A Deeper Dive

Abdul Mahasaniwalla discusses two important aspects of his life in this audio. Firstly, he shares how his mother's diagnosis of Parkinson's disease in high school impacted him and his family. He took on the responsibility of caring for his mother and sister, which helped him develop a strong sense of family and empathy. Secondly, Abdul talks about his journey to secure internships as a business major with a data science minor. Initially feeling the fear of missing out, he worked hard to develop his coding skills and eventually landed a project manager internship at Cisco Systems. He plans to continue his career in the business technology world. Lastly, Abdul expresses his passion for mentoring the next generation and his desire to work for a nonprofit if money was not a concern. He even started a mentorship program called OC Falcons in high school. Abdul encourages listeners to check out his website for more information. Hi everyone, my name is Abdul Mahasaniwalla and I want to thank you for visiting my website. So in this audio, we'll be sort of diving a bit deeper into what makes me, me. So the first question I'll answer is what personal experience defines me the most? And this is not necessarily something that happened to me, but actually something I went through. So in high school, my mother was unfortunately diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. This is a progressive disorder that affects the nervous system and parts of the body controlled by the nerves. You might have seen athletes such as Muhammad Ali or actors such as Michael J. Fox live through this. And it really took a toll on me personally as well as my family as we sort of had to be there for my mother and I sort of had to grow up faster than other kids my age did. My responsibility and sense of family was developed in high school as I tended to care for my mother majority of the time when I got home from school as well as my sister when she was back as well. My dad took more shifts from home instead of going into the office. So it was really an overall effort for all of our family and right now she's doing a lot better. She's managing it. Parkinson's is a disease that has no set cure currently, but it's just being managed by medications as well as a couple of surgeries. So I think that this personal experience really defines me in a sense of I know what's important to me now and I know who is important to me and the people in my corner and I know how to care for others as well as have sort of that empathy and sympathy in any task that I do. Now moving on to the second question of what's a recent setback that I endured and how did I overcome it? Right now I'm a business major with a data science minor. So internships was a big thing that I was looking for starting from my freshman year of college, right? So I would look at other people on LinkedIn, have that sort of LinkedIn effect of, hey, this guy's going to PwC consulting. He's going to Deloitte, EY, Cisco Systems, Google, Meta, all these different places. And as a freshman, I sort of had the fear of missing out, but I really did not have the skill set right until my sort of sophomore year where I took this as sort of like a challenge to develop my skills. I took up two part time jobs as coding instructors that I could actually put on my resume as skills that I've learned. I learned Python, a bit of JavaScript, as well as the basic coding language of Scratch that I taught to children who came into our center as well as online. So I really developed that expertise and that skill set within coding, which allowed me to apply for internships and secure a lot of interviews in the summer of my sophomore year going into my junior year. So I was able to obtain interviews with big companies like Cisco, Splunk, PwC, as well as Procter & Gamble. I ended up deciding that I wanted to go to Cisco Systems as a project manager internship because I really wanted to combine business as well as my background in data science. And last summer, I obtained my first internship as well as a return offer from Cisco. That's where I will be returning this coming summer. The work that I did there was amazing. I really enjoyed interacting with my teammates and core members in the business technology world, which I hope to have a long career in. But yeah, that was the start of my career and sort of how I took a recent setback in terms of not landing interviews and not really having a skill set, developed my skill set and landed a really good internship that will hopefully lead on into a full time job and a long career. The last question I'm going to answer today is what I would do if I did not have to worry about money besides traveling. Traveling would be my number one, obviously. But one thing that I really enjoy is mentoring the next generation because I had a lot of really good friends and really good mentors that came before me that really I credit to getting into college, landing a good job and sort of helping me obtain these amazing things. Right. So I want to pass my knowledge on to the next generation. And if I didn't have to worry about money, I would work for a nonprofit. Honestly, I actually started a nonprofit in high school, sort of a mentorship Big Brother program. It's called OC Falcons, where underprivileged youth could come and play in a safe space and environment. I talk a bit about that in my origin story, so be sure to go ahead and check that video out as well. But again, I think just like giving back overall to the next generation with the skills that I that I have now and that I have obtained would be my biggest thing that I would do if I didn't have to worry about money. Thank you so much for listening and be sure to check out my website. See you soon.