Deeming her BCA degree redundant, Falak Thackar dropped out of college to become a software engineer

“Whenever I had errors in my code, the Masai staff would look at it and even if they knew where I went wrong, they never encouraged the concept of spoon-feeding. They would only ask me to figure out where I went wrong, throughout the program, and the command it gives you over your problem-solving skills stays with you for life.”

Falak Thackar, from an early age of 7, was very used to a rigorous routine of waking up very early, performing Yoga, and attending school. The 9–9–6 training system at Masai School did not pose as a challenging environment for her. Born in Aurangabad, Falak grew up in a boarding school in Chikmagalur, Karnataka and some more time in Dubai.

She goes on to say that she was a part of the athletics team, Karate, the swimming team, and also received medals for Yoga from the Consulate General of India, in Dubai. A childhood like this sparked her interest in sports and extracurricular activities. Coincidentally, her school curriculum since her 8th grade had her learn the fundamentals in HTML and CSS.

This was also when she started to idolise Steve Jobs and the impact he has brought to the world of technology. So the transition to technology and programming was an obvious transition. Though she was not quite sure what exactly she should be pursuing, she was fully aware that she wanted to work in the technology industry for sure.

Watch Falak narrate her journey in this video-

Falak pursued Math and Commerce later in her high school years, while the former helped her pick up Bachelor’s in Computer Applications later. But soon enough, she realized that she had a lot of free time during her college and was not really learning anything related to real software programming. Falak felt she was not living up to her true potential.

Enter Masai School

The 19-year-old Falak, who now has a coveted internship with a reputed tech startup called Code Monk, moved to Pune along with her parents later. When the nation went into lockdowns, her college’s coursework had shifted online. This only gave more and more free time for Falak, and she would sit in front of the online classes only for the sake of attendance. But she would end up doing many other things of her own interest.

Weighing all the pros and cons, she decided that her college education wasn’t proving to be the best possible investment of time. Upon discussing the possible options with her parents, who she says have been extremely supportive throughout her journey, dropped out of BCA. In fact, her father was the one who had come across a newspaper article about Masai School and recommended that Falak tried it out.

After visiting the website and the entire structure of the program, Falak concluded that she would end up learning in leaps and bounds within only 30 weeks rather than wasting 3 years in a college degree. Even better, she realized spending her time at Masai School would actually allow her to be a real software developer with tangible skill in coding, and make her truly employable enough to solve for real-world software applications.

At Masai School, she chose the Full-Stack Web Development course and learnt the MERN Stack along with programming languages like JavaScript, HTML, CSS.

“It wasn’t just 9am-9pm, often, it went beyond these timings. But I have to admit it was a beautiful experience, and confess that it was overall a very holistic experience that helped me develop my personality and not just technical skills. The staff was extremely supportive and helpful throughout the process, and they were always available to answer my doubts and questions whenever I pinged them. I can’t be grateful enough to Masai School.”