This is the next segment of our blog series highlighting Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors who achieved the Gold milestone and have recently graduated from university. Each blog in the series features a different student and highlights their accomplishments, their experience with the Student Ambassador community, and what they’re up to now.
Today we meet Atkuri Satya Venkata Surya sai who is from India and recently graduated from Pragati Engineering College with a degree in the information technology field.
Responses have been edited for clarity and length.
When you joined the Student Ambassador community in March of 2020, did you have specific goals you wanted to reach, such as a particular skill or quality?
When I joined the community, my main aim was to remove my fear when speaking before people. By speaking at events in the Student Ambassador program, I slowly started improving my public speaking skills. My latest conducted event was a 5 hour long in-person event, and more than 300 students attended. It was my most successful event in my Student Ambassador journey.
Another aim was to get a full grip on the latest technologies, as I wanted to help solve a real-world problem using those technologies. The Student Ambassador program definitely helped me to learn technologies.
I have achieved not only these aims, but I also learned so many qualities like leadership and improved my ideologies by connecting with different Microsoft Student Ambassadors around the world. I worked hard, met some techy people in community, and collaborated with them. For me, community has changed my life. It provided me with very good opportunities to meet people of the same mind set and join great teams to work with.
I can say that because of Microsoft, all this has happened.
What were the accomplishments that you’re the proudest of and why?
As a Student Ambassador, my biggest accomplishment was learning trending technologies and helping peers to learn the same. Also, becoming a Gold level Student Ambassador was a big accomplishment because it is recognition for the hard work students put into the community.
I started the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador Pragati community with my fellow students, and I published many blogs related to latest trending technologies.
I have completed 11 official Microsoft Courses and more than 100 Microsoft Learn paths and presently am trying to be nominated as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional.
What are you doing now that you’ve graduated?
I was placed at Infosys Limited as a Specialist Programmer. I want to get deeper into trending technologies and will try to develop projects which will solve real-world problems and should be a game-changer for our society and my company too.
I consistently will learn new technologies to solve real world problems and will connect with people in my community by offering free sessions in my free time to help them to achieve their goals.
I am also continuing to build the Student Ambassador community in my local area by contributing to some events by speaking about technology and also guiding the local Student Ambassadors and motivating them to conduct more events.
If you could redo your time as a Student Ambassador, is there anything you would have done differently?
If I could redo my time, I would make the local Microsoft Student Ambassador community stronger and include more “techy” people because if there are more techy workers in the community, they can reach so many people and help guide them in their careers or teach them technologies. I would definitely plan to conduct more hackathons and find people who are very strong in technology who I would collaborate with to work on real world problems. I would have applied to the community in my first year and contributed more. I do believe that I could have done more if I had utilized my time better and planned better.
If you were to describe the community to a student who is interested in joining, what would you say about it to convince him or her to join?
The Microsoft Student Ambassador community is one of the most valuable communities for learning or developing new ideologies as it connects different people from different regions. In order to learn the actual power of technologies and help society through technology, this community is really a great place to do it.
The best part of being in the program is the opportunity to network with a global community. Being a Student Ambassador gives you the experience of working with a team, connects you with other students and Microsoft employees, and equips you with leadership skills. The community is a global group of on-campus ambassadors who are eager to help students and their communities, lead in their local tech circles, and develop technical and career skills for the future.
I would tell them each and every benefit I have experienced. The skills which I developed through this community are ones all students must have, but unfortunately, some colleges/ universities are not providing them.
I can definitely say that this community is worth pursuing.
What advice would you give to new Student Ambassadors?
There are so many workshops or events conducted by fellow students or senior leaders on different technologies. They are super cool, and they teach in a really very awesome way, so go with the technology you’re interested in and learn from them. Is that it? Absolutely not! Help your juniors and your fellow students to learn technologies and figure out what the problems are that people are facing around your society and try to build a solution for those problems and execute it.
I would encourage them with “Learn, share, contribute”. Learn and share with other people who are eager to learn and contribute to your community. I always believe in these three words that can change their life.
What is your motto in life, your guiding principle?
A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking because her trust is not in the branch but in her own wings. Believe in yourself.
What is one random fact about you that few people are aware of?
I look like an extrovert, but on the inside, I am an introvert.
___________________________________________________________________
Good luck to you in all your endeavors, Atkuri!