00:00[MUSIC] Hey, hi. My name is Ankita.
00:05I am a product manager right now for a tech startup working in Santa Barbara.
00:09In my previous life, I was a software engineer.
00:12I graduated with my master's degree in 2013,
00:15and since then, I've been doing engineering.
00:17When I was moving, uh,
00:19from my career from an engineering role into product management, uh,
00:23which happened in 2018, January,
00:25there were a lot of foundational things which were missing for me,
00:28uh, as a professional.
00:30I came across this, um,
00:31certificate program and I saw what they were offering,
00:34and I- I felt like, "Yeah,
00:36this is what I need to do."
00:37First of all, I'll get to learn from world-renowned faculties at Stanford,
00:42sitting in the comfort of my house,
00:45uh, and then, the second, uh,
00:47important thing is the variety of courses which
00:50were offered to me in different, uh, fields.
00:53Like, you know, uh, it was in leadership,
00:57it was in product, uh,
00:59development and marketing, which is a lot.
01:01If any certificate could give you like those kinds of options,
01:05and you could choose like what you want to learn,
01:07I think that is super empowering,
01:09you know, and that's the reason I chose this course.
01:11While I was like doing the course and working full time as a product manager, um,
01:17I got pregnant, which is like, you know,
01:19the beginning of a beautiful phase of my life,
01:22but I don't want to stop, you know?
01:23I want to keep doing what I'm doing while working full-time,
01:26being pregnant, you know,
01:28taking care of your baby,
01:30uh, which- which is a lot like during the nine months.
01:33I was also doing the program on the weekend.
01:35Just the flexibility of like opening up my laptop and, you know, uh,
01:40listening to the lectures and doing my, uh,
01:43homework and giving exam like sitting anywhere,
01:46anytime, uh, was amazing.
01:50I took a maternity leave to like be with my baby,
01:53but when he's sleeping,
01:54I wanna do something.
01:55I wanna learn, and this course and the certificate has helped me to do that.
02:02I realized I was not good at negotiation when I actually took the negotiation course.
02:07Until I took that course, uh,
02:09I never negotiated when I took a new job,
02:12and I never negotiated when I was giving- I was given like,
02:15um, uh, you know, yearly appraisals.
02:18Um, I thought like what I get is like good enough,
02:21and when I took that course,
02:22I realized, you know, what is my value?
02:24So recently, when I moved to Santa Barbara, you know,
02:28and I actually used the skills which I acquired in that course.
02:31So the advice I would give to people who are seeking online education,
02:35but are like really busy in their life,
02:38either professionally or personally, you know,
02:40have- uh, have- have kids.
02:42I have a child. So, you know,
02:44I understand how that can be.
02:45Make a commitment to yourself that, "Hey,
02:48this is what I wanna do in the next one year," and just enroll.
02:52If I can do it, you can do it as well.
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