This is the next segment of our blog series highlighting Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors who achieved the Gold milestone and have recently graduated from university. Each blog in the series features a different student and highlights their accomplishments, their experience with the Student Ambassadors community, and what they’re up to now.
Today we meet Aditya Raman who is from India and graduated from the Sir M. Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology in Bangalore with a major in Computer Science and Engineering.
Responses have been edited for clarity and length.
When you first joined in August 2019, did you have specific goals you wanted to reach, such as a particular skill or quality? What were they? Did you achieve them? How has the Student Ambassador community impacted you in general?
When I joined this program, I wanted to achieve a lot of things through my Student Ambassador journey. Initially, I wanted to talk to several mentors and employees of Microsoft and wanted to know about the work culture and how I could be associated with Microsoft directly. Also, I was inclined towards open source development and was looking to build a community that would benefit directly or indirectly from Microsoft mentors. I was an integral part of my college’s Open Source Group, and after getting resources and connections from the Student Ambassador community, we started organizing events, seminars, and hackathons for the students. I also planned to use all the resources, learning materials, and credits that were given to the Student Ambassadors for learning and exploring Azure platforms. I actually learnt about a lot of technologies like DevOps and Serverless from Azure and Microsoft Learn.
What are the accomplishments that you’re the proudest of and why?
Just within a week of becoming a Student Ambassador, I completed the e-learning material provided to me, and I was converted to the Alpha milestone. Within two months, I was promoted to the Beta level of the community. This conversion to Beta was the outcome of the Microsoft AI Gaming event organized by me and other Student Ambassador at my campus. This event was a huge success for us, we had around 300 participants across different colleges of Bangalore. Moving quickly through the levels was a significant accomplishment. [Editor’s note: students must complete certain milestones before being awarded and advancing through the levels of Alpha and Beta. The highest level of Gold can only be attained via nomination by the program’s Community Program Managers or by other Golds and through a subsequent review process].
I was a part of Seasons of Serverless, a virtual code challenge where I got an opportunity to work under three of my favorite mentors, Microsoft’s Jen Looper, Jasmine Greenaway, and Chloe Condon. A fellow Student Ambassador, Soumya Narapaju, and I collaborated and presented a challenge to viewers to submit a Serverless solution to first detect if a food prepared is a proper ladoo, a delicious treat made in celebration of Diwali, an Indian festival of lights, and if it is a ladoo, then provide a confidence score.
Finally, for Serverless September, I was selected to write a detailed blog on "Serverless with GraphQL” using Azure Functions. People who wanted to write a blog had to submit a topic and a brief which was then reviewed by the team handling Serverless September. My topic was accepted, and I wrote the blog, which was published on different social media platforms. The blog had really great feedback; the Serverless September team informed me that my blog had the highest number of impressions of all their blogs.
What are you up to now that you've graduated?
Currently, I am a software engineer working on Backend and DevOps for Humantic AI, a company that analyzes personalities of people based on different data available across different social media platforms, but after talking to several Microsoft mentors, I am quite impressed with the company’s work culture and wish to join Microsoft at some point and quite soon, hopefully.
My ultimate goal is to start a company that could solve a lot of fundamental problems irrespective of domain. Somewhere the bridge between two domain areas is broken, and I want to fix them all.
I am looking forward to continuing to support open source communities and will continue to do open source projects. I really love to meet and talk to different people, and I am looking forward to supporting my juniors, peers, and whoever else wants to learn.
If you could redo your time with the Student Ambassadors community, is there anything you would have done differently?
There isn’t anything that I would have done differently. Everything here was perfectly fine, well planned, and consisted of lots of learning.
If you were to describe the community to a student who is interested in joining, what would you say about it to convince him or her to join?
The community provides a lot of opportunities to learn. The mentors are true representations of knowledge. Whenever I faced difficulties related to any technologies, I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by different mentors mostly from Microsoft, who cleared a lot of my doubts. In any technical event, I used to have a lot of questions and I have seen my mentors patiently answer them all.
I think we all should have few of the basic non-technical skills like public speaking, event handling, managing time, and talking to people. After joining the community, all of my skills in these areas got upgraded.
You will make a lot of friends who will become a lot closer when you talk to them.
I have learned a lot, and now you can try to take advantage of these opportunities by applying.
What advice would you give to new Student Ambassadors?
There are more learning opportunities than any one of us can think of. The best way to take advantage of these opportunities is to plan in better ways to maximize your efficiency. Like, do not focus on learning everything, or do not try to just attend all of the events. Ask yourself what you want to learn and do it effectively.
Always try to clear your doubts whether it be in events or meetings.
Try to organize multiple events, both solo or in a group, try to give seminars on any topics or in general make yourself comfortable and clear in front of others.
Make time to talk to mentors; they will share a lot of information. Do not forget to talk with fellow mates. There are a lot of group projects going on inside this community.
Do you have a motto in life, a guiding principle that drives you?
Learn as much as you can so you never have to prove yourself. And I really want to prove this sentence, “I gonna make myself an offer no one can ever refuse.”
What is are some random facts that few people know about you?
I like road trips. I usually go with my friends on weekends. Also, sometimes I take a long walk in the dark. It really helps me in being patient and calm.
I can do anything, if that’s possible. I believe in myself. And lastly, you can find me on Google.
I’d like to give credit to some of my mentors:
- Jen Looper: Ma’am I really admire you. You have been a whole lot of inspiration for me. I have learnt a lot of things from you. And thank you for your valuable time.
- Pablo: Sir, you have a great sense of planning. In most of the meetings, I have seen you be calm and overcome glitches, and I have learnt these from you. Thank you for leading us.
- Chloe Condon: Ma’am, I have tried learning the art of organizing any meetings and the art of creating my resume. You have really helped me. Thank you for making our journey smoother.
We wish you the best of luck, Aditya!
Posted at https://sl.advdat.com/3l1u7HN