. Soon, I understood how important this coordination was and realised why upGrad calls their coordinators, “Student Mentors”.  Consider a normal day, there are hundreds of WhatsApp messages in the student group with everyone clamouring for answers and solutions, especially timely ones. Phew! This can even make the best of us very nervous but not our Student Mentor. She was always up for the task. A mentor is supposed to guide you, provide resolutions, and if necessary, even motivate and push you to run through a wall. Bhavika has been doing exactly the same in my case on multiple occasions. Initially, when I started the program, I was rusty since I had been away from active learning for quite some time. Picking up on this and my slow progress, she quickly started sending me regular emails and at times, placing review calls. Finally, after a month, I made that huge transition. Yes, most of the students need that extra push to get immersed in the ocean of learning. Later on too there were multiple occasions where Bhavika, “the solution provider” came to our rescue. When my project mate and I were stuck in a predicament during our project submission, she ensured a way out of that problem, leaving us unscathed and better prepared. Being a Co-founder of a tech company, my limited time compels me to compromise on educational learning every single day. But whenever this erratic student has lost his track, he always found his mentor there to put him back on course. I’m known in the industry for not mincing words and it’s a complete honour to write this letter of recommendation and endorsement for Bhavika, who breathes and completely owns the space of “Being a Mentor”. Kudos to Team upGrad for putting together such a splendid team and more power to all of you because online learning is about to explode in India. Thanks for your time!

by Premal Jain

05 Jun 2020

Blogs

5553

Two years ago, I realised that I needed to upskill to prepare myself for the Industry4.0 era, and leverage my domain knowledge in mechanical engineering with Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. I joined upGrad’s program and started going through all the lectures, assignments and exams. One of the critical aspects of the program was the combination of DEDICATION, ROUTINE and EXPLORATION. When I have put myself in these 3 modes for self-study then I realise that this now becomes my playfield where I was comfortable. Following a daily ‘routine’ with a ‘dedication’ to learn something new enabled my ‘exploration’ to achieve something bigger in future and kept me motivated to keep ongoing. On my journey in my C2-PGDMLAI, I received small notes of appreciation from Sumeet, my student mentor, that kept my morale up throughout the first phase of my journey. I kept the key ring momento that upGrad sent with my car keys, which kept reminding me of my priorities for that moment (that study and more study). I found out that each video lecture was not more than 3-5 minutes, thus keeping us concentrated, and pop up questions(with marks) in lecture ensure that we’re paying attention. (Nice trick!) The overall content had a right balance of Theory, Practicals and Industrial Exposures along with references to follow. I have also observed that upGrad’s Content team followed the process of continuous improvements of content based on the feedback they receive from their learners. We also had timely web sessions with some faculties. One notable name that always comes to my mind is of Prof. G. Srinivasaraghavan whose expertise was to explain complex things with such simplicity! The whole Cohort loved that (PS: We also found out later through YouTube videos that he is also an expert trained in Karnatak Music! Apart from Deep Learning and ML.) Whenever I had trouble with something, I found that whole upGrad team was at your disposal for resolving your concerns and I felt like upGrad had a culture of family spirit in their values which enabled special bonding between learners and the upGrad community thus ensuring my success during the entire journey through PGD ML AI and MSc ML AI. After completing this first phase I was hungry for more knowledge as it opened up a Pandora’s box for use cases for implementation in my industry and domain. I did some pilot projects for my organisation and demonstrated it to my Head Technology Manager of our R&D located in Sweden and his support and motivation encouraged me to take this subject further. I started to investigate to enrol myself in the University of Edinburgh for Master’s in ML and AI, as at that point of time there were no upGrad and LJMU partnerships. By the time I enrolled for Edinburgh, I got a call from upGrad about a new program with LJMU offering a Master’s. Without thinking twice and with complete faith in upGrad, I enrolled myself for the Master’s program. The program started with a bit of logistical and other hurdles for the first cohort but upGrad Management and Team put hard effort to streamline the process and provide us with good experience. I loved the part of research and implementation and interactions with my Thesis Supervisor. Rajesh, my student mentor helped answer our queries and made sure that we were able to submit our Thesis on time even after facing several challenges and hurdles at the beginning.  Now, a few key take-aways from my 2nd year Journey I was able to finish my 2nd Year of the journey with the love and support of the upGrad Team and my family. I was able to make good friends for life and strong networks in my cohort on the way. I was invited as a Guest Speaker in the prestigious conference of ‘Industry of Things’ Singapore to speak about the role of AI and ML in the cutting tool industry. This program enabled me to work with really bright people within my organisation who are industry experts (PhD’s) with many patents in their name, thereby giving me another platform for my career. Because of this program, my organisation was able to start a new vertical along with like-minded people from other domains and relocate me to the newly founded vertical of Digital Machining in R&D Sweden as a Senior Data Scientist – Digital Machining.  Unfortunately because of the Covid-19 outbreak, I am unable to relocate now. But as a wise man once said that after every rain there is bright sunshine! So I am waiting for the lockdown to be over so that I can join my team of Digital Machining in Sweden. I am thankful to all faculty members, mentors, peers and upGrad Team for successfully helping me out in transitioning my career to my new passion in the new domain of Industry 4.0. With Warm Regards and tonnes of Love and Respect, Abhishek Ranjan

