Below is the course experience of Ankit Sonthalia, a pass-out of PGDBA Batch 2015-2017.

Before PGDBA

While I had always believed that the ultimate goal is to turn data into insight and insight into action, my desire to learn and grow in the field of analytics kept my interest alive. Having completed my B.Tech in Electronics and Communication from Nirma University and being placed in an IT company, I had no hopes of entering the field of analytics.

After completing my graduation, I took up my first job as a Programmer Analyst with Cognizant Technologies Pvt. Ltd. During my tenure there, I worked in data mining and manufacturing. I was also working on researching data analytics, which was widely known to be an emerging field at that point in time.

Having gained hands-on experience in SQL, Python, and VBA, I had gradually developed my interest in exploring tools and technologies and learning new methodologies. While working in the IT industry for around 2.5 years, I realized being settled in the industry and didn’t want to change or leave the domain I was working in. I never wanted to enter the non-technical field. It was at this time that I heard of Post Graduate Diploma in Business Analytics which intrigued me to the core. So, I decided to pursue my higher studies in the field of Data Analytics, and hence, giving PGDBA a fair shot.

During my life at PGDBA

To sum it all, my journey at PGDBA was superb. Being the first batch, we were a very small group of students in the course, which ultimately led to building great bonds amongst all of us. Overall, the batch was varied with students from multiple domains, regions, and backgrounds. Moreover, being the first lot of students pursuing the course, the faculty paid extra attention to the curriculum and placements since we were uncertain of how the end result would turn out to be.

Being an integrated program of the top three colleges in the country, namely, IIM Calcutta, IIT Kharagpur, and ISI Kolkata, we had to travel to each of these campuses every semester. The colleges offered complete support in traveling, accommodation and handled all our queries with utmost priority. The provision of exposure to multiple campuses helped us in increasing industry interaction to a great level.

Life after Integrated PGDBA

After completing the course, I got placed in Larsen & Toubro Ltd. It was all the result of my learning during my PGDBA that I excelled in my professional career. With the help of the faculty members and the set curriculum, I grew throughout my journey and am still growing. The projects that I did during my internship at the end of the course still help me solve problems in my current organization.

Having gained specialization in the field of data science, I hold the capability to help my colleagues in their projects and solve relevant problems. PGDBA has provided me the knowledge on various topics such as neural networks and graph theory and has enabled me to act wisely in my career.

All in all, I suggest that if you have an interest in data science and business analytics, pursuing a course in PGDBA would probably be one of the best decisions of your life. The course will definitely offer you a thorough background study of the field. Additionally, having a little background knowledge of languages such as R and Python would be a cherry on the cake.

About Ankit Sonthalia

Ankit Sonthalia is a Data Science enthusiast currently working as Associate Director, Data Science with LendingKart. He had worked with multiple companies such as L&T, Gartner & Cognizant. Apart from the curriculum, Ankit Sonthalia is passionate about traveling & photography. Ankit can be contacted over Linkedin here.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this post are solely of the author. Neither do these views reflect the opinion of AI Monks now do they bear any responsibility on AI Monks.

To learn more about the course, you can read more experiences as shared by current students and pass-outs at AI Monks Counsel. You may also write your queries to us at info@aimonks.com.

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Given below is the course feedback as shared by Neeti Pokharna, a pass-out of PGDBA at IIM Calcutta in the batch 2015-17.

During my pre-final year of engineering from BITS Pilani, I worked on Data Analytics and management projects at IIM Bangalore in summers. Immediately after, I interned with a networking technology company for 6 months as part of the BITS curriculum requirement and that’s when I realized that I liked a mix of technology+business and I decided to appear for CAT. When I got to know about the launch of the new PGDBA course, I thought to appear for it as well. I got admission in this course as well as a few other IIMs. I chose to take this course as I loved numbers and it provided a perfect blend of data, coding skills, and business strategy. Studying at three premier Indian institutes was another unique selling proposition. Now that I look back upon my time, it did teach me how to be agile and quickly adapt to the teaching methodology and lifestyle of different campuses.

