Anjali Gupta's Path from Civil Engineering to Data Science

Interviewer:

Hello Anjali! Congratulations on being nominated for the best Capstone project. It is very well deserved for all the hard work and efforts you've made towards the project. How do you feel about it?

Anjali Gupta:

Thank you. I'm happy to be nominated and it's very motivating at the very same time, because we all put in our hard work so that we are recognized by people. That is our main motivation behind doing any of the projects. Whether they are recruiters, whether it's professors, whether it's any kind of an audience, or even us students. My motivation for doing this project mainly was when I used to listen to my seniors talk about this project, when they had won this best project award. I wanted to be on the other side. So that was my motivation and I'm very happy that I was able to achieve it.

Interviewer:

So, please introduce yourself to our readers, in detail, where you come from about yourself, and what you're doing professionally.

Anjali Gupta:

Good evening everyone. I am Anjali Gupta, and I am a design engineer by profession and I'm from the construction industry. I've been in the industry for more than 3+ years. I've been in both the construction industry as well as in the training industry. I've been an assistant professor, and for three years I've been teaching as well. For the remaining two to three years I've been working as a design engineer for a construction firm. So, this is about my professional front. I'm a civil engineer by profession and I am doing this course or this degree mainly to have a career shift. That is my main motivation to come and do this BS Degree in data science and degrees. And this is a small brief about me.

Interviewer:

Yeah, thank you for introducing yourself to our readers. So coming to my next question. Could you please explain in detail what was your BDM Capstone project about and how you found out about the BS degree program in data science?

Anjali Gupta:

Okay, firstly to address the question of how I came to know about this degree. And it's just that as mentioned earlier I was also in the teaching industry. So, I was teaching, and then one of my colleagues was also an alumnus of IIT Madras. So, she came across this course and then, I was teaching computer science courses. So, she asked me why don't you go for that? They are offering this kind of degree. Why don't you give the qualifier if you get through it and go ahead with the degree. So that's how I got to know about the course through my colleague. And then I luckily qualified and I'm into the course now.

And coming to my project, so basically, the title of my project is “Uncovering the Challenges of an Ed-tech Institute.” I cannot name the institute's name because it's a very big franchise. So, I'll just call it Ed-Tech Institute. They were facing a lot of issues. We all know that since COVID has struck everything has become online. So even the business of that Institute was largely hampered, and another drawback was this, but before that, I will give you a small brief about what the company was about. They were providing software courses in civil and mechanical like AutoCAD, CATIA, and Revit, these were some of the courses that they were catering to, and since everything was shifting to online, they were not able to meet the required demand. When I went into that organization, I could make out that there were so many flaws that they were taking care of, maybe because of financial issues - that was one thing that I had found out. So that was the main thing, and this Institute, I got to know from one of my cousins. It was a close contact. The funny thing is, without even knowing that there's a link I had met them. They rejected me. So, it took like three months with them constantly saying “They’ll let me know.”Luckily, I just got a common contact and that's when again I contacted them and that's when they were ready to listen to me. And then that's how my entire journey started with them.

Interviewer:

That's very well explained. Thank you for telling us about that. Could you run us through your project in detail about how you identified the business issues? What is the level of the data collection that you did and the process that followed so that our readers can understand?

Anjali Gupta:

So, the first thing was to convince. I would say even this is one of the processes of starting your project - convincing the organization that you are worth it. Then, when they give you the data you will do the analysis and give them full justice to the results. That was the very first step in convincing the owner that “Okay, you will provide me the data and I will give you the best results and you will find some improvement in your particular business.” So that was one very first thing where you need to convince the organization that they should be cooperative.

Secondly, once he was convinced, I went about the data collection to the main issues, and I had repetitive meetings with him for the initial first month. I only met him once a week and I understood what the issues were. I went around the organization and whenever there were students. It's a teaching Institute. So, I met a couple of students and I saw the way they were teaching. So, for me, I was a part of that Institute. I used to go every evening for one hour. When I used to go every week, I used to be there for one or two hours to see what scenarios I used to go to at different points in time. I used to go once in the morning, then in the afternoon, then even in the evening, and then once a week on a weekend.

So that's how I scaled my visits to the organization for me to understand how the organization works, when they can harness the entire potential of the students, and when it is demand. So, I was there as a resource person. Then came the issues that the owner specified, the first being since it's an educational institute, they were not getting enough inquiries. And even if they were getting inquiries, they were not satisfactory. The next was Lead Generation. Now, what I mean by Lead generation is, if no one is coming in i.e., if you don't have anyone who's inquiring, that was the key issue. So, if lead generation is a problem, automatically inquiry conversion will become a big problem.