by Premal Jain

29 May 2020

Blogs

5316

I am Spoorthi Madhavan, I had enrolled for the PG Diploma in Software Development program – Dec 2017 batch. I am writing this particular Email to share my feedback regarding the program and also how it benefited me. To start with I am a BCA (Bachelors of Computer Applications) Graduate and was working as a System Analyst at Itron India Pvt Ltd. I had very minimum and basic knowledge regarding the programming languages but my passion towards learning them paved the way to this program.  This program actually helped me in learning from scratch and I must say that the upGrad team has really worked on this very well. Admission team, support team, Mentors, everyone has worked equally hard! I would say it’s not just the learners who have succeeded but also the entire team and IIIT-B professors are a part of this successful year. The entire program was bang-on and it always kept me busy in learning new things every week. I loved my projects. They were the best because it not only taught me how to apply what we learnt but also how it is implemented in the real-world. It also helped us collaborate with our group in a better way. In-content questions were a very important part of our learning journey and that is because it makes sure that we are learning along with the video. This is the best part because it gave the entire experience a classroom feel – when each question is asked, I felt as though the professors were questioning me! Exams were very helpful as well. I could easily clear the exams because I went through the program again and again. My recommendation to upGrad would be to work more on the discussion forum scores and assignments since it will be pretty easy for the learners, as many of them won’t post much which will lead to low classroom participation scores. Assignments could have been little easier because most of them are working professionals and managing the time was a challenge. Nevertheless, that’s the whole point of enrolling to this program. It’s going to test us in every way possible. Completing this program has had an immense impact on my life both education and career wise. I had planned on pursuing my Master’s degree abroad; with all the hard work and dedication, along with this program’s certification, I have been offered for the course of MS in Computer Science at one of the top universities of Germany. This program helped me achieve all the prerequisites of my Master’s, because of which my application was easily accepted. I have received acceptance letters from several universities such as University of Paderborn, Stuttgart University of Applied Science,University of Koblenz and Landau,SRH hochschule Berlin and SRH hochschule Heidelberg. I considered University of Paderborn’s acceptance letter as I have received very good feedback from IIIT-B alumni who have graduated from this particular university. Moreover, I received an offer from a government university with no fees (Germany provides high class educational with minimum or no tuition fees), which means that I will receive the best quality of education for free. Additionally, this certificate will definitely fetch me a good internship in Germany where I can earn while studying. upGrad has also helped me by allowing access to the platform for the next 2 – 3 years which is going to be extremely helpful, I really appreciate and thank the one who came up with this idea. Gauri, you, as my mentor have done a fantastic job.  I commend your dedication, much appreciate your smart work and support to every individual learner. When I was a student failed to reach my target, you have always guided me and have provided an optimal solution to every problem. Thank you so much for that. You and upGrad’s entire team have helped me in achieving my dreams. I am finally leaving for Germany on March 7th 2019 and I think without upGrad it would have been a very tough Job! I would love to thank and appreciate every single person working at upGrad who has helped me directly or indirectly in achieving this success. I would also like to thank the entire IIIT-B faculty who took time and taught us this program. Thank you so much! Regards, Spoorthi Madhavan

by Premal Jain

22 May 2020

Blogs

5075

It can be tricky to take up online programs. Especially when you are enrolling for long-term programs or programs that are directly going to impact your career. Hence, I will base my arguments based on the career impact that online education has. I started the PG Diploma in Data Science program in Dec 2018 and will be completing it this month. What I have experienced is that as an organisation, upGrad has done everything possible to give you the best experience in terms of videos, extra material for self-study, online discussion forums, and mentors who can guide you remotely if you hit a roadblock, who are readily available through whatsapp/emails. It’s up to us to make the best of what has been provided. There can be a downside to online studies as you can be entirely on your own and may miss group studies – that we are so accustomed to, since our college days. To mitigate that, I ensure that I engaged with like-minded people and that helps you when you are studying and not able to understand certain concepts. While they do have Discussion Forums to provide a way around, who doesn’t like a friend teaching you during the crunch hours before the exams, helping you pass with flying colours. As far as the  “online” aspect is concerned, I enrolled because I am a working professional, attending full-time programs that are in-house. It is very tough but upGrad surpassed my expectations and did a really good job in providing material and industry experts who can keep you engaged for hours together. You will have assignments every weekend for 1 year which will keep you occupied. The biggest advantage that I felt was if I am busy at work I can budget my time by an hour or 2 – before or after the work – or if I am free at work I can continue with my learning as your material would be recorded videos and programming consoles that they provide on the platform itself. Hence, budgeting time is very easy for online programs. Career Impact: I started the program in Dec 2018 and as of 2020 April I have been able to transition myself into a Data Science role, of course, I am no expert, there have been several people who helped me steer clear of pitfalls. Also, I was able to transition because of good colleagues and seniors. However this program helped me a great deal in terms of acquiring the knowledge, understanding tools, and having a base set through the formal education you’re receiving. The best advantage of online programs is that you can sit and study whenever you want. You just have to ensure that you complete it before the deadlines which are pretty strict. There are inhouse programs as well which are really good but it depends on what your bandwidth is, if you can afford 9–10 hours on weekends that’d suffice. Good luck!

by Premal Jain

15 May 2020