Alumni Talks

The Economics Association had organised a seminar on 5 February, 2020 for all B3 students and finance aspirants to enlighten them about what lies ahead on this fairly trodden yet uncertain path. We had a tremendous turnout for the event. The things that we touched upon included electives to choose from, PS, internships, career prospects, and further studies. At the end of the seminar, we played a few video clips our B3 alumni had sent us to give some piece of their experience in industry and higher studies. Seeing the popular demand for these clips, De-Economist took the task to transcribe these videos to spread the treasured words of our seniors. Happy reading!

Yash Raj Jain

Batch of 2014, M.Sc. Economics + B.E Computer Science Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Germany

Hi everyone! My name is Yash. I’m a 2019 graduate from Hyderabad campus. I studied Economics and Computer Science during my time there. Currently I’m working at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and I’m working on how people learn how to decide, which is a combination of Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Economics, and Psychology. 

General Interest

How I got into this field was due to my interest in Psychology and Behavioural Economics in general which started from reading the books, “Thinking Fast and Slow” and “Predictably Irrational.” After that, I did two project courses in Economics under Dr. Abdul Quadir in Mechanism Design which introduced me to research in general. I got interested in it and decided to pursue research and decided to do theses instead of PS. I took electives such as Behavioural Economics, Optimization. I would definitely stress the importance of Mathematics in studying Economics even though that might not be the case with what you're taught there but it's very important that you learn your Mathematics courses very well if you really want to pursue Economics, and also finance. 

Beauty of Economics

When you are in your second or third year, you might feel that Economics is too easy, but that's not at all the case, because to really understand Economics, to really understand why a country works the way it works, or why the economy is in a certain state, you really need to understand human behaviour, how they make choices, and how those choices at the individual level affect the country as a whole.

Academics

As far as my academic path is concerned, I started out with a CGPA of 7.3 in my first semester, I was the last person to get CS at the end of my first year and then I ended up at graduation with a CGPA of 9.2. So, what I would say is that don't be worried if you get a low CGPA in your first years, just keep working and take interest in the subjects that you actually study and you'll end up doing pretty good. I did a PS-1 in Infibeam which I didn't really like. After the end of my 4th year, I did an internship at Goldman-Sachs in the Software Engineering department. It was good, but I decided that I would rather pursue research than work in a company. I got a thesis opportunity at the place that I'm currently working, at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. I only applied here because of my interest in bounded rationality, which is a well-known topic in Economics, without which I wouldn't have known about the existence of that topic at all. I liked my time during my theses and therefore I am continuing here.

Advice

My general advice would be to keep learning lots of stuff both in relation to Economics and other disciplines. There are lots of fascinating interdisciplinary topics that you can study such as Game theory, Mechanism design, Neuro-economics, Behavioural Economics and Experimental Economics. These are the most interesting ones that I found but there are a lot more that you can study. You should look at topics not just within your subject, but any general topic that you can find, on Economics or any other thing. That's all I have to say. Have fun, learn a lot. Bye!

Transcribed by S Danush

Next: Bhavya Mishra (2013) Masters in Public Policy, University of Chicago

Bhavya Mishra

Batch of 2013, M.Sc. Economics and B.E. Computer Science Harris School of Public Policy – University of Chicago

Hi guys! My name is Bhavya Mishra. I am from the 2013 batch of BITS Hyderabad and am currently pursuing a Master's in Public Policy at the University of Chicago. I will be talking about my courses, projects, and then a little bit about my experience.

