Alumni

My name was Vijaya Laxmi Chalasani during my years at the (then) Chaitanya Degree College. I was a topper from the Microbiology department, and I am thankful to the lecturers and staff who helped me progress in the field. The college organised excursions, field trips, and extracurricular activities — I have fond memories from those years and friends I have kept for life. After Chaitanya, I completed my masters at Manipal, moved to the United States, and now work as a Clinical Pharmacist at Centene Corporation in Florida, where I received the prestigious Pinnacle Award for 2019. Years later, when I ran into our founder Dr. Ch. V. Purushotham Reddy at the airport, he remembered me and the poem I wrote for the very first Chaitanya magazine. That kind of attention to every student — across decades — is rare.

I am proud to be a graduate of Chaitanya. My time there shaped my personal development as much as my academic progress, and the Biochemistry degree opened doors across Spain, USA, Germany, England, the Netherlands, and the UAE. I now live in Toronto and work as a Field Service Engineer for Biotage AB, a worldwide supplier of biotech instruments and consumables — a role that takes me coast to coast and lets me meet new people every week. I am grateful for what Chaitanya did for me, and I genuinely believe it deserves the recognition as a university.

My experience at Chaitanya gave me the chance to sharpen my craft. The library, internet facility, and laboratories were always available, and I still remember the National Seminar on Recent Trends in Microbial Technology that the college hosted — being part of that as a student helped me see where the industry was heading and meet peers from other colleges. Moving from a life sciences degree into the software industry is not a common path; the stability and skills I built during my Master’s at Chaitanya are what made it possible. I am now an Assistant Manager at TCS in the Life Sciences domain, working on the SAS platform and clinical projects.