I decided to get professional accreditation to boost my career

About

I did my schooling in Mumbai and later I moved to Kerala to pursue my degree education. After graduating, I worked as a network engineer at Infopark and then later on I pursued an eight-month data science course. I worked as a data scientist intern for around three to four months and that’s when I decided to continue with my master’s education and get a professional accreditation in this field to boost my career. I heard that there are many prestigious universities in the UK and the standard of education given by the UK universities is recognised all around the world. That’s the reason why I chose the UK. I applied to different universities and the first offer I received was from University of Gloucestershire. So, I immediately continued with this offer.

Application Process

I got in touch with an education agency in India named Santa Monica. They were very helpful. They guided me from the very initial stage till booking my flight tickets. I was really satisfied with the service. It was all very fast. I submitted my application, and within 1 week I had the interview and got my offer.

Accommodation

I chose to look for private accommodation. I had to stay in a hotel for around two days because I couldn’t find permanent accommodation over here straightaway. Then I came to know from my friend that there are some apps for finding accommodation. The tenancy over here is for a minimum six months and since I was new to this place, I didn’t know if the accommodation which I choose will be good for me, or if the area will be good for me.

Course

I think the tutors are highly professional. Our classes take place in the lab itself. In the class we work on different assignments. The lecturer will give us some questions and we need to work on it. We make analysis from the data and make predictions for the future. There are students from different countries. So mostly my friends are from Nigeria, Pakistan and UK.

In India, the basic salary of data scientist is 10 lakhs per annum. So, it’s higher when compared to other fields. That’s one of the major reasons why I chose data science and also, I’m particularly interested in generating different insights from the data.

The study in the UK is different when compared to India. In India, it is mostly exams, we need to focus more on theoretical parts rather than practical. But in the UK, they concentrate on practical areas. They are also not judging students from the marks that they scored from exams, it’s more important that they also evaluate them from the assignments they do.

Challenges

Adjusting to the culture was a challenge. I heard from some people that January is the peak of the winter season, and it is difficult for new students to adjust to the climate.

Placement

There’s a placement team in the university. They’re usually guiding us with different tips and tricks, how we need to apply for different jobs and how to track the jobs.

Exploring places

I’ve been to London two or three times because my sister is there. She asked me to come over several times. But I have to focus on my assignments.

Cheltenham is a nice place to live. There’s a lot of malls and different shopping areas over here.