In 2003, after doing quite well in the AIEEE exams, I finally got a chance to get admitted into BIT Mesra, which happens to be a very highly reputed institute in India. I was very ecstatic. A year later, due to my good academic results, I was given the opportunity to opt for any engineering stream of my choice. At that time there were two great options: computer engineering and electrical engineering. I opted for the second. Not because I thought I would do very well in Electrical Engineering. A big part of the reason for my choice was my unfamiliarity with computers, both hardware and software. I might as well have been afraid of the computer engineering stream! Before coming to college, I had only a few opportunities to come face to face with computers and Internet sites like Yahoo. Looking back at 2013, I think maybe I should have gathered a little more courage, because like many people these days, I sit in front of computers every day for 10-12 hours, and I happen to like them! I started my career as a manual software tester for CSC. In our project at that time there wasn't much to do from a technical point of view. All we had to do was check the values, do some calculations and comparisons. After a while it started to get a little corny. So I took advantage of the opportunity my manager gave me to test the automation. Little by little, I started to understand things. My experience in C and C++ labs in college helped me a lot. To my surprise I began to enjoy the assignment and began to look forward to a day of work. The best part for me was that I learned everything on my own, without any formal training on the instrument. I did the job well - customizing the code, making it more efficient... ...middle of paper ......staying on a big stage, however, my signing skills are still not calm! As far as my research interests are concerned, my exposure to various applications over the years has made me realize that the enterprise data domain presents different challenges than the Internet paradigm. User requirements for enterprise applications often do not overlap and vary widely. This requires extracting information from a wide range of unstructured data and presenting relevant insights. And data security also becomes a big concern. The potential of collective use of information retrieval techniques on the Internet and corporate data excites me very much and I would like to contribute to it. In summary, I truly believe that I will be a perfect addition to your overall classes and, if given the opportunity, I would be an alumnus that the university would be proud of!