The course was well-structured starting with a pre-semester in IIM Calcutta where we got an introduction to Finance, Marketing, Organizational Behaviour and the scope of Analytics. There were Industry talks from different sectors and Analytics games were organized throughout. The first semester was in ISI dedicated to statistics, database management and basic machine learning. This semester was instrumental in laying our foundation to data sciences substantiated with a full-fledged machine learning project.

The second semester in IIT Kharagpur was focused on Machine Learning (both theoretical and lab), time series modeling and Operation courses. We had an option to choose technical heavy courses like Complex Network and Information Retrieval which strengthened our know-how of data sciences.

The third semester at IIM Calcutta was a hectic one with lots of assignments and intern preparations at its peak. There, we had management subjects including Strategic Management, Project Management, Pricing, and Revenue Optimisation, Computational Finance, etc. We studied analytics courses as well with the focus on applications like Econometrics, Predictive Modeling, Categorical Data Analysis, etc. A couple of courses like Analytics in Payments were taken by industry experts. Case-based methodology and focus on communication at IIM Calcutta still helps me on how to approach and deliver projects at work systematically. There were case competitions conducted by different companies which improved our turnaround time and presentation skills.

The final semester was a 6-month-long internship in which companies like PwC, UHG, American Express, True North, etc. participated. I got my internship offer from True North where I was working with CXOs of one of their portfolio companies SeedWorks International on a variety of business cases ranging from building scoreboard of their distributors to defining their credit limit to building a shiny dashboard which could predict crop yields. The internship semester was a perfect end to this course as it taught us how to overcome real-time data challenges and interpret data such that it adds value to the business.

During the final placements, I got an offer from PwC for the position of Experienced Associate. There also, I worked across a range of industry sectors – from predictive and preventive maintenance to sustainability analytics and used Tableau, Alteryx, R, Python, and SAS. Having gone through the rigorous PGDBA curriculum, it was quite easy to adapt from one technology to another compared to peers. To master over a business strategy, I moved to DE Shaw where I am working as a Senior Analyst with the Energy Commodity group.

According to me, PGDBA is one of the best courses for people who want to build a career in analytics/data science while staying in India. It is very organized and prepares candidates holistically across analytics and business. We get the best of both worlds of MBA and analyst.

About Neeti Pokharna- student of PGDBA at IIM Calcutta

Neeti Pokharna is currently working as a Senior Analyst with DE Shaw India Pvt. Ltd. She is working on forecasting fundamental drivers in the Global Energy market. You can connect with her on her Linkedin profile here.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this post are solely of the author. Neither do these views reflect the opinion of AI Monks now do they bear any responsibility on AI Monks.

To learn more about the course, you can read more experiences as shared by current students and pass-outs at AI Monks Counsel; you may also write your queries to us at info@aimonks.com.

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I was fortunate to be a part of the premiere batch of PGDBA Course, the first graduating batch of ‘17. But this fortune was not without its fair share of trade-offs and leap of faith. The course offered a unique combination of experience in business, statistics and algorithmic computing at IIM Calcutta, ISI Kolkata, and IIT Kharagpur. Being among the most esteemed organizations in these disciplines, this unique concoction was untested in the industry. However, for me, taking such a decision required enough risk appetite in itself, to say the least.

The primary motivation for making this plunge came to me from my withstanding interest in AI and Machine Learning, across specializations like Particle Physics, Complexity Theory, and Computational Neuroscience. During my undergraduate, I did a few projects in Soft Computing, Computational Modeling, Evolutionary Optimization, Control Theory, etc. These projects offered an excellent background and perspective about what I was signing up for. I also kept myself abreast of the recent developments in the field of Deep Neural Networks which were starting to push the limits of what ML algorithms could do. I believe my prior interest in the technical aspects of the field really helped me through the challenging times in the course.

PGDBA Course really throws quite a few curves during the moving stay through the three campuses. Apart from changing the environment, radically different course content, pedagogy and expectations from the instructors, we planned our learnings beyond what was prescribed in the curriculum through electives, audits, additional projects, and online challenges. This was even more important for our batch since we had no clue what a stellar DS/BA profile looked like and what would the prospective employers look for.