So, regarding my courses... being computer science and economics student, I could only choose electives in my 4th year and because I wanted a finance PS, I only took finance courses, namely, BAV, FM, and SAPM. In my Computer Science electives, I took Machine Learning, AI, and Cryptography. Machine Learning is being used a lot in Economics research so if you have the opportunity, do take it. Moving on to my projects, in my 3rd year 2nd semester, I did a project under Sudatta ma'am (Head of Dept.) and Archana ma'am on financial literacy and confidence of females in India. Immediately after this project, I did a summer internship at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) in Mumbai where my project was on building a database of state finances and analysing the data after that. Both of these projects helped me realise and understand that I wanted to pursue research in Development Economics and helped me plan my steps. In my 4-2, I did another project, under Sudatta ma'am and Swati ma'am; it was on the effect of privatisation of education. This was my first real exposure to public policy and analysing the effect of a policy. This again was something that I could see as an option to explore later on. After this project, I did a summer internship in IIM Bangalore on women's land rights in India and this made me realise that I was very curious about gender inequality. 

Now, by this time, I was pretty sure that I wanted to pursue a master's after graduating so I took 1 thesis and 1 PS in my 5th  year. That thesis which was on nutritional inequality in India and "is" under Rishi sir; the reason I'm saying "is" is because the research on it is still going on. Now, my PS was at JP Morgan and I worked at the Quantitive and Derivative Strategy Team in Mumbai. Through its course, I realised that I was not interested in finance as such, but I still wanted to gain a year's work experience before going for my masters... so, I decided to work at JP Morgan. 

While I was applying for my masters, the thing that helped me get admit was my research projects and my quantitative skills. So I would recommend anyone who wants to get a masters or a Ph.D. to get as much research experience as you can into your profile while you still have the chance. You should also try to build relations with your professors because the economics faculty is very helpful. Also, do try to build your skills in R and python as everyone asks for it. That's it guys. Let me know if you still need my help. If you want to find out more about my projects and how I went about the application, you can always contact me on LinkedIn, I'll be there to help you out. Bye!

Transcribed by Chetan Madadi

Next: Sakshi Gupta (2012) Risk Manager, American Express, NYC

Sakshi Gupta

Batch of 2012 Risk Manager, American Express, NYC • MS Financial Engg., Cornell University

Hello, first and second yearites! Hope you are all set for the second semester. I am Sakshi Gupta. I am a 2012 batch graduate from Economics and ECE at BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus. Right now, I am looking forward to joining as full time Risk Manager at American Express in its New York office very soon in February. Let me tell you a bit about myself and how I went from BPHC to joining American Express in New York very soon. 

So, let’s see… Many moons earlier I started out in 2012 as an M.Sc. Biological Science student. But, after a year, I got transferred from Biological Science to Economics and I realised it was my calling. After the first year I started all the courses of economics. At the end of my second year, I did my PS-1 at Kotak Mahindra Bank in Mumbai. It was my first experience in such a large bank in India and I was part of the Banking Strategy team at Kotak Mahindra. The next internship that I did while in college was after my third year. I had applied to a ton of places through Internshala and through other contacts. Finally, I landed an internship at Deutsche Bank within the Global Credit Ratings team. I was the youngest member of the team back then, but I learned a lot from each and every one of them.

After a successful summer at Deutsche, I was all charged to complete all my courses and  electives in the fourth year. I took electives such as Security Analysis and Portfolio Management (SAPM), Project Appraisal among others. I also did a Teaching Assistantship in the Applied Econometrics course in my second semester of fourth year.

Having completed all my courses… or all the course requirements by the fourth year, I was all ready to do two semesters of Practice School 2. So, I applied for all the top banks including JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs. Luckily, I got my first preference which was the Global Markets team in JP Morgan at Mumbai. I interned in the Credit Risk Management team within their Treasury and Chief Investment Office in Mumbai. And it was a very successful internship. After that I was offered a full-time position at JP Morgan and of course, I accepted it . And, it was within the Equity Derivatives Structuring Team. I was supposed to work very closely with their London office there. As part of my daily deliverables, I wrote python code for index level calculation and I was delving into applied and quantitative finance.

