WiMLDS: Mentorship Program (Week 1)
I got the opportunity to be selected as a mentee for the first-ever Mentorship Program organized by Women in Machine Learning and Data Science, Delhi circle, under my amazing and inspirational mentor, Arushi Chauhan! My mentor scheduled the first introductory meeting to introduce ourselves to our co-mentees and understand the different Computer Science fields that align with our interests, and we can further explore.
I got to know about several new fields such as Semantic Web, Parallel Computing, etc., and various interdisciplinary fields that one can pursue and a Computer Science degree like Neurobiology, Computational finance, Design, etc. Our mentor discussed pursuing a tech career right after undergraduate, tradeoffs regarding pursuing higher studies and research in great detail. To get a Software Engineering role (SWE) in a good product-based company, the most important thing is to practice competitive programming continuously. If someone wishes to pursue higher studies, it is very much recommended to have a decent CGPA and at least one research paper published in a good conference as this increases the chances of getting accepted into a good university. We were advised to explore these different fields continuously, especially in our sophomore year, to figure out what aligns the best with our interests.
Next, to focus more on our individual interests, 1:1 sessions were organized for all the mentees. As I have not yet decided whether I want to pursue a master's degree right after my undergraduate, my mentor advised me to focus on competitive programming for cracking good product-based companies and looking for research projects under professors working in active research labs. This session helped clear my doubts regarding approaching professors for research projects and understanding how to manage both competitive programming and working on more research-focused projects. My mentor also advised me to set up weekly targets in competitive programming to lose touch with data structures and algorithms.
This week’s session was extremely informative, and I am really looking forward to the upcoming sessions!