What really proved to be a definite source of light out of our ignorance was our regular industry interactions with the behemoths in the domain of analytics like American Express (Amex), Deloitte, PWC, DIAC, ITC, LatentView, Fortis, Mytrah, etc. throughout our coursework. Interactions with senior leaders at these organizations really set the context for the analytics landscape in the industry and correlated with our coursework and relevant experiences. In fact, I would go on to say that these frequent interactions throughout our coursework helped us to see the rapidly transforming space of analytics across multiple industries like finance, consulting, manufacturing, healthcare etc. with such enriched and coherent lens that helped make sense of the state and direction of analytics, even better than many of the practitioners in the industry.

Post completion of my coursework, I was again fortunate to have the association and experience of working at multiple organizations at widely different stages of maturity in analytics. Starting from corporations like Amex and EXL to startups like Zomato and Cars24. Within these organizations I’ve had the opportunity to not only work across varied domains like captive finance, analytics consulting, e-commerce and auto tech, but also, to face and learn from unique set of challenges ranging from strategy analytics, client-facing analytics consulting, backend and tech integrated data science, to building data-enabled products and even setting up a Data Science team.

I would like to give due credit to PGDBA for providing me this opportunity of associating with the best educational brands in the country. Along with this, the PGDBA course also acquainted us with our professors, who gave us enough confidence to venture out in the unknown without hesitation.

I now see each successfully graduating batch behind us is setting even better benchmarks not only in terms of placements but also in terms of performance in external competitions. This course is setting a very solid presence not only in the Indian analytics landscape but all over the world.

I  will conclude by a message to all the aspirants who want to build a career in this domain- if you’re determined to follow your passion for data, algorithms, problem-solving, you should be ready to face a brief hustle. This course can set you up for an accelerated entry and growth with its comprehensive coursework, exceptional instructors, elite branding and a network of exceptionally talented alumni.

About Shashank Kumar, PGDBA Course Graduate

Shashank Kumar is an experienced Senior Data Scientist with a demonstrated career history in the automotive industry, e-commerce, finance, and semiconductor design. He is seasoned in end-to-end delivery of data science projects and at scale development, deployment and CI/CD of ML models through cloud-based technologies.

If you need guidance in preparing for admission to PGDBA, you may contact us at info@aimonks.com or read multiple other experiences that such graduates have shared with us here.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this post are solely of the author. Neither do these views reflect the opinion of AI Monks now do they bear any responsibility on AI Monks.

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PGDBA – Course Feedback

About Arjun Gupta-

After completing his course in PGDBA, Arjun Gupta is now working as a Senior PMO with Zilingo, Mumbai, Maharashtra. You may get in touch with Arjun here.

If you need further guidance about the course and/or the admission procedure, etc., quickly write to us info@aimonks.com or visit AI Monks.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this post are solely of the author. Neither do these views reflect the opinion of AI Monks now do they bear any responsibility on AI Monks.

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Thanks for visiting this page and looking at my experience of doing the most sought-after analytics course in the country. I have split my entire experience into two posts. The first post talks about my background, rationale for choosing the program and my experience during the program. The second post covers how I feel this course has helped me in shaping my professional career after graduating from the course.

I must say that I have had my challenges during the course of this program. Since I already had professional experience of around six and a half years post my under-graduation, I joined this course with a bucket full of expectations. After completing my BE in Information Science and Engineering from RVCE, Bangalore, in 2008, I entered the most sought-after field at that time- IT. Prior to joining PGDBA, I had already worked with 3 companies, predominantly as a software engineer and had spent good amount of my career in South Africa.

I was doing good in my profession and was well settled, along with my wife, in South Africa. I had always dreamt of getting a master’s degree from one of the top institutes of India or the US. And, to give the necessary push to my dream, came this course – PGDBA started by the top three universities in India – IIM Calcutta, ISI Kolkata, and IIT Kharagpur. I had already developed an interest in the field of analytics and data science, owing to certain projects that I did at my personal end.

I applied for the program and in June 2015, I was sitting in a beautiful Joka campus – IIM Calcutta. The course looked very promising and I had high hopes from the course. Even though a lot of my colleagues did not agree with my decision to leave a well-settled, cushy job and go back to academics.

