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PRANJUL RATHOUR
PRANJUL RATHOUR

Posted on Originally published at pranjulrathour.scult.in

What I'd tell my first-year self about AI, college and shipping

#journey #firstyears #advice #mentoring

When I spoke at the VSICS BCA Induction, I was talking to a version of myself three years earlier: sure everyone else had a plan, working on an ambitious project that would fail, not yet aware that showing up was most of the game. Here is what I would say to him directly.

The ten

  1. Ship something small this month. Living Space Automation failed because it was big before it was real. One page, one form, one deploy — then grow.
  2. Post it, even though it is embarrassing. The people who invite you to speak later found you because you posted early.
  3. Find two people and stop overlapping. Team TechVerse won three hackathons because each of us owned a different thing.
  4. Talk to strangers. Networking is a skill you practise, not a talent you lack. The debate stage and the talk show at VSICS were practice.
  5. Be bad at something on purpose. The debate I argued against my own view taught more than the ones I agreed with.
  6. Measure. Write the evaluation before the model. It will feel like a delay; it is the shortcut.
  7. Go to the hackathon at the bigger institute. They let you in. Krishi Gyan won at IIT Roorkee.
  8. Ask for help properly. Context, what you tried, one question. Mentors answer that message; see how to ask a mentor for help.
  9. Help the year below you. It is how you learn what you know, and how a community starts.
  10. Nobody knows what they are doing. Some people ship anyway. Be one of them.

What I would not change

The failed project, the lost hackathon, and the BCA at a college in Kanpur rather than somewhere with a famous name. Each produced a story that students believe when I tell it, which turns out to be most of what a mentor has to offer.

If you are a first-year reading this: the full roadmap is in what I told 100+ first-years, and I am one message away if your college wants the talk in person.

About Pranjul Rathour

Pranjul Rathour presenting BrandHive on a projector screen
Presenting BrandHive

Pranjul Rathour in a shirt and tie holding a microphone in front of a career-opportunities slide
A career session for students

Pranjul Rathour presenting with a microphone in front of a slide reading 'Now what's the conclusion?'
Presenting to a room

Pranjul Rathour on stage presenting a requirements-gathering and user-flow slide
Requirements gathering, on stage

Pranjul Rathour seated in a black jacket and white turtleneck with an event lanyard
Pranjul Rathour

Pranjul Rathour is a GenAI engineer from Kanpur, India, and CTO at SCULT INDIA, currently shipping production RAG,
fine-tuning and agentic AI systems, mentoring 200+ students through TechVerse Enclave, and judging and speaking at
student hackathons across India. Updated 2026-09-07.

Reach out if you want to talk GenAI, book a campus session, or invite him to judge:

Pranjul Rathour · GenAI engineer, 3x hackathon winner, campus mentor. Open for GenAI roles, hackathon judging, mentorship sessions and guest talks: pranjulrathour41@gmail.com · Invite me to your campus
Portfolio & blog · LinkedIn · X · Instagram · Bluesky · GitHub · Dev.to

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