Dev Catalyst Alumni Spotlight: Shaival Modi and Learning to Fail

“One setback is not what defines me,” says Shaival Modi, junior computer engineering major at the University of Memphis and this week’s Dev Catalyst Alumni Spotlight.

He says these words as he reflects on the lessons he learned during his time in the Dev Catalyst program. Through various failed attempts and the frustration that programming produces at times, he says he has still learned to never underestimate himself, his abilities, and his drive to make new and exciting things. 

“The pleasure that I get from making things on my own is a different feeling, so that's one of the reasons that got me into deciding whether I wanted to pursue coding and programming as one of my career goals, which led me to take the Dev Catalyst class in high school,” Modi says.

Though he has since decided not to pursue a major and career that directly correlates with the coding and programming skills he learned in Dev Catalyst, he has still been able to see how that knowledge has proved to be important in his college career.  

“[The experience of Dev Catalyst] was the base that I can build up from,” he says. “None of the knowledge I've gained is a waste per se.” 

Modi has taken these lessons and skills with him throughout his college career and into his current internship at International Paper, one of the world’s leading producers of fiber-based packaging and paper. Working with their disaster recovery management team, he has been able to gain hands-on experience, creating a back-up database for employees to access systems, even when the plant encounters unexpected power loss. 

Along with the coding knowledge he learned in the class, he says he was also able to walk away from the Dev Catalyst San Francisco trip with significant life lessons, like learning the value of networking, after visiting all the different tech companies.

“I still have like 80 percent of the full-time engineers there on my LinkedIn,” Modi says. “We talk from time to time, and it's a wonderful and eye-opening thing, even getting to know these people.”

He ends our conversation, giving encouragement to young students who are interested in coding and Dev Catalyst. 

“Communication is the key when working with others because no question is a stupid question,” he says. “Never underestimate yourself, and if you fail at something, it's not the end of the world.”