Ashish Raj always had a knack for computers and coding since his childhood when he spent most of his time at his uncle's cybercafe trying to understand the workings of the machine. However, the 24-year-old hailing from Munger, Bihar, did not have it easy. Ashish, who worked as an Uber driver from 9 pm to 4 am and still managed to get to his college at 9 am to pursue his diploma in Electrical Engineering, is now an implementation engineer at WebEngage.
Ashish's journey to becoming an engineer is nothing short of an inspiration. After completing his Class 10 examinations, he moved to Bhopal to pursue a diploma in Electrical Engineering. Ashish's father is a farmer and given their financial condition, he couldn't afford a university education. But his zeal to learn never lost its shine. "I wanted to learn something new but at my college in Bhopal, the curriculum was exam-oriented and not what I expected, despite that I continued," adds Ashish. While pursuing the diploma his family's financial condition deteriorated and his father's earnings weren't enough to support Ashish's education, they had managed to pay the first year semester somehow, but for the following semesters, it became difficult.
At first, Ashish took up a call centre job about six kilometres away from where he lived in Bhopal. "I would walk to the office after college and come back late at night, this went on for six months. I had to leave the job because it impacted my health and my studies as I didn't have much time left in the day. I had a cousin brother staying nearby, he suggested I learn to drive and drive cabs as a part-time job. He helped me with everything. I drove Uber cabs after college. But at the back of my mind, I still wanted to learn computers and coding. With the meagre amount of money I was saving, I bought a basic laptop on EMI. I began searching for courses online, looked at YouTube tutorials, gathered as much information as I could about coding and how to learn it comfortably," shares Ashish.
While searching on Google News, he noticed an article about Masai School, an article that changed his life forever. He saw that he didn't have to pay any upfront fee and it sounded suitable for him. "I went ahead and searched about it more. I got in touch and upon cracking the entrance, I started their Full Stack Web Development course in April 2020," he adds. Following this, he started working as an implementation engineer.
Masai School is a 21st-century career-focused coding school that provides skill-based training to professionals. Their motto is to invest in their students rather than vice versa. Currently, there are over 500 students that are studying at Masai. Once their students complete a programme at Masai, the hiring partners of the coding school, such as IBM, Samsung, Paytm, No Broker, and several others, spend some time with the students to assess and shortlist candidates they would want to hire.
