B.E. Chemical
CGPA: 8.75
EXPERIENCE
July 2019 - Present
ExxonMobil
Commercial & Technical Modeler
Exxon has been very kind to me as I had the opportunity to work on diverse projects. I wasn’t super keen on core , but was interested in a good company. I joined with the designation of a process engineer and what I was working on changed like on a monthly basis. As a process engineer, you are involved in designing, troubleshooting facility equipment along with many other responsibilities. After I changed roles to what they call “commercial and technical modeling”, I have been involved in making economic models for certain upstream opportunity evaluation and development
May 2018 - July 2018
Reckitt Benckiser
R&D FLP Trainee
Reckitt Benckiser is an FMCG company and works with brands like Harpic and Lizol. My project was based on understanding the chemistry of how strains are formed, how they interact with surfaces and how surfactants work on them.
May 2017 - July 2017
GE Healthcare
Research Intern
My work was based on chemical R&D. I was working on how to prevent condensation in breathing units. Particularly, I was researching on chemical compounds which can help absorb the moisture.
May 2016 - July 2016
Akshay Patra Foundation
Intern
I was working on vehicle fuel or mileage optimization.
QnA
Good. Luckily I didn't have to go through too much trouble. I think it is fun. And I mean there's a lot of potential for people to work in this industry. I enjoyed many aspects of the work. For instance, unlike my peers, my projects were very short term and so I got exposure to a lot of things, I didn't get bored. And everyone, including the managers, supervisors and seniors are all very open to ideas and conducive to thinking so I think it's honestly not a bad company to work for. Obviously, the oil industry is going through some very tough times. So that's affecting prospects. But I think it's been OK. It's been a decent experience in the sense that it's fun. But at the same time, I'm a little worried about my future and prospects and stuff.
I joined with the designation of a process engineer and what I was working on changed like on a monthly basis. One type of work is designing equipment. For example, if I want to increase the production of a plant, or a heat exchanger then I need to run calculations and propose changes. Another type of work is what we call “maintenance kind of stuff”. Someone will call us and say, "you know, this heat exchanger blew up and figured out why." You also have optimization, which is how can we improve this process, then you have safety engineering, can we make this process safer? These are broad categories. And I was lucky to work in all of these. So, yeah, I really enjoyed optimization projects and safety projects . I enjoyed designing as well but not that much. Benchmarking projects were also not my cup of tea. But it was a mixed bag.
After this, I changed roles to what they call commercial and technical modeling. I make economic models for upstream opportunity evaluation and development. Upstream is essentially the part where they extract the oil from the ground, and when they have to do that, they're going to look at how much oil is in the ground, how much money should be invested to extract that oil, Geopolitical risks, then should we extract that oil? And so on.
Exxon Mobil's recruitment process is very different from other companies. They actually never tell you which role you're sitting for. They have a lot of non-technical roles like sales and marketing, data analytics, supply chain, and project management. And they also have a lot of technical roles for chemical engineers that include process engineering, design and engineering management, flow assurance, facilities engineering, etc. So it is really based on the interview. They assess what your skill sets/ interests are, and then they put you in a particular field and that’s how I landed in chemical core. GDs are very general and what applies to a general GD, applies to a core chemical GD. They'll ask you questions on current affairs or something philosophical. The questions and the GD topics of each are very general and what they want to see is how you communicate with a group, how you think, talk, interact with and listen to people.
I felt it had good prospects. But moreover, for me, the decision was based on the broad options that it can offer. I was also very interested in the new research. So I was going through some U.S. universities and the chemical department in US universities did a lot of fascinating research topics. I was a little misguided about dual degrees before joining BITS and for me, I think the ideal career choice would have been to go with something like that. I knew very little about the options BITS provides, should have done more research there.
For most of my college life, I didn't think that I would end up in the core. My first plan was to basically go for a Ph.D. But then I realized that I was more geared towards the industry. At the end of my four years, I had the job offer in hand and I had a Ph.D. offer in hand, and I decided that maybe going for the job is the better option because I can always come back to do a Ph.D. in case that is something I want to look at.
I think the highest clarity I got was like a culmination of all of this. So I think professors are a big influence and then your seniors. And they also have a lot of magazines that you can subscribe to, even in the library. So you can go through those magazines. You can get a flavor of what's happening in the industry, what's cutting edge, and things like that. So I could see that there's a lot of innovation happening in chemical engineering but I stayed away from those areas which I felt to be relatively dry.
I think every professor helps. There was a professor named Banasri Roy, I think I really liked her courses and also her approach to the subjects. She's one of my favorite professors in the department.
I think my first option was obviously a Ph.D. and my second option was basically something like an R&D job or something like that and my third option was consulting and data analytics. And the industries that I was targeting basically were healthcare, tech, and FMCG. So how I ended up in oil and gas is a question you have to figure out.
I never tried to build a profile per se. I did have a checklist. The checklist included industries I wanted to explore and skillsets I wanted to build. I was all over the place for the 4 years in BITS. I did a Data Science minor from Coursera, I tried my hands on PoRs, I worked on completely unrelated industries, and so on and took unrelated courses. I think if you have clarity on what you want you can model your profile based on what others have done. I was just winging it.
Internships are very useful to have. Internships are the first thing that they see on your resume after your CGPA. So they are basically gonna ask you questions about your experience and what you learned Most people in their second and first secure internships via contacts. My first internship was through an online application process and my second-year internship was a hackathon (APOGEE Innovation Challenge) which we had won and got sponsored. My third-year internship was through PU.
I did my thesis in 4-2 and the first field I was actually applying in was stuff related to the absorbent I had worked on in past SOPS and internships. It was a hot topic at that point because it has amazing gas absorption capabilities. Later, I found this prof working at Texas university and he was working on something called chemotaxis, which is essentially studying how bacteria move based on chemical gradients. I was going through some of his research and it was extremely interesting because the research was very interdisciplinary and involved a lot of biophysics. So I wrote him an email. I told him that this is interesting and he was very reciprocative. So it worked out well for me.
I really enjoyed working with the people who were there in PU and I really enjoyed generally going through the data available. I wasn’t inclined towards spending most of my time in PU, but the time I did spend, I really did enjoy it.
I think the most fun activity that I was part of in college was DebSoc. I was very active and I really enjoyed debating. I was introduced to debating when I got into campus and I loved it from day one. It was one of my best extracurriculars. Apart from that, I was also into sports you could say.
So very late, I realized that the more free I am, the worse I do. I wish I had realized it very early on.
I think instead of detailing the mistakes I made, I think having the right attitude is very important. So I do have an open mind, but I also have a very pessimistic attitude towards things. I look at things with a cynical lens and it affects the way you do things. Do not recommend it.
Yes, I think that wanting to be part of growing industries and making a real impact is the biggest driving factor for me to switch, and let's see how it goes in the future. But I'm very well aware that there are certain things which I should at least be knowledgeable about to do so. I will switch when I have a better understanding of what I need to switch to.
I think the best advice I would give you is to know other disruptions happening in the industry and be a driver for those disruptions. A lot of industries are very heavy on automation, machine learning, AI, and these jargons are thrown in the core industries as well. So I think having a skill set that enables you to deliver on those things helps. Speaking of proper core, I would really recommend people to go for higher studies like a Ph.D. or M.S. because realistically, out of college your chemical technical understanding is not great. So I would recommend anyone who really likes designing heat exchangers or distillation columns to maybe pursue a higher degree and work abroad.