The outlook of the PGDBA staff was very dynamic and promising. I felt proud to be at JOKA IIMC. Green large campus, excellent professors and extremely high caliber classmates were some of the high points of my experience. I was among the eldest and had the maximum experience in the class.

The first semester at ISI Kolkata started in the later part of July 2015. We had world-class professors at ISI Kolkata. Foundation of statistics, computing in data science, statistical inference, stochastic processes, Database management were the subjects. The content was really good, and rigorous.

Computation in data science was the highlight of this semester. The professor teaching the course was extremely knowledgeable, friendly and rigorous in his approach. He not only talked about the rigorous theories of Linear algebra and machine learning but also gave us enough overview of the latest competitions and research going in the field of AI. He encouraged coding in the class on our laptops and we were implementing everything he was teaching in R/Python.

Other professors also gave a lot of practical examples in the class on the use of statistics to solve business problems. The course, Statistical Structures in Data was extremely rigorous and theoretical. Lots and lots of complex derivations were discussed and done thoroughly in the class. I was really feeling happy and satisfied with the academic rigor. One area that I felt was lacking was the focus on Big Data tools and technologies such as AWS, Hadoop, Spark, etc. 

Our second semester at IIT Kharagpur started in January 2016. Algorithms, Machine learning, Data Science laboratory, Linear regression and time series analysis were discussed rigorously and thoroughly. I was happy with the content and pace of the courses. 

By this time, our placement activities had also started. Since mine was the first batch, we had to create everything from scratch – process for selecting placement representatives, reaching out to companies, drafting policies, among other tasks. Among all this, there was a change in the command at the IIM Calcutta PGDBA office. The PGDBA chairperson at IIM Calcutta was changed during this time.

I was a little apprehensive about how things will unfold in due course of time. Nevertheless, we formed our placement committee and the committee started working towards their goal. Initially, I had thought that we would be allowed to participate in placements along with other students of three students (this was mentioned in the course brochure we had received at the time of admission). However, nothing of that sort happened at that time and we were on our own. 

Our placement committee had to build everything from scratch and had to compete against the existing courses of the colleges to get our batch placed.

Then came the third Semester at IIM C. This was full of activities and consisted of a lot of business fundamental courses. Though it was a very hectic semester and I used to sleep around 4 AM in the morning due to assignment/case studies submission, I enjoyed the course and the life in that semester completely. Courses were going fine but, placement discussions started heating up as it progressed.

Support from the institutes for placement efforts was not as what I had expected. I had thought that most of the things would be college driven; however, in our case, they were driven by students. Nevertheless, our entire batch worked together, and our placement committee put in extra effort in making sure that students got good internships. They owned the efforts, worked tirelessly, and ensured that all of us were placed on the first day for our internship. Offers were raining on the day of internship placement. The whole batch celebrated our internship placements.

My internship began in Gurgaon at CEB, which is a Gartner company now. I was treated extremely well as a research intern, had a stipend of 75K INR per month. I worked on the extraction of data from social media sources like Twitter, Facebook, and other sources like RSS Feeds and SEC filings data. They analyzed the data using text analytics techniques like topic modeling, sentiment analysis, text classification, etc.  I was fortunate to have a good boss and a good knowledgeable mentor during my internship. I must say I learned a lot during the internship.

My mentor and boss were happy with the way my work was shaping up, as I was putting a lot of effort. Finding business use cases of machine learning/NLP models is an extremely difficult task and only a few companies are good with it. Unfortunately, I could not get a PPO because the company didn’t have a concrete analytics strategy at that time and hence, they did not have an adequate budget to hire permanent staff.  So, I went back to campus for final placements.

There were around 26 people who were participating in final placements. 25 had already received PPOs from their companies. There were around 19 companies this time participating in the final placements for the batch. The hiring, this time was slower than internship placements, interviews were lengthier and offers were not raining as they were during the internship.

It was a tough day for me, and I was losing confidence after getting rejected at 3 interviews. Finally, I got placed in LnT Construction, Chennai as Manager (Analytics). Sadly, there were around 5 students in the batch who couldn’t bag a placement offer on that day. However, the placement team, batchmates, and college supported them in finding the right job and they were able to secure a good job soon after.

