The story of Pravallika Boppana – a girl who codes – and her extraordinary drive to prove herself
Much like Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games, Pravallika Boppana is fiercely protective of her family and highly competitive. The first thing you notice about this girl is her unabashed confidence and radiant spirit.
She has had her fair share of challenges and despite those; she has achieved great heights of success for herself. Pravallika is currently in her final year of engineering and has already bagged an offer from Flipkart at the CTC of 26.5 lakhs.
Humble beginnings
Pravallika’s story begins in Venkatapuram – a village that boasts a population of roughly 5000 people. Her father is a farmer turned shop owner and her mother, a homemaker. She has a younger sister who is studying to be an engineer at IIT Kharagpur.
By her own admission, she has always been a bright and hardworking student. She did her schooling in Baba High School in Dharmajigudem — a township near her village, and went on to do her intermediate in Narayana Junior College, in Vijaywada, where she did incredibly well for herself.
Pravallika secured a rank of 9,500 in EAMCET and this landed her a full scholarship to study in Sri Vishnu Engineering College for Women in Bhimavaram.
When life gives you lemons…
Pravallika’s dream, like that of many aspiring engineers, was to study in a Tier 1 college. But it was not to be. Her JEE rank wasn’t the best and hence, her dream of getting into an IIT never became reality.
As you can imagine, her confidence took a beating. In situations like this, one can either complain, mope about and give up. Or one can buck up, dry the tears and try harder. She decided on the later.
Balancing ECE with WISE
Pravallika started her course in the department of Electronics and Communication Engineering. It was there that she was introduced to the Women in Software Engineering (WISE) program.
Launched by TalentSprint, the program aims to skill and empower 1000 young women graduates who aspire for advanced technical roles in the global IT sector.
“Most people told me that the course (WISE) is hectic, especially for my stream. Balancing attendance of academic classes and WISE sessions was a daily struggle,” Pravallika recalls.
A born fighter, Pravallika managed to balance her academic classes with the WISE program for 3 years.
A resurgence of confidence
“The mentors at WISE were very supportive, and that helped boost my confidence in myself. Also, balancing my course with WISE helped me gain 2 skills: self-learning and time management.”
Just in her final year of engineering, she already has impressive credentials. She is a Mentee at FlipKart’s Girls Wanna Code and at Amazon Campus Membership Series for Women.
She is also a Fellow at TalentSprint’s Women Techmakers Engineering Fellows program. She was selected among 7000+ applicants for this honour.
The Road Ahead
Today Pravallika is spoilt for choices. She holds an offer from FlipKart and a 6-month long internship opportunity with Amazon. If she does well at the internship, she expects to get a pre-placement offer from Amazon too.
“Until the point I got placed in Flipkart, I carried a burden. I was studying in a Tier-3 college whereas my sister was in IIT. But now that I got placed in Flipkart, my father is very happy. He’s going around telling everyone he knows,” she says with a twinkle in her eyes.
When asked what she wants to do next, she says that she’d like to focus her efforts on making her family as comfortable as possible.
