Let’s face it — it’s not easy preparing for an interview. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Pulling in that analogy, it does take a small village — your referral, your friends, your mentors, your mock practice partners and hopefully this article — to give a good interview. It took me a village. Let me give a... Continue Reading →
Walking Left to Walking Right – Saying Goodbye To All #16
I realized something when I landed back in India. You are not the same person you were when you return after a significant period of time. Some call it ‘brain-drain’, some call it ‘turning into a foreigner’. I would just call it an expected metamorphosis. It’s impossible to stay the same person when you live... Continue Reading →
Making Sense of Millions of Amazon Reviews Using SQL, Spark and Python
Right after the final presentation — look at the happy faces! This is a story of three simple students (Srivatsan Ramesh, Arpita Shah and yours truly) from a non-CS background who worked on Amazon reviews to make better sense of them. We worked on this as part of our Big Data Analytics course where we had to work... Continue Reading →
How We Reduced Food Wastage and Saved Money Using Machine Learning
Welcome to a story of five simple students with one big goal. Reducing food waste. In the US alone, pitched food weighs in over 100 Empire State Buildings per year. Just how do five students dream of tackling this monumental task you ask? Well, this is our story of using data for good. In Columbia... Continue Reading →
Exciting News – An Update To The Slack Group!
Hey everyone, How have you been? I hope the end of the year has been treating you well! Here's a quick update to the Slack group - since I realized filling out a form was inefficient, and I wasn't able to respond to people who sent emails right away, I have set up a new... Continue Reading →
Walking Left To Walking Right – A Thousand Miles Away #14-15 (Life Of An MS Student In US)
Have you had this phase in life where your focus was narrowed down to just two or three activities? Where all you can remember about the time was the work you did? And everything else seemed to blur? That’s how I feel about last two months, and about the final semester of my Master’s in... Continue Reading →
Walking Left to Walking Right – A Thousand Miles Away #13 (Life of An MS Student in USA)
When I look at life, I see it in connected and fluid phases. There is a phase where you don’t worry about earning money but rather just focus on playing with your friends. There is a phase when getting good grades in school was the most important goal in your life. There is also a... Continue Reading →
Walking Right to Walking Left – A Thousand Miles Away #12 (Life of an MS Student)
(Brownie points if you noticed the change in title!) This was one of those months where there was a rich mix of environments. I spent the first set of 10 days in Bellevue, second set in New York and the third set in Mumbai, India. A few years back, before I had the fortune to... Continue Reading →
How To Ask Effective Questions
When we have a question, our first instinct is to go ask it right away to a friend, senior, or mentor. We don't spend time to think by ourselves. But in this age of technology, we can find everything online. I am completely in support for asking questions, being curious and inquisitive. I have asked a... Continue Reading →
Walking East to Walking West – A Thousand Miles Away #11 (Life of An MS Student)
While last month was when order and discipline creeped into my life, this month things went out of control for a while. But to battle it out, I finally could check off two major things I wanted to accomplish for long: go for a (professional) trip to California and read diligently everyday! While I'm the... Continue Reading →