Yashi Srivastava introduces herself as a girl who thrives on a good challenge. She is that person who will fight to get the things she wants. Today, all her struggles have led to her getting an offer from Gojek at a CTC of INR 29 lakhs. This is her story.
From a family of engineers
Yashi hails from a family of engineers. Her encounter with computers began when she was in grade 5. A lot of kids that age ask their parents for pets. Yashi, on the other hand, wanted her parents to bring home a computer.
She says, “it was my stubbornness that led my parents to buy a computer…Initially they thought it was an additional expenditure, but looking back, they are thankful that it happened.”
A bright student in school, Yashi initially wanted to study Mechanical Engineering. But as it happened, her JEE scores were average which meant that Tier 1 universities were out of bounds. Her parents wanted her to take a gap year, but Yashi had already secured a 100% scholarship from Amity University, Lucknow to study Computer Science engineering and was too proud of her achievements to drop a year.
Falling in love with Python
In Yashi’s second year, she found out about Chegg Inc – a platform that connects prospective tutors to students seeking help. Soon, Yashi found herself tutoring students in the USA on subjects like Python, C++ and Theory of Computation.
“Those days I used to wake up at random hours to teach. I had to learn new languages myself before I could teach them to the students and that is how I learnt and fell in love with Python. Today, Python is my primary coding language,” Yashi says.
In her third year, one of her professors asked her to intern with MtoV Inc in South Korea. Travelling was an issue and so, she convinced the faculty for the internship in college.
Around the same time, she also found out about WE, a program offered by TalentSprint and supported by Google. A program that addresses a critical problem in the global technology sector – gender imbalance. If selected,women engineers from across the country have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get trained in the skillsets required to excel in the corporate Tech world.
“WE taught me to be on time”
The day of the WE test, Yashi fell ill. She says, “I don’t know what happened to me that day but I found the strength to take up my laptop and take the exam. I passed both the exam and the interview on the same day. God was with me that day.”
The program begins with a month-long bootcamp in Hyderabad. Yashi recalls that her parents were very supportive and were surprised that the program was teaching only girl students as well as awarding scholarships.
The first week of the bootcamp, Yashi was homesick. She recalls that she would talk to her parents and her college friends every day. “I figured that if I have to spend one month in Hyderabad I might as well be happy. So, I found small things to be happy about,” she says.
The bootcamp taught the girls how to survive in the corporate world – there were classes to help them hone their communication and interpersonal skills, followed by classes on deep-tech subjects that would give them an edge over their peers.
“The skills I learned at the bootcamp were not just to help us crack interviews, but to be able to put up an outstanding performance in the corporate world.”
Living in the present
WE program trained her well. When she got an offer from Gojek at a CTC of INR 29 lakhs, she came home and told her father just one word: Hogaya (it’s done). Her parents were overjoyed.
Yashi is a girl who lives in the present and believes that everything will fall in place when it’s meant to. She has dreams of becoming an entrepreneur someday. But today, she wishes to work hard for a better future. With this attitude, we know that she will achieve whatever she sets her heart on.
