We had the opportunity of interviewing Kumar Divya Mani, an alum from Galgotias University in Greater Noida, India about: Extracurriculars
Here are some of his qualifications:
a machine learning facilitator at Google until 2019
former leader of the robotics club at Galgotias
current trainee at the MIT & IDSS Applied Data Science Bootcamp
and upcoming affiliate alumni of MIT
Here are some important words he shares
"I believe life is full of surprises, you know."
"One must never cease to explore the various facets of it."
"Unfortunately, here the educational wire-frame is primitive and rigid."
Q: Did you think your extracurriculars helped you find your interests or did you seek extracurriculars that conformed to your interests?
A: Both. I believe life is full of surprises, you know. One must never cease to explore the various facets of it. I never understood what credit and debit even mean, and what does Dow Jones even reflect. My financial curiosity exploded when I tried to learn about entrepreneurship that had terms like IPO, Shares, and much more. I used to think biology was not my cup of tea. But when I read about stem cells and how medicine works, it blew my mind. And now, I wish to do something remarkable in Biotech.
Q: What type of organizations or clubs were you involved in high school/college that you feel are note-worthy?
A: Sports club in high school. Robotics club in college.
Q: As the leader of the Robotics club while you were in college, what were your responsibilities and how did you land that role?
A: As a leader, my roles were to organize events(workshops) and competitions. In my sophomore year, I approached the committee of the club and told them upfront that I wish to lead this particular club. It was a challenge initially, but I managed to pull it off.
Q: For some of your major extracurriculars, roughly how many hours a week did you spend involved in it (preparing for competitions, attending meetings, etc)?
A: There's no explicit answer to it. Usually, if we had an event in a week I used to spend significant time on it. Other than that, it usually used to be a small meetup.
Q: Were you involved in a variety of activities or did you focus on one theme in all your extracurriculars?
A: I wanted to get involved in various activities like - Mathematical society, Space society, AI society, etc. Unfortunately, here the educational wire-frame is primitive and rigid. I never got a chance to get involved in anything else other than Robotics and Computer Science.
Learn more about Kumar and his experience on his LinkedIn account.
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