This is my blog based on all my coding projects and academic endeavours. My name is Rohit Sunku, and I am someone who is very passionate about software, mathematics and finance. I like to expand my knowledge in all three of these fields, and combine my knowledge to solve problems within these domains to make an impact on any company I work for.

It all started off with me having a really strong aptitude for maths in school, when I used to be the person who would finish all the maths problems the quickest, from year 2 onwards. I always used this competitive spirit to push me, although I learnt the painful lesson that it can annoy the heck out of others. Anyways, I liked maths a lot, and had an aptitude for grasping new concepts quickly and genuinely loved exploring new ways of solving problems and becoming better at what I do. After GCSEs, when I was predicted B’s and C’s as I was annoying teachers a lot, I ended up with 5 A* and 5 A due to being smart with me being efficient with using the correct resources. In A Level, I tried to do too much within my first year and did not really revise smart enough, with my disorganisation, getting me 4 B’s in AS Level, although I picked it up and worked incredibly hard in year 13 with a ban from all parties to get 3 A’s in A Level (Biology, Chemistry and Maths). 

I was originally interested in doing medicine at university, typical Asian Parents ;), but at the same time, I never really thought I had the patience to do this at university and the organisation. At the time, I was a kid, and definitely not responsible enough to become a doctor, I would have probably ended up being annoyed and then accidentally killing someone on a bad day, then realising all the consequences later (just kidding). It was not for me, I think the social side was there, but at 18, it just did not feel right jumping in. I liked maths, and even though I got an A in it, and not an A*, but I liked solving problems a lot. 

So I decided to pursue Mathematics at University, although initially, I had no idea what good can come out of a maths degree. When I first stepped into the taster session, I just looked at all of these equations and thought “Man, it is going to be a hell of a year and I will end up a full-time depressed nerd by the end of this”. I know realise, that when you break these concepts down and not get intimidated by them, it really is not too bad, you just have to not get intimidated and focus on taking it one step at a time, this will build your problem solving ability.

Life is truly wonderful if you accept the world of opportunities and potential in front of you

Now during my maths degree, I went through some crazy experiences, met some long-lasting friends, lost myself and found myself, had plenty of reality checks, and came out a completely different person to when I came in. Since COVID-19 took a way a lot of life from university and I myself am a late bloomer who got to grips with life a little bit later than others (2-3 years behind I would say), I remember doing my masters thinking I feel like I am in freshers. I remember going up to people since I did A LOT of work and lost 20kg within the last year and became pretty jacked with this new found confidence. I sat down in my masters class which at the time was Actuarial Science ( I did not know what else I could do with a maths degree still ), and thought “This is so bloody boring, I am in no way ready to do an intensive 5 modules a semester and sit all these exams when all I can think about is when is the next night out.” I just went clubbing everyday, sacked the masters and dropped out within 2 months, just thinking that I was in no way ready to sit that much of an intensive programme after finishing university. This was the period where I had no clue what I want to do with my life. Everyone kept saying to me, you have a maths degree, like a job should not be hard for you at all, that is insane, but when studying maths in COVID with all these take-home assessments where you can look at your notes, I did not really feel like I had completed a maths degree.

Now during this time, I remember shit hitting the fan, and me realising “Crap, what am I going to do now?”. My dad said it would be good to get into coding and he kept trying to persuade me to do a coding course within lockdown, but at the time I was like “No way, that’s the last thing I want to do, I just want to get ripped and get this degree done then go and meet loads of people. Coding was the last thing on my mind.” I think this does reflect a lot on who you surround yourself with does make up a large proportion of you; everyone has their own unique experiences, but at the end of the day, if you put yourself in a completely different environment with different people, then it is actually amazing how much you can change. Anyways, I listened to my dad and got onto this coding programme called “ITCareersSwitch” which had courses in Java, Python, Javascript, HTML & CSS, JQuery, BootStrap, PHP and C#. I remember really liking learning about Java and Python, and my father suggested to find an in-person bootcamp at this point, since he wanted me to go and meet some like-minded people and do an intensive course to learn more on how to code. I looked at Web Development courses, but then Data Science caught my attention. This sounds cool, and definitely seems more interesting than making websites.

I started the Data Science Bootcamp at Le Wagon, and from this what I can say is it is essential to have good understanding already, and use the bootcamp to practice more than learn. It is very fast-paced, and easy to fall behind and not fully understand everything. It gives you a snippet of what programming could be like, and to be honest, it is definitely more intense than a full-time role. They did provide a lot of prep work, and I managed to complete some of it but not all of it, but in all honesty, you would need to have done all of it and also practiced coding to on HackerRank and other websites to make the best use out of the bootcamp. I realised that I liked programming a lot, but I did feel lost with some concepts, due to the fast-paced nature. I did a nice little project with a few lovely people on “Using Neural Networks to detect Supernovas” which involved using Google Vertex AI to train multiple CNNs and choose the best performing model. This was an eye-opening experience for me, and I learnt a lot here; I would definitely say that the best programmers here were older and had worked jobs before, having industrial experience and joining from a career break, or studied Computer Science as a degree. This was before Chat-GPT came into existence, so at the time, you would have to be a gifted programmer to be able to solve some of the complex problems.

After this bootcamp, I felt that I wanted a more slower-paced programme, so I decided to study Data Science MSc at City St’ George’s University of London. At the time, it was just City University, but they merged in 2024 with St’ Georges to become a combined university. This was an enjoyable experience, I definitely felt that I got to practice the concepts that I learnt within the bootcamp, and I had become much better at programming. I still struggled a little bit, but I got pretty good grades within my first semester, getting distinctions in all my initial modules. I moved to London, and my father had moved permanently to the Cayman Islands, so we sold the house back home and moved to London. I lived right near King’s Cross, where parties, raves and all kinds of events were happening 24/7. I was ready to go out, and I was already pretty good at programming, so I got by with fairly okay grades (Merits instead of Distinctions), but I had so much fun clubbing, meeting new people and then just being active constantly. It was honestly the most enjoyable experience of my life; everyday felt like an adventure.