Right from my childhood I was no different from other pupils of my class but for the fact that I was more interested in knowing why things are the way they were rather than accepting them the way they are.As a natural consequence of this inquisitiveness, I was more interested in subjects like physics and chemistry than the other subjects
In high school we were introduced to organic chemistry and what fascinated me was the fact that a single reactant under different conditions leads to different products and by varying the initial conditions we can get the desired product. It was then that I realised that by controlling the various parameters during a chemical reaction we can get maximum yield of a desired product and I was thrilled to know that I could pursue this academically.
I worked hard and secured a rank among the top 10% in the EAMCET(Engineering Agricultural Medical Common Entrance Exam) exam which ensured that I secured a seat in Gayatri Vidya Parishad College of Engineering(affiliated to JNTU) in the Chemical Engineering department. In the first year we were introduced to chemical engineering fundamentals like Material and Energy Balances followed by intensive work in engineering science and analysis with courses like Mass and Heat Transfer, Thermodynamics, Chemical Reaction Engineering, Transport Phenomena and Process Dynamics and Control. The various courses helped me understand and apply the key qualitative concepts, and also analyze and interpret data.
In order to delve deeper into the intricacies of the various courses in chemical engineering I did a few projects under the guidance of my professors in my college. The project work on Heat Exchange Network Design ,under the guidance of Dr P.V. Ravi Kumar, helped me understand the importance of proper pairing and sequencing of heat exchange streams in order to minimize the energy consumption and hence the total operating costs in a process. This project was followed by work on Heterogeneous...