So, these two were kind of inter-related problems, which they were facing, and it is a big problem because if you don't have people coming in, they won't generate any Revenue. The third one was Market competition. Many institutes have come up online. So even that was a main factor that was hindering their business, so these things I focused on

Coming to the inquiry conversion. So, when I started conversing with the owner, I saw that a very big key problem was it was a very small organization. It just had an owner along with that it had one trainer for Civil and it had one trainer for Mechanical. That's it. So, the entire counseling was done by the owner himself. So now, if you have limited resources how much can the owner himself cater to all the requirements at the same time? They need to hire somebody else also for that. So that was the main thing that I found out.The second thing is when you go into the Institute you get an inquiry form.

That's the first source of contact and the first piece of information you gather. So, when I saw the inquiry form, I found it to be blundering to be very honest. It does not have any proper data which they can collect. It did not have any motivation for the students or whoever was coming from where they got to know about the Institute. What is their budget? All this information was not available. So, I had to create that data for them. I had to circulate a form. I had to personally call people for whatever information I required. I asked them personally. So, this data collection process took me two months to be very honest and I started my project last year in January.

I was collecting data from January To June because they didn't have enough data. So, I was busy and only after I collected the data then I did my analysis of what I did for lead generation. I created a lead funnel. So, what the lead funnel does is divide the processes. The first thing is the lead comes in, once the lead comes in who is attending to the lead? Who was the person? How was he communicating with that person? You analyze the behavior. Is he providing sufficient information which is required by the person? When the demos are given is the trainer good enough? Even that is going to be seen by the people. Are they satisfied with the training that they're going to get? Once that happens, then how flexible is the payment structure?

That was one drawback. The payment structure was not flexible. That means they did not have any EMI system at all. When I asked the owner “Why is there no EMI system? He cited his past experiences. He's had bad experiences where people have not paid fully and that's the reason he doesn't want to have an EMI system. So, that was also one drawback that I found. So, after I found them, next was inquiry conversion now in inquiry conversion how counseling has been done in place is a major factor, and what benefits are the students getting is another factor.

I had done this fishbone analysis where all the effects and causes were listed. I did the brainstorming with the manager. So, after I found a recommendation, I informed him immediately that the inquiry form was not up to the mark. He immediately changed it. He asked me what I Wanted to include in it and keep it ready. And then I also suggested hiring some more people, especially a counselor.

He had hired a counselor. So that was a positive outcome. The other drawback was the franchise was dependent on the main office as the leads were predominantly from the main office while the leads from other channels were not satisfactory. The franchise had to depend on the main office if they required additional spending for marketing as they were not able to generate enough revenue in the current scenario to incur the additional spending. Hence, they would not do any marketing, which eventually meant not enough people coming in. They didn’t have any GTMs (Go to Market Teams) which would enable them to visit colleges to conduct sessions. Apart from this, based on my market analysis I also found that the discount structure was not at par with the competition.

Interviewer:

Very well explained Anjali. It's quite interesting to listen to your process and how you were able to tackle the business problems in the Institute, so that's quite interesting, and I'm sure it will be very interesting for our readers as well. So, thank you for explaining that to us. Could you please walk us through the challenges you faced while doing this project and how you were able to overcome them and stay motivated despite the challenges?

Anjali Gupta:

Right. So, as I had mentioned earlier, it took me six months for data collection. So, the first three months went on to convince the owner. That was the biggest challenge. I think all of us are going to face the challenge of convincing the organization to be supportive and cooperative and helping us do our project. I think that was the main challenge to convince him. 

So that is one thing that everybody should overcome, and I think that we should try to convince them. Yeah, everybody wants to know if you tell them that we're going to do good data analysis for you at a free cost because now in the market if they go, they're going to charge. That's how I went about telling them. So, then that was the first I would say I had faced.Second was in data collection.

As I mentioned I had to make calls to get the data.Now Since I finished my project in Jan. the data collection was for the previous years from June to December. So, people had even forgotten that they had come to the Institute. They don't even remember when they came and what they said. The other challenge was when I had some people who were not even receiving the calls. So, there were two stages in which I had to collect data, one was calling, and one was via G Form. I got a response to which 60% of people responded. So, I was quite happy when it came to calling, I would say only 20% of the people responded. Some people gave wrong numbers.

Some people didn't even answer the call,and some people who answered the call didn't even remember the name of the Institute. So, it was a big problem, and that data I could not use because collecting 20% of the data I could not make a judgment out of that 20%. So, I had to scratch that, and I think I had to use only the G form data that I had.

So, I was also quite disappointed with that because I think I would have done much more if I had that data. So that was also a challenge. But at one point I did feel that maybe I was not going todo Justice because I felt the data was less. That's what I had assumed.But then once I got the data and did the analysis, I was happy.Another challenge, which I faced was, initially, the owner had agreed to share the profits.

The other challenge was when the owner denied sharing the profit and loss data mid-way through the project which he had agreed to share initially, the reason being the fear of confidentiality. So that was disappointing because I felt that if I had that data as well, it would have added another factor to my project.

So that was one thing which I was disappointed about. Everything else went smoothly other than this support on the revenue part. Otherwise, he was very supportive and helpful.

