Srushti Bangde: 8 random seniors

Meet Srushti, an undergraduate BTech student in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Her spirit of exploring has taken her through dance, music, sports, becoming a social media influencer to consulting at Accenture today. Read ahead to learn more about Srushti.

Q. Tell us about yourself and about your journey leading up to here.

The journey leading to IIT Bombay is pretty much the same as others: I went to coaching in 11th and 12th at Allen. I live in Navi Mumbai, and my coaching was in Thane only. I got a good rank in JEE Advanced and chose a BTech in Electrical Engineering because of the rank. But after getting into IIT Bombay, I think it was a bit different for our batch because, well, COVID. The first three semesters were entirely online, and for me, it was a bit hectic. I couldn’t handle those semesters very well, but as soon as it went offline, I started enjoying my fourth semester as if I were graduating soon because that was my first offline semester. My friends and I were behaving like freshies, doing a lot of new stuff. The rest of the four semesters were pretty cool. After graduating, I almost always wished that those three semesters were offline because we missed a lot during that time.

Q. What clubs and teams you were part of?

Since it was online and I had a bad habit of not checking webmail, I missed participating in tech team recruitments. However, due to my hobby of dancing, I was mostly associated with InSync – the dance club. Initially, during the online semesters, and then offline as well, I was always a part of InSync. Later, I became a core member, so I participated in almost every club event, like the Annual InSync Dance Showcase or InterIIT Dance, from my freshman till my fourth year. In addition, I participated in activities of the Finance and Consult Clubs. I have always been interested in finance, so I participated in a few competitions; particularly FinSearch, of the Finance Club as well as case-study competitions. I was always oriented towards the non-technical side, like analytics, consulting, and finance. 

Q. What was your go-to stress buster or hobby that helped you survive on campus?

For my hobbies, I love to dance, and recently I started playing drums and guitar. I started playing drums as it’s very accessible in the institute. Picking up a new hobby during online semesters was difficult because it was hard to learn something new online, especially physical activities. So it was dance initially. But after it became offline, rather than dancing, I usually used to go to my wingies whenever I was stressed. Talking to them made me feel much better. In the seventh and eighth semesters, I started swimming also. I would also say badminton; it’s quite friendly for beginners and there’s a nice badminton court. There are some rules to follow, but if you go early, you get the court, and I love to play badminton. 

Q. Favourite spot in insti?

I think it was different for different years. Initially, in my second year when we finally came to campus, we used to go to H2 canteen a lot because it was right near the old SAC. After practices or work, even from Hostel 15, it was quite near, so at night, we used to randomly go to H2. In my fourth year, it became Chaayos because it was a very nice and friendly place with nice lighting. We used to go to the boat house sometimes, but it’s not so welcoming in the evening. I am scared of darkness, so I avoided that. Eventually, Chaayos became my favourite place to hang out.

Q. An interesting fact about yourself.

I make dance reels on my Instagram account and I currently have 11k+ followers. I also have more than 3000 followers on my YouTube channel.

Q. Moving ahead, what are your future plans?

I have joined Accenture Consulting and I’m pretty happy with my placement. I am in a Tech and Strategy role which pretty much aligns with what I had worked on during my internship. As for my future plans, since I haven’t joined yet (my joining is 9th July) so I’m not very experienced in consulting. So, in the short term, I plan to explore and experience consulting life in Accenture. Then, I might go for an MBA in the future.

Q. Something that you’re proud of having accomplished during your journey here.

As I mentioned, my hobby was dance. Through InSync and the seniors there, I learned a lot and got the chance to participate in InterIIT twice. This really helped polish me as a dancer. Other than dance, I also started drumming which wouldn’t have been possible without the institute. Apart from culturals, I have also participated in plenty of competitions and hackathons – I remember having taken part in a product analytics hackathon and case study competitions and in one of them I secured the first position, which came with a pretty good cash prize. All along my journey here, these competitions have helped me develop industry-level problem-solving skills, which is something I’m proud of.

Q. Any funny incident you’d like to share?

So once my wingies and I were coming from a lecture to our hostel and my wingie’s ISMP mentees called her and said: “Didi, H15 me bohot bandar aa rahe hai, aap pls aake bhaga do” [“There are a lot of monkeys in H15, please come and make them go away”] or something similar and she had to go urgently to H15 then.

There’s another involving a famous professor from the electrical department. For the endsems of the CS683 course, we used to go prepared that we might have to sit for 10 to 12 hours at least and I knew that khaana [food] was going to come, and the only reason that I stayed for that long was because I knew dinner is going to be very nice. The questions were not just difficult, but random, not from the course. You could keep reading the book endlessly, but the catch was not to leave anything blank. Everyone stayed around only for dinner.

Q. Do you have any regrets? Anything you wanted to do during your insti life but could not do due to some reasons?

I regret not having prepared for the internship season. I feel like if I had, my trajectory would’ve been different and I might not have ended up in consulting. I don’t know if I should regret that or not. Never having fought for a proper PoR is another one of my regrets. However, I have been an ISMP and DAMP mentor, which I did because I love guiding and mentoring my juniors, and not just for the sake of a PoR. And lastly, something that was not in my control was losing three semesters to the online mode- I think I could’ve been a different person, had I not lost that time on campus.

Q. A message you would like to give to your fellow batchmates as they leave?

I think on some level all of us have the same sentiments about missing out due to Covid. All of us would agree that time literally flies. It was a pretty fun journey, and I had amazing batchmates. I cannot think of something particular to say- just have fun, everyone. Enjoy! 

Q.  Some tips you would like to give to students here, some realisations as you end your journey here.

There is a lot of stress during the internship and placement season, but it is important to only take a healthy amount of pressure- not getting an internship or a job is not the end of life. This is just one part of your journey, and numerous experiences are waiting for you ahead. Don’t skip classes, attending lectures does help a lot. Work hard, and reach out to your seniors- they are more than happy to guide you. Nothing is more important than life itself. So, enjoy the present!

Q. If you could have any superpower during your time at the institute, what would it be and why?

Some power that I could use to increase the number of hours in the day. I could not do everything that I wanted to do a lot. Although I did mention that I used to go swimming apart from dance and badminton, it wasn’t regular. If there had been a lot of time then I could have done it all maybe. Time management would be another way of pinning a name on this superpower, but who knows, it was probably for the best!

Q. Which campus food joint will you miss the most, and what’s your favourite dish there? 

So whenever I skipped my meals, I ordered paneer schezwan frankie from H2. I always complained about less paneer in the frankie but kept going back to it because it was the most cost-effective. Although not specific to our campus, Kulhad Pav Bhaji was a personal favourite from Chaayos, and the fact that it is subsidised just made it better. Also, Cafe 92 ki chocolate brownie.

Q. If you could swap places with any faculty member for a day, who would it be and why?

Since I am from electrical, it would perhaps be with the HOD of the electrical department. It would be interesting to see how many permissions he has to give. He has a lot of power- maybe I can screw up or maybe I can do stuff without giving BT to students. 

Q. Any one-liner to sum it all up

Time flies, try to live in the present and seize every moment!

Editorial Credits : Rishit Kesharwani