Rejections are a part of life — How Richa Singh turned her life around to become a Software Developer
Now a Software Developer at SUGAR Cosmetics, Richa Singh’s first encounter with computers was in her 10th grade. At the time, she was learning the basics of computing & Microsoft Office. Hailing from Jharkhand, 21-year-old Richa recalls wanting to become an engineer ever since she was only in school. Though she did not have a focused approach towards it at the time, she knew she had to take up relevant subjects like Math and Science in high school.
Richa aimed to grab a seat in the government-run engineering institutions in Jharkhand. Keeping her financial background in perspective, she did not want to apply at any deemed universities or private institutions. Eventually, she took up a Diploma in Computer Science from a Government Polytechnic Institute in Dhanbad. But Richa realised it soon enough that a Diploma is not the same as a graduate degree, and it would later lead to problems while trying to find employment. Besides, she was expecting to gain some hands-on technical experience in the Diploma which she thought would help her get a job. But she was not getting any close to her expectations during the time.
“Considering the kind of background, the upbringing and my peer network in Dhanbad, it was not very clear as to what the right career path should be. It was even more difficult since it was about getting into the technology industry.”
During her first year of Diploma, Richa enrolled for a Bachelor’s in Computer Applications (BCA) from Indira Gandhi National Open University, a distance education institution. She was pursuing both the courses simultaneously with an objective to land a good job in the tech industry, by the time she finished them.
Upon completion of both the Diploma and BCA, Richa moved to Delhi, in search of a job. There were numerous trials but all in vain. Her biggest takeaway from applying at all these tech companies was that she lacked hand-on coding experience, despite having done two technical courses. Even during her BCA, all the lines of code she could write were on a piece of paper and fully theoretical. Richa even tried self-learning, from various sources on the internet but none of them worked out.
Enter Masai School
At the time of applying for jobs, Richa was living at a relative’s house in Delhi. Rejected at every job interview and disheartened, Richa opened up to her relatives that she was lacking the real experience she needed to crack a job interview. One day, the newspaper had an article about Masai School, and Richa found out about the same from her relative.
Monday to Saturday, 9am to 9pm, Full-Stack Web Development course were the key terms that stuck with Richa. But, by this time, she had already spent 4 years in technical education and now spending 30 more weeks at Masai School was a difficult choice. However, what really attracted her the most was the fact that she had to pay Zero upfront fee to the school. Keeping in mind that she was not coming from a financially stable background, Richa wanted to give Masai a shot and decided to invest 30 weeks for herself.
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
HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Javascript, MERN Stack were among the many tools and languages Richa learnt at Masai. Despite being a hardworking learner, Richa did not really have a well structured path to become a developer up until that point. Though the 9–9–6 training was hard in the beginning, she put herself to work anyway. But gradually, it gave her the structured path she had been looking for, all that time.
“I was trying a lot to cope up with the exhaustion that came with the rigorous 9–9–6 training schedule. But the technical mentors and instructors at Masai made sure I believed in myself when I found it hard to. They were always there to offer guidance and support throughout the duration of my training.”
Richa adds that she majorly lacked basic communication skills and the confidence to speak a single word of English in front of people. Especially while she was in college, she resorted to being a shy introvert who would only mind her own business. But she boasts of being a confident speaker and communicator today, after graduating from Masai School.
What really changed for Richa was that she was now able to carefully track her progress, both academically and personally. Though she was rejected at the initial few interviews after graduating from Masai, she recalls being able to identify her shortcomings and improve upon her skills after every interview. Adding them all up, she was able to finally land a job as a Software Development Engineer at SUGAR Cosmetics.
