Resilience is a requirement in the job market. Nirmal Srinivasan, MPS ’23, would add adaptability, too.
“I would keep applying for a lot of jobs and get all these rejections. I’m thinking, ‘What am I doing wrong?’” Srinivasan said of his time as a Cornell graduate student in the Master of Professional Studies in data science and applied statistics. “This classmate used to joke with us, saying, ‘You guys actually don't need to apply for jobs; you just need to keep talking to people.’ That thought stayed in my head. At the start of my second semester, I reframed my objectives.”
Granted, Srinivasan still applied for jobs, but he made networking a priority in the latter half of his MPS experience. He had the skills. Afterall, the education he received in Cornell’s one-year MPS program in data science and applied statistics was, and continues to be, highly coveted across industries. He just needed to find the right job, and networking provided a roadmap, he said.
“If you’re looking for jobs, that’s the roadmap: talk to as many people as you can,” he said.
Today, Srinivasan is a senior data professional at Lumen Technologies, a telecommunications company. At Lumen, where he has worked since July 2023, he describes his role as a mix of both data analyst and data scientist – someone who generates meaningful insights from data and comes up with recommendations for company leadership.
“A lot of my MPS classes helped me in my current job, especially starting right out,” he said.
For example, he spent his early days at Lumen working on prediction models – the foundations of which he learned in two courses from his MPS experience, Data Mining and Machine Learning (STSCI 5740) and Applied Time Series Analysis (STSCI 5550).
His path to Cornell and the MPS program came after dabbling in machine learning and computer vision research as an undergraduate engineering major in India.
“When you look beneath the machine learning and deep learning, it’s all math and statistics,” he said. “That was my starting point in switching from engineering to data science.”
Srinivasan cites three factors that lured him from across the planet to Ithaca, and to Cornell’s MPS in data science and applied statistics program: the Big Red’s Ivy League renown and brand value on a résumé, a strong alumni network, and a rigorous, relevant curriculum with direct application to jobs in industry. All three factors proved valid, particularly the rigor of the MPS curriculum. It wasn’t easy, he said.
“I didn’t realize that statistics could get this deep.”
But he sought out professors during office hours and stayed on top of his coursework, all while juggling part-time statistics jobs within Cornell Athletics and the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, to name a couple.
Once he changed up his priorities in the job hunt, Srinivasan got on LinkedIn and began reaching out to Cornell alumni. The goal wasn’t to get referrals, he said. It was to learn about industries, what companies need, and to discover where his MPS skills could be used.
Through CUeLINKS, he met a Cornell alumnus who was a recently retired hiring manager willing to review his résumé.
“After two days he gave me a call that went for two hours. He said, ‘Look, I’m going to go through your résumé section by section, and I’m going to tell you exactly where you’re going wrong,’” Srinivasan said. “People like him are the reason I chose Cornell. You just can’t imagine how willing some alumni are to help you.”
Srinivasan emphasizes that the Cornell alumni network has helped him at each step of his professional career, even before he arrived on campus in the Fall of 2022 for his first semester in the MPS program. He leaned on the Big Red alumni network when deciding to apply to the MPS program. As a graduate student, he connected with alumni to inform decisions around course selection and to network during the job hunt. Even today, he turns to them if he hits a technical snag in his current job.
“It made sense to me, as a student, to learn from these alumni,” Srinivasan said. “And even today, I can always reach back out to them.”
To new and prospective students, Srinivasan urges them to lean on critical program support staff within the Department of Statistics and Data Science, like Anita Scheible, career services advisor, and Allen Ward, graduate field coordinator, who helped him find part-time jobs on campus and prepare for job interviews.
As to his other piece of advice, there is no surprise.
“I would say talking to people has an even greater value in finding a job than sending off résumés for a job post,” he said. “Through networking and meeting people, you also begin to better understand industries and businesses, which will give you a head start over the rest of the crowd. That knowledge is very underrated.”
New and current MPS students with questions about networking or other aspects of the MPS program are encouraged to get in touch with Nirmal via LinkedIn.
By Louis DiPietro, a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.