From the world of BCA and services-based job offers to landing a up at a product startup — Soumik’s journey

23-year-old Soumik Acharjee has been an enthusiast of mobile apps and technology since an early age. He often disassembled and reassembled computer hardware for the fun of it. Animated websites, gamified animations on the internet were his cup of tea. Born and raised in Siliguri, West Bengal, he went to Kolkata to pursue his Bachelor’s in Computer Applications (BCA).

Towards the end of his final year of college, he had to do a major project. Using the backend framework Django, he decided to build a mobile app. There was a month’s coaching facilitated by the institution, and before it ended, he was able to have a prototype in hand. The idea of being able to build a mobile app out of nowhere only by writing mere lines of code on the computer screen came off as a pleasant surprise, which fueled Soumik’s serious interest in software programming.

“The syllabus in BCA has been a legacy one for decades now. It was all C and C++ in theory but nothing to do in practical. BCA was meant to be mugged up in theory to score good marks, but not meant to make you a professional software developer. I would end up struggling to do a simple For loop by the end of three years.”

During his campus placements, service-based companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) arrived to hire candidates but Soumik did not want to make himself available for them. He took it up upon himself to do some self-learning, taking JavaScript tutorials from YouTube. But the problem there was that the learning is very unstructured and content overload. It was hard to identify and choose which ones were better to learn JavaScript seriously.

He stumbled upon a Time of India article about Masai School one night and looked it up on the internet. Having skimmed through the website and its content, he knew Masai was what he had been looking for, and needed the most at that point in his life. College education was such that he would not expect a job in return after having paid lots of money for it. But the whole idea of having to pay a fee only after getting a job, got Soumik’s attention.

The ISA Payments System

To reduce the burden of student loans for engineering students, Masai School operates on an Income Share Agreement (ISA) where the students pay zero upfront cost. Once they graduate from the course, the students will pay back 15 percent of their monthly income for 36 months, or until they reach a maximum capped amount of INR 3 lac.

However, the Income Share Agreement is applicable only when the students get a job offer with a package of INR 5 LPA or more.

Coding at Masai School

Soumik joined the third batch at Masai School, taking up a Full-Stack Web Development course. By the end of third week, in retrospect, Soumik was writing more lines of code than he did throughout the 3 years of his college education.

His conscience kept reminding him of all the precious time wasted in college, thanks to the system, and Soumik wanted to make up for the wasted time at Masai. He decided to work hard from day one and make something meaningful. Owing to this determination, he even says the rigorous 9–9–6 intensive training never posed as difficult or tiring. In fact, this level of discipline came in handy during his professional career as well.

“I thought I knew coding really well but I realised I was really bad at presenting myself the right way while applying for job interviews at tech companies. I could not communicate really well, did not know how to build a decent resume. I learnt that there was a lot more to technical skills, and these softer aspects were also taught really well at Masai School.”

At Masai School, he learnt JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and MERN Stack. He goes on to thank the technical staff and the Placements team at Masai, for helping shape his career and bring him on to the right track. Soumik says the teams were extremely supportive and helpful throughout the duration of his course, and were available immediately after he reached out for help.

“Work hard and be disciplined if you want to become successful at software development,” he tells aspiring developers who want to launch their own careers in Coding.