Inspired by WhatsApp to become a developer, Arbeena Khanum is now building a women only community app for Android
Born and raised in the Shivajinagar, a neighborhood in Bengaluru, Arbeena Khanum was brought up in a joint family. With her entire family wanting her to become a doctor, she chose Biology as one of her subjects in 12th board. But Arbeena, who lost her father very early, counts him being a computer operator as a major influence in her choice. Her mother, a housewife, encouraged Arbeena to pursue what she really wanted to.
From 7th standard itself, she started to meddle with Java in her school’s computer labs. She also developed a peculiar interest towards Java specifically, and the stage was set in her later teens when she was introduced to the world of WhatsApp.
This was when the internet in India was transitioning from SMS text messaging to WhatsApp. Having learnt that Java is the base for overall Android application development, she narrowed down her focus to master the programming language. As it happened, she also built a clone of WhatsApp during her time at Masai School.
Arbeena went on to pursue her bachelor’s in Computer Science from Brindavan College of Engineering in Bengaluru. In college, she learnt a variety of programming languages like C, C++, Python and also Java.
“Java was the first programming language I ever learnt and I was very much attracted to it. Theoretically, my engineering education taught me how the hardware actually works. But I wanted to upskill myself more in a practical environment, which was not entirely possible in engineering.”
A lot of service-based companies arrived in her college for campus placements. But Arbeena strictly wanted to work as a mainstream developer at a product-based company. This led her to join an offline programming course where she was trying her hand at Java, Python and several other testing courses. However, the institute could only teach her Java for 6 months and the rest of the coursework was delayed.
When Arbeena was planning to move on to the other chapters, the world was hit by the pandemic. While the coaching institute could facilitate the transition from offline to online, it only led to more confusion. Arbeena was disheartened by the situation as she had spent almost a year trying to upskill herself.
Enter Masai School
Introduced by a friend, Arbeena checked out the Masai curriculum and got to know of the ISA-based payments system. Having a great deal of theoretical knowledge already coupled with a strong desire to have hands-on coding experience in a real working environment, she thought it was the best bet for her to eventually get into a product-based tech company.
Upon cracking the MSAT and joining Masai School, she was told that missing a day’s course is equivalent to missing a week, and missing a week is the same as missing a month’s coursework. She is proud of not missing a single day during her time at Masai and has successfully completed her Android Development course within the timeframe.
Owing to her consistent performance in every unit, Arbeena was selected for the Masai School Glide Program, under which she was offered a monthly allowance of Rs 15,000 which would later be adjusted for in her ISA payments. With the help of this allowance, she says she was able to upgrade her internet infrastructure and also her computer’s system capabilities. Arbeena also goes on to admit that this support from Masai completely eliminated the issue of power-cuts, and she was able to code hassle-free.
“I was using a low RAM Desktop computer with Windows 7 OS on it. Since I was an Android Developer, I needed to use Android Studio which was RAM-heavy. I was also using only my mobile internet’s hotspot while coding at home. With the allowance I received from the Glide Program, I upgraded my RAM to 8GB and installed broadband internet. My mother was extremely happy that I received this financial support to keep up with my infrastructural expenses.”
During her project work, Arbeena built a number of mobile apps like a News App, a Music Player, WhatsApp clone, a Quiz App and also a COVID Tracker. She used Kotlin & Java to build these applications on Android OS, apart from Data Structures and Algorithms.
Within 2 weeks of graduating from Masai, Arbeena found herself a coveted job as an Android Developer at Bengaluru-based Pankhuri.co. She attributes that Masai School has helped her quite a lot with her discipline levels and meeting deadlines within time.
“I used to be a procrastinator for a large part of my childhood, but Masai’s curriculum has changed me so much that I did not miss a single class throughout my course. Even when it came to soft-skills, I could feel the improvement within myself thanks to the numerous Skillathons I participated in. ”
