Welcome to the next edition in our series highlighting Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors who achieved the Gold milestone and have recently graduated from their university. Each blog will feature a different student and highlight their accomplishments, their experience with the Student Ambassadors community, and what they’re up to now.
Today we’d like to introduce Yash Yadav who is from India and graduated a few months ago from Bhagwan Mahaveer College of Engineering and Management in Jadgishpur, India.
Responses have been edited for clarity and length.
When you became a Student Ambassador in 2017, did you have any specific goals you wanted to reach? What were they? Did you achieve them?
In the beginning, I focused on getting into my hands into IoT. That was my major goal, and I was more than able to accomplish it. I also got to know more about Azure and its service--I just love all the cognitive services. I used a lot of them in the hackathons.
Apart from the tech skills, another major part was the public speaking. In the beginning, I didn’t expect that I would become a major speaker with 200 attendees.
What was the one accomplishment that you're the proudest of and why?
Before I was a Student Ambassador, I was a participant in an event, First Tech Challenge, organized every year by the organization US FIRST (For Inspiration & Recognition of Science & Technology). With the help of our coach and mentors, I led the team in designing a robot, and we received the Inspire Award and qualified internationally. After becoming a Student Ambassador, I started coaching the teams so that high school children can learn robotics and how they can use Microsoft tools and technologies in CAD designing & programming to improve and bring productivity to their team.
How has being a part of the Student Ambassador community impacted you in general? How has it helped you prepare for the next chapter of your life?
In the beginning I only worked as a participant of a team, and later on as time progressed, I then realized how a participant in a team may become the leader. I didn't even realize how I managed to become the leader for 150 associates. Then later on, I looked back, and I know the reason--it was the program that impacted me.
If you could go back to 2017 and redo things, is there anything you would have done differently as a Student Ambassador?
There are some ups and downs in the process when you do something new. There were a few things, like how I approached organizations in the beginning for event sponsorships. In the beginning, it was a very light approach, but later on we tried more because we needed sponsorships. That was OK because that was a part of learning. We can't change how we learn because you have to fail first, and then you have to learn from it and then go ahead. So there’s not much to change.
So you graduated a few months ago. What's the next chapter in the book?
I'm currently working as an assistant system engineer trainee in Tata Consultancy Services. I lead the teams. Their major role is to design systems for asset management, the complete life cycle for industrial solutions. There are many assets so we have to completely program or create systems that can be managed easily because there's no place for downtime when fixing.
The weekends are for my personal projects, as I'm planning for my own startup. The aim is to establish a robust community creating model rockets. Due to the expenses involved in this domain, not everyone can afford it. In this community, people can explore this domain, and in turn we’ll bring awareness it as a niche. Later on, we’ll switch to a proper scale rocket, but that is really, really far off from now.
If you were to describe the Student Ambassadors community to a student who is considering joining but hasn't decided yet, what would you say to convince them to join?
I would definitely tell them that there's a program over here you really want to get your hands on because you first get to learn so many things. You might be thinking OK, I will learn these things without the program, but that's not going to happen because people procrastinate a lot. By being part of the community, you get a community that keeps you motivated. Self-motivation is a huge thing to accomplish anything because we need passion to drive something, a driver to drive ourselves.
Then, you can stand alone and make things better because you actually get a different kind of skill set after a few years, and you can become a problem solver.
Let's say the student then becomes a Student Ambassador. What advice would you give to them?
In the beginning, volunteer a lot with the Student Ambassadors who are already doing something. By doing that, you get the essence of taking responsibilities. Volunteer first, then do some combined events. Later on, the important thing is don't just do it because the Student Ambassador program is saying that you have to do it. Do it for yourself and for the others because if you don't educate the crowd around you, then that community is not going up, and that's a major thing. Don't just do it for the sake of rules.
What is your guiding principle in your life? Your motto? What drives you day-to-day through the days, weeks, months?
The core principle of my life is a simple concept of putting in 100% of myself in every activity I’m doing. That too gets synergized when it’s my subject of interest. Keep on doing stuff, and then improvise from the failures.
Good luck to you in all your endeavors, Yash!