But, I realised that I wanted to deepen my knowledge further in that aspect. So, I researched different programmes and courses that would allow me to do that. Some of them that I stumbled upon include MIT, Cornell, and Columbia courses in financial engineering. I finally narrowed down to  MFE programme which is the Master of Financial Engineering at Cornell.  It’s a one and half year programme that I did starting August, 2018. The first two semesters were in Ithaca where I deepened my knowledge in optimisation, stochastic calculus and statistics.

And after that I did an internship for 10 weeks in New York within American Express. And after the completion I was offered to return to American Express. But, I had an another semester to go which was in New York City. I was really excited. I did a project with City Bank too. It was a very enriching project as I worked very closely with the Balance Sheet Optimisation team there. At the end of my course at Cornell which was in December of 2019 I had an offer from American Express and now I am looking forward to joining there as a full-time employee.

So, that was my story in a nutshell. I want to thank you all for listening and feel free to reach out to me if you have questions. I will be available on LinkedIn, or you can send me an e-mail at 2013sakshi.gupta@gmail.com.

Once again, I want to thank you all for listening . Special thanks to the Economics Association and Sudatta ma’am for organising this and giving me an opportunity to connect with you all. 

Thank you!

Transcribed by Rohith Kumar Gattu

Next: Surabhi Joshi (2012) MBA, ISB Hyderabad • PWC • Credit Suisse

Surabhi Joshi

Batch of 2012 MBA, ISB Hyderabad • PWC • Credit Suisse

Hey guys! This is Surabhi Joshi. I did my undergrad from BPHC – M.Sc. Economics and Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering, 2012-2017 batch. After BITS, I worked as a Risk Analyst at Credit Suisse for about two years and then joined ISB to pursue MBA. The placement season here at ISB is over. I will be joining PWC as a Management Consultant in June. Hope you guys are having a great time at BITS. Today, I will be sharing my academic and professional journey with you all, and give some advice to help you make the most of your time at BITS. 

Talking about the electives first, I took Derivatives and Risk Management (DRM), Security Analysis and Portfolio Management (SAPM), the one on stocks, financial engineering, not sure if it’s offered now, and a few others. While choosing electives try to cover as many domains of finance as possible because these courses will give a detailed insight as to what each of these fields entail. In turn, this will help you in selecting a path in finance that you want to pursue your career in. It will give you a fair idea on which company and which type of role you are looking for in your PS2, and even your job post that. Reach out to your immediate seniors, go over the hand-outs, the course content, and chose your electives wisely. Don’t look at which course is easy and where you are going to get the most grades. This is not a very wise way of going about it, I’d say.

Speaking of internships and Practice School, I did not do any separate internship apart from the PS. I did my PS1 in NTPC Badarpur and my PS2 in Credit Suisse. One thing I would suggest you to do is this— don’t take your PS1 lightly. PS1 is a very good way of getting some hands-on experience in the field that you might not be certain about. This practical experience will simplify the career-choice decision making process for you. I could never really see myself working in the electrical domain. So, I thought I would give electrical one last chance and took my PS1 accordingly. This gave me an opportunity to actually go to the field, understand the intricacies involved and see if this is something that I would like to pursue further. PS1 gave me a good idea that EEE is something I’m not very inclined towards, and that maybe I should focus more on Economics. Consequently, I opted for a one-year internship/ double-PS in Enterprise Risk Management Department in Credit Suisse. Within two to three months of joining Credit Suisse, I got a PPO and then I worked there as a full-time employee for 2 years. My team was responsible for the regulatory deliverables that Credit Suisse was entitled to submit to the regulators like FINMA and the Swiss National Bank. My work involved capturing the different types of risks that the bank was exposed to—market risk, credit risk, operational risk etc. through the means of various internal and external risk metrics.

