I'm a Project Associate at the Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre (HTIC), IIT Madras, where I work on AI for medical imaging. I graduated BE CSE in 2026 from AMC Engineering College, Bangalore, as Best Outgoing Student — and went straight from campus into research at an IIT. I also mentor students through Girls Leading Tech. I'm deliberately close to where you are right now. I was writing my first ML notebook not long ago, and I applied to research roles with the same doubts you probably have: is my CGPA enough, are my projects good enough, do I need a master's first? I can tell you what actually mattered — and what I wasted time on. What I help with: • Breaking into AI/ML as a student — what to learn, in what order, and what to skip • Kaggle & competition ML — validation design, why your local score doesn't match the leaderboard, reading top solutions properly • Research roles & internships — how to approach labs, what a research profile looks like • Resume, GitHub & portfolio — turning coursework into projects that get callbacks • Interview prep for internships and fresher ML roles Come with something specific — a notebook, a resume, a decision you're stuck on. You'll leave with next steps, not a reading list.