Ellicium’s Freshers Training Program— A Story That Needs to Be Told
The month of August saw three new entrants at Ellicium. Fresh out of graduation, Sharvari, Sujata, and Tushar joined the organization with much anticipation to start their careers.
A comprehensive two-month training program was developed to get them up to speed on the technologies specific to Ellicium’s domain, namely data analysis and data science. This covered all relevant topics required for them to work on projects. This was essential, unlike their academic learning, which would have been holistic and encompassed several areas of design and computing. They need to be exposed to tools and languages specific to the work that they would be doing in the organization.
The Training Period
The training was oriented towards getting them up to speed with cutting-edge technologies like Big Data, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine learning. A week devoted to each of the topics. They also got hands-on training on front-end tools like PHP, reporting tools like PowerBI, and back-end technologies such as Unix shell scripts, SQL, and Python.
Senior Ellicians comprehensively covered the topics, took time out from their busy schedules, and designed and conducted great training sessions. Classroom sessions, video-based learning, and hands-on assignments were a good mix. The assignments were a great way for the trainees to try their hand at the newly acquired skills and a means for the trainers to understand how well the training was being imparted.
Besides technical topics, the trainees were introduced to SDLC and Agile in particular. “Exposing the new employees to methodologies like Agile at this early stage helps them in absorbing and implementing them more efficiently in their projects.” opines Mandar Deshpande, Senior Project Manager at Ellicium, “Introducing them to Agile terminologies using games, creates a lasting impression in their minds.”
A short but very important session on Software Testing was organized. The trainees were introduced to all stages of the ‘STLC.’
At the end of each month, the trainees work on a project to design, build, test, and present to seniors. This was an important exercise and a great way to introduce them to a project’s development lifecycle. “The entire exercise of designing, developing, and testing the system and writing supporting documents like pseudo-code and test cases was very helpful for us to understand the workflow in live projects,” says Sharvari, a Computer Science Engineering graduate. All three trainees put in their 100% and worked hard to see the project completed.
Ellicium’s Training Lab was a crucial part of this training program. It helped trainees to experiment and test as much as they wanted to.
The Ending Phase
In the rigorous period of two months, during which the trainees worked all weekends, each discovered their area of interest, be it PHP, Python, or Hadoop. This was an important factor in deciding their project allocation at the end of the training period. A fantastic graduation ceremony was held to mark the end of training.
Sharvari, Sujata, and Tushar donned their graduation hat!
Ellicium has a solid commitment to learning. The trio continues to learn about existing systems through short knowledge transfer sessions by their team members; this will equip them to apply their knowledge to the development of future ones.
Good luck and Godspeed to all three!