Interviewer:

That's very well explained. Thank you for answering that question. What was your overall experience in the BS degree program and what has been your biggest takeaway so far upon doing the Capstone project?

Anjali Gupta:

Okay, so coming to the overall degrees so far, I have finished my diploma in data science to update you on how much I have completed. Overall, I think this has been helpful for me, especially because I'm not from an IME background. So, this has helped me understand from scratch whether it's programming or whether it's learning the Python language from scratch. This has helped me because everything has been taught from the basics.

Even coming to math and stats; which we had at our foundation level. So, when that's something that I would have left long ago, so coming to the teaching aspect. Yes, everything from scratch has been taught and they've been taught quite well. And takeaway from my BDM project is the first thing I would say to the readers also, since I'm already a professional and some of them are students, is how you communicate because communication is the key. If you don't communicate properly you probably cannot even say things that you want to say. So that is first. The second thing is how you phrase your sentences. How do you convince the other person? Since we have reports to be submitted, report writing is something that we learn.

That is also one big aspect of this project. Thirdly, since we are doing a data science degree, data analysis is something that you're going to learn to a greater extent once you get the data, so that is something that a person can learn both soft skills as well as technical skills. So, both these things can be learned in this project.

Interviewer:

How has this project helped you find your footing as a professional regarding your mentioning that you were pursuing this for a career switch? What is the direction you're looking forward to, from here?

Anjali Gupta:

All right, the BDM Capstone product primarily focuses on data analysis. So, when you come to any data-related jobs, there are data analysts, business analysts, data engineers, and data scientists. So, these are some of the jobs that I can list out. So, once you are completed with your BDM project, you can easily apply for a data and business analyst job because you've already done one project and you've already been exposed to a particular industry.

Apart from this if you learn some more software skills, for example, if you know any data visualization tools like Tableau or Power BI this is going to have an added advantage to get into the industry. That's my opinion just by this project. If you do it to your fullest you can get an opportunity in the market. Just by doing this project, honestly.

Interviewer:

That is very motivating and I'm pretty sure on behalf of our readers, I can assure you that after reading your words, they'll find this motivating. So, thank you for those motivating words. So, the next question that I'd like to ask is how did the business owner feel after implementing your Solutions? 

Anjali Gupta:

Implementation of my finding or whatever recommendations, which I had done immediately as I had mentioned two things here already implemented one is the inquiry form, which was I would say not at all up to the mark. So, he immediately changed it. So, when I go to the other competitors, I see their inquiry forms and I know what was lacking in this form.

So, I immediately told him that these need to be included, but you haven't included them. So that was immediately implemented. The second thing as I mentioned earlier is that of a counsellor. I would say he needed more resources. I had asked him. “Can you hire more people, even for civil and mechanical you have another person.”She said, “Right now he has a shortage.” So right now, he has hired only a counselor.

Another recommendation that I had given him was unlike other institutes that were catering to IT software, digital marketing, and other things he said they were only into civil and mechanical. So, I suggested “Okay, why don't you also, you know go to other Software as well?” to which he mentioned that it's not in his hands and that it is in the main office's hands.

So, he has put a proposal to the main office to ask if he can start this, but they still haven't responded to his query. So that's something that I don't think has been implemented. Two things have been implemented, one with that inquiry he's able to gather enough data and understand where he's behind, and after I completed the project when I got the Best Capstone, he was quite happy.

He said the inquiry conversion is not as he had expected but it has improved. So that was one positive that came up.

Interviewer:

Thank you so much for answering all the questions. On a closing note, any words for the upcoming batch of students in a way to inspire them and motivate them.

Anjali Gupta:

Okay, so to all my fellow students, the only thing I would say is to be motivated. Don't give up even if you know you are disheartened. If You're not getting any organization keep trying because even this was not the very first organization that I had tried. I had gone to another business since I relocated, and I again went to another business. So I even had to try three businesses and then I landed on this business. 

Don't lose heart.

I'm sure you will get some or the other business and there'll be some or the other person who is going to be ready to support you and help you. And another thing you might get stuck in between but the professors help us 24/7. They're always available and I would thank Ashwin sir because I think I would have eaten their head a lot.

So, they've always been helpful and supportive. Wherever you are stuck, I'm sure our instructors are going to help us, so I don't think about people right now whenever you see the chats, and everything gets scared of the BDM project. I don't think there's anything to get scared about the project if you are into the project and give your 200% to the project. I'm sure once you are, you will do Justice to it.

I'm sure you will come out with flying colors. This is what I want to say.

Interviewer:

Thank you for those inspiring and motivating words to our readers. They'll be charged after reading your interview and I'll say this on behalf of the team at the BDM Capstone project and the BS online degree. We are immensely proud of you, and we congratulate you once again for all your hard work  and for being nominated for the best project.

Anjali Gupta:

Thank you so much.