Personal details:Indian Male, 29
Education
BS in Pharmacy from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India 2005. I was an honor student, and GPA would come to around 3.4 (76% on the last four semesters based on which distinction was awarded).
Work Experience:2005-2007: Software Programmer at Infosys Technology Solutions (India's second largest IT company)
2007-2010: Senior Software Programmer/ Team lead at Computer Sciences Corporation, India.
2010-2011: Team/ Project Lead at Cognizant Technology Solutions (One of the fastest growing global IT majors)
Professional achievements:1. Turned my current project around in terms of delivery and client satisfaction. Client ratings went up from 3.6 to 4.1 on a scale of 5. I’ve been appreciated at the account and Business Unit level for my contributions.
2. As the lead of a Performance Enhancement module in my current project, I have overseen implementation of tools that saves the client around 40000 USD per annum.
3. At CSC I was part of the team that installed wmA (an insurance product) for the first time into a client domain. That was the first instance of wmA being customized and provided to a client.
4. At Infosys I was part of the project that transitioned a major account from a rival outsourcing vendor. I was the youngest member in the transition team and was in charge of documentation, knowledge transfer and client presentation for a couple of critical mainframe applications.
5. ALMI Level 1 and AAPA certified. I’ve also completed certifications for a couple of product-based certifications both in CSC and Cognizant.
Extra curricular:1. Was the President at an international Indo-Japan students' conference
2.Was student delegate at an international Biomedical Conference.
3. I was student delegate at Indian Pharmaceutical Congress, 2004. Also, I co-authored an Op-Ed for a prominent Pharmaceutical journal during the Congress.
3. Member of Toastmasters' International
4. I’ve been involved with a couple of NGOs which spread equality in education.
5. Amateur quizzer
GMAT: I have taken it twice. Scored 660 in 2008 and 750 in 2011.
About the disjointed career path, well here's the story:
I really wanted to study drug-designing from an awesome US univeristy, and so had taken GRE back in 2004. Scored 1510 on a scale of 1600, and the rest of the things were pretty favorable as well. However, I had to get into IT because I felt that it was time I stopped milikng my family financially (my father retired in 2004, and my mom's salary would have been, to put mildly, not substantial). Also, before I had taken GRE, I was recruited by one of the top IT consulting firms in India, and I was one of the first pharmacy graduates (the first one ever from eastern India, I believe) to get in. Ever since 2005, I neither had the time nor the will to get back tp Pharmacy, because Mainframes had enthralled me by then (sounds impossible, but true story). Circa 2007, I broke into Computer Sciences Corp, one of the most prominent product companies in India back at that time. There too, I had to reason with my HR who was reluctant to hire a Pharmacy graduate (he told me that there would be problems getting a visa with my profile).
However, I never really detached myself from the GRE dreams, and have been unofficially mentoring aspirants on-off since 2006 with their SOPs, essays and AWAs. Even interviewed for a faculty post with Jamboree (a GRE-GMAT academic service provider), and got through Couldn’t join, though, as I had to travel back to my home-town.
Long story short, that is how the Pharma to IT transmutation happened. As for the IT to MBA aspiration, well, am an Indian IT Male, and that should pretty much be self-explanatory. The legend says that every Indian IT Male professional suffers from the 7-year itch whence he valiantly tries to win over the Ad-Com of good business schools
Seriously though, I would like to earn an MBA and delve into Strategy Consulting. I would really like to work in the West African markets in the near-future, as that is where the actions seem to have shifted.
Long-term goal would be to get back to India and start up a rural cooperative dealing with equitable education, fair governance and empowerment of the hungry and the unclad.
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16 Aug 2011, 04:25
