The queen of crime fiction once wrote: “Everybody said, “Follow your heart”. I did, it got broken.” This might hold true for many, but not in Ashutosh Agarwal’s case. Ashutosh, a young 21 year old, engineering student of IIT Patna, who loves Agatha Christie, bagged an annual salary package of Rs. 1.8 crores, which is, 13 times in the ballpark of the average package received by a CSE student of IIT Patna in 2015.
Ashutosh, who comes from the royal city of Lucknow, said, “Hard work, dedication and good education [which] I have received since my schooldays, and later here, at IIT Patna, have brought me this success.” He also smartly added,” Computer science is different from other traditional subjects. Here, you have to think differently. You need to sharpen your skills using your brains.”
Ashutosh had interned at Google, New York for 14 weeks earlier in 2015. Prior to that, he had also written codes for open source projects at GSoC, a global programme that offers students stipends. He worked with a team on interactive media adverts, or what we know as Google AdSense, which serves up advertisements based on a browser’s location and IP address. Based on his performance, Ashutosh got an interview offer from Google Inc. which he grabbed with open arms.
Ashutosh has certainly ensured that IIT-Patna-students are trailblazers. “My placement with Google will open doors of other top IT companies in the world for IITs,” he spoke with pure aplomb. He is the first student to get placed in Google Inc. from IIT-Patna.
In the ecstasy of Ashutosh’s brilliant feat, one must not overlook that the placement percentage in IIT-Patna has increased in 2015, and most significantly in the Electrical Engineering stream. In EE, the placement percentage has gone up to 72.41% from 43.33% (in 2014). The average annual package of CSE students, who got placed (30 out of 35 students), has risen to Rs. 13.47 Lacs in 2015 from Rs. 11.58 Lacs. IIT Patna students have indeed done justice to the Shloka which is embossed in its Logo “Vidyaarthee Labhathey Vidyaam”, as they have brought laurels to the college. The shloka means that knowledge is attained by the one who aspires for it.
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