From my experience in technology- Part 2
Don’t find excuses, find opportunities. They are all around you.
Since, I am last roll number of class, I generally have a lot of time before my viva. During my 6th semester practical I used to bring my laptop and I had this fever of working with 0 and 1 known as bit manipulation. It was just out of fun and during my practicals, I instead of studying used to do that (P.S. I am not promoting not to study for exams). I have never thought that it would be useful ever but I could ace last interview of Microsoft because of that practice during exams. You never know when something can become helpful so I keep on learning things no matter what they are or where they are from. This experience even keeps me motivated.
In this part, I am going to address managing time, managing so many things within that time and preservance.
Managing Time
A well asked question “Di, aap itna kuch kaise krte ho? Itne exams, college is so hectic?” (English Translation: Sis, how do you manage so much? So many exams, make college hectic?). There is a famous dialogue “Kehte hain agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaho… to poori kainath use tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai” (English Translation: It is said that if you want something truly from your heart, whole world be there to help you get that). It’s pretty much true. My passion for learning and technology, has always showed me a way to do it. I once sit working on a project, I would even forget food. I have seriously sat from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. without eating anything, I get involved so much. Sometimes not able to solve a problem and went to sleep, I will get solution in dream.
One thing which I addressed in my Lean In session as well is that you have 4 minors (4 weeks), 2 majors (4 weeks), 2 practicals (4 weeks) and miscellaneous (say, 6 weeks) in a year. These are total 20 weeks and you have 52 weeks in a year. Believe me, you have most time right now. And it’s the best time for you to explore. Once you will be at your jobs of 9 to 5, you will no longer have so much time and freedom.
Never ever get scared of anything be it exams or classes. I have taken classes just a day before my exam and I have went to meet-up in between my exams. And it never meant that I compromised on my studies or marks. I have attended most of the classes in my college life, had a decent percentage and knowledge of subjects.
Start small and then make it bigger. Go and like knowledgeable pages on facebook, make passionate friend circle which discuss ideas, encourage people around you, any website you go find knowledge, attend local meet-ups etc. And most importantly, have a vision. This were some of initial things which I did.
Managing various things & Perseverance
I have pretty much addressed this in last topic. Other than that, I liked both things, i.e, coding and development. But I got bored of one after doing it for sometime (say, 4–5 hours or 2–3 days), so I will switch. Also, I worked on things I was interested in like creating my own portfolio app. To keep yourself going on, I always used this strategy of being competitive or collaborative.
Competitive: Asked my fellow classmates from coding classes, how much eager I am to solve the problem and even more to solve it first. I always seek that approval which is natural in most of us but needs to be triggered. Keep a similar competitive spirit, to keep yourself going. Make a study circle or something and try to do your best, you will improve with time.
Collaborative: This was during my summer vacations of 2016 when I actually understood android app development. It was all because of my team with Sachin Aggarwal and Himanshu Singhal. We discussed ideas, problems, solutions and our project. When one person don’t want to work, others would lift him/her up. You always had to work for team, you can’t delay as you have to answer. That’s why, I love to work in balanced teams.
Similar thing happened when I was working with Bhavya Garg, Utkarsha Goswami and Saloni Bhartia on a PHP project. Bhavya was always there to scold us for not working, so we had to work.
It is also amazing in a way, that you meet like-minded people and can have someone to team up when you want to participate in some event. You also improve your thinking and innovative skills when you discuss ideas, problems, various solutions, etc. in many other point of views.
Hackathons
The first Hackathon I attended was Smart India Hackathon 2017. After that, I always advice students to go to Hackathons, yeah offline ones. There are online Hackathons as well but the real ones according to me are the ones you go physically and hack for 12, 20, 24 or 36 hours. The experience at these places is amazing. You learn new things, new ideas, meet new people (even potential recruiters and experts too), and your productivity is highest at that time. And they come with additional perks like AWS credits, swags, t-shirts, free food :P, etc. Some Hackathons even offer recruitment. I got an internship at LinkedIn after winning their Hackathon.
If you feel, you don’t know anything and what will you do. I would even suggest to you go. I have been to Hackathons where we started from scratch with any background knowledge of tech. But we learnt the tech and created it within that short span of time and it’s all worth it after you come up with new skillset. Think of it, you will learn something new in just 24 hours and what will you do in that 24 hours if you are completely free and not attending the event.
I wrote an answer on Quora about Hackathons. You can read it here.
For more doubts, feel free to comment or mail me.
If you feel there are some new terms you don’t know about or you have doubts try to Google them or learn from peers. You can also ask in comments or mail me at meghaaggarwal493@gmail.com, I will try to give an easy explanation.
Also, let me know what you want to read more about from me in comments or mail me at meghaaggarwal493@gmail.com.
More coming soon!
/codeb1ooded/