If I were to look completely from the financial perspective, PGDBA did not turn out to be a very successful decision for me. However, I had learnt a lot in these two years and I became much more knowledgeable. Though in the short-term, it wasn’t a financially beneficial decision and I had burnt all my savings, in the long-term it helped in becoming a more knowledgeable person and take the required step in the emerging field of analytics and data science. In my opinion, the course provided a good return on investment to those candidates who were either freshers or had around 2-3 years of work experience.

About Gautam-

A graduate of the batch 2015-17, Gautam works as a Senior Data Scientist with Daimler Trucks Asia, Tokyo, Japan. You can get in touch with him through his Linkedin profile.

If you need further guidance about the course and/or the admission procedure, etc., quickly write to us info@aimonks.com or visit AI Monks.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this post are solely of the author. Neither do these views reflect the opinion of AI Monks now do they bear any responsibility on AI Monks.

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If you one of the PGDBA aspirants, this is the only mantra you should believe in-

“Intelligence is what you have, Analytics is what you have to do with it.”

Nothing satisfies the heart and mind as real life experiences do, and hence, we bring to you PGDBA course experiences shared by the students.

Given below is the PGDBA course experience of Shashank Garg, one of the current students of current batches of PGDBA.

PGDBA Course Experience- Shashank Garg’s Feedback

The course experience till now is more of a roller coaster journey with facing a new challenge every day. The journey started with entering a lush green campus of lakes – IIMC, Joka. By being part of the Joka tribe, we were introduced to basic management concepts and were given a preview of future courses. This is also the only time when we interact with our senior batch, which was very humble and supportive of making our transition as smooth as possible. After one and a half months, we move to the Indian Statistical Institute. The study here is quite rigorous but this is where we learn the most. The professor here focuses more on the learning aspect of the student. The concepts taught here will form the foundation stone of business analytics. The future box of surprises are yet to open and explored.

About Shashank Garg-

Shashank Garg is a current student of the PGDBA batch 2019-2021. He had been working with L&T Electrical and Automation before entering the course. You can read more about him on his LinkedIn profile.

If you need further guidance about the course and/or the admission procedure, etc., quickly write to us info@aimonks.com or visit AI Monks.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this post are solely of the author. Neither do these views reflect the opinion of AI Monks now do they bear any responsibility on AI Monks.

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PGDBA Course- Madhur Modi’s Feedback

Madhur is one of the placement representatives from the pioneer batch of PGDBA. He joined IIM Calcutta with computer science and engineering from HBTI Kanpur along with 1-year experience from Adobe Systems. Post the rigor and analytical concepts he developed during the course, he started working in Optum and is working with Gartner now.

Madhur tells us that his motivation for joining PGDBA started with the kind of work he was doing in Adobe Systems. At Adobe, any feature development or work which the team undertook would start with an impact analysis that was backed by data analyzed by analytics experts. During his tenure at Adobe, Madhur realized how data was commanding importance in the industry and will be the next big thing. Shifting between three colleges and gaining an alumni status from all the three. Having the edge over the students in the same group due to the unique structure of the course was worth it. 

Many people ask that the fee is high, so does the course have enough ROI. Given that the course puts the students at a prominent position in the industry with a specialized set of skills completely apt for the role, it definitely pays off. Through the course, Madhur also worked as an analytics intern for McKinsey and Company and learned volumes.

To the aspirants, Madhur’s words of advice – “As the competition keeps getting tough, you need to keep the rigor high on the admission process. Even if you don’t have analytics experience or no experience at all, Even if you don’t have any statistical background, don’t worry. Make sure you are well versed with the concepts of the written test and buckle up for the interview. Crack them and you’ll be all set to witness the best experience of your lifetime”

About Madhur Modi-

Madhur Modi is currently working as a Senior Business Analyst, Data Science with Gartner. He has worked with companies like Adobe, Periscope by McKinsey, and United Health Group before entering the course. You may also connect with him on LinkedIn; here’s the link to his profile.

If you need further guidance about the course and/or the admission procedure, etc., quickly write to us info@aimonks.com or visit AI Monks.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this post are solely of the author. Neither do these views reflect the opinion of AI Monks now do they bear any responsibility on AI Monks.

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