The upside to my role was the direct interaction with regulators, which is a rare opportunity at this age. As far as the downsides go, since it was Enterprise Risk Management I was looking at these risks from a very high level. There were separate departments—such as Market Risk, Credit Risk—which dug deeper into each of these risks and thus had very thorough understanding of the models that were being used to capture these risks. One important tip I would like to give you guys for PS2 is, don’t be too risk averse. During our time, we did not have many finance related companies coming for recruitment; the scenario is much better right now. Don’t select your PS2 stations purely based on the probability of getting PPO. Also, we did not have the information about the projects and the teams that we were going to be assigned to. This is one development which has happened in the past one or two years. This gives you enough information to estimate if you are the right fit for the team, and whether the work is something which really interests you. Because if you end up at a place which you don’t really like, you might end up getting a PPO there, but you won’t really enjoy your work and will kind of get stuck there—not a very good thing! Look at your interest and look at the profiles. Don’t go for the brand names and the probability of getting PPOs.

Coming to academics and GPA. There are many people who will tell you that GPA doesn’t matter once you get placed. I would say I do not agree with this, because GPA is a defining point for admissions into higher studies—be it within India or abroad. And even after you get into these colleges, there is a lot of competition for jobs and internships. So all of these things—your GPA, your research papers, etc—count as spice and will help you stand out in the crowd. Don’t focus solely on the GPA part but get a grip of the subjects. A good understanding of economics/finance courses will also help you during MBA, as they are the building blocks of many courses in B-schools. All in all, academics is very important.

Why MBA over finance? I was always very clear that I wanted to go for MBA and not for a Masters in Finance. Because, even though I was very good in my finance courses and I was doing really well at my job, this was not something I wanted to do in the long run. I did not want to settle for finance without exploring other fields. At the same time, there were people in my batch who were very clear from the starting that they wanted to do a Masters in Finance, and that Finance is where they’d want to settle. I would suggest people who are very clear about pursuing a career in Finance to go for a masters in Finance. Whereas people who want to develop a broader understanding of the business and management world should go for MBA. One can still do their major in finance and ultimately pursue a career in it, but MBA will still give you a broader perspective of looking at things.

How is MBA different from finance? The type of courses that you will be doing in Masters in Finance and MBA are very different. In MBA, you’ll have the choice to do courses related to marketing, strategy, operations, public policy etc. which will give you a wholesome knowledge about the business world. You can explore your interests and decide your area of specialisation accordingly. You need not be certain about the business domain that you would want to pursue further but having some clarity certainly helps. Apart from MBA and Masters in Finance, I would recommend students who are sure about pursuing a career in finance to go for CFA and FRM—maybe in your 3rd or 4th year, i.e. by the time you are done with placements or when you are at your Practice School. Trust me, you have a lot of time in hand around this period. And all these exams and certifications require a lot of commitment and time. Even if you are vaguely interested in finance, I would suggest you to give these exams as it will build your knowledge base and help you in exploring your areas of interest. When you go for your Masters in Finance or MBA, you will see many people who already have CFA level three cleared or have FRM certification. So even to stay ahead in the race I would say, it is a must. Earlier people used to give these exams after gaining 4-5 years of work experience. But that is not the case anymore. 

Some advice that I would like to give to you guys is to take your academics very seriously. Secondly, if you are not very sure of what exactly you want to do, that’s okay. You guys are still in your undergrad, that’s completely understandable. Talk to as many seniors as possible about the profiles and the companies which interest you. Talk to people who are actually working in those roles. They will be able to give you good understanding of the quality of the work…the pros and cons. So that will help you make your choices well. Third thing would be… if you are interested in Finance, go for certifications such as CFA and FRM; that is a very good use of your time and will also add up to your resume. Finally, I’d say, choose your PS2 wisely. Don’t be risk averse—go for the roles and not the companies. Last but not least, enjoy your time at BITS. Don’t be a book worm, do all the extracurricular, spend time with your friends. But at the same time take your academics seriously and try to figure out what is it exactly that you want to do in life… and don’t hesitate to reach out to your seniors. We would love to help you! Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I would be happy to help anyone who has questions about ISB, MBA or about Credit Suisse.

Thank you!

Transcribed by Yashdeep Singh Dahiya and Pranav Sistla