My Interview Experience for Developer Student Clubs (DSC) Lead — 2020
Hey there 👋, are you interested in becoming a Developer Student Clubs (DSC) Lead? If yes, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article, I’ll share my experience regarding how I got selected as the DSC Lead.
But wait, some of you might think that what is DSC 🤔, right? For them, let’s have a look at what exactly DSC is.
What are Developer Student Clubs (DSC)?
Google Developer Student Clubs (earlier — Developer Student Clubs) are university-based community groups for students interested in Google developer technologies. Students from all undergraduate or graduate programs with an interest in growing as a developer are welcome. By joining a GDSC, students grow their knowledge in a peer-to-peer learning environment and build solutions for local businesses and their community. Joining a GDSC allows you to Connect, Learn & Grow. To know more about GDSC, read here!
Now, another question which might strike your head is, who am I & why am I writing this article? 🤔
Who am I?
I am the DSC Lead of D.Y. Patil College of Engineering, Akurdi, Pune.
Why am I writing this article?
Students from various universities are having doubts regarding how to become the DSC Lead start a Student Developer Community in their college. In this article, I’ll try to cover most of the doubts. But, before that, let me share my experience.
Here’s how it started…
I got to know about DSC from my senior Shreyas Patil. At that time, I had very less knowledge about DSC. So, I went through their official website. As I was going through the website, I started to develop an interest in this program because I was involved in similar activities in college. The next step was filling out the application form wherein I filled all the necessary & required details and read their terms & conditions thoroughly. At last, there was a section where I had to upload a video with a maximum length of 2 minutes.
The video included (and must include):
- My Introduction (most important)
- What are my technical interests?
- What am I passionate about?
- What will be the purpose of the DSC Community in my college?
I made the video & uploaded it on YouTube. You can have a look at my video here 👇
After the video was uploaded, I submitted the form — in April 2020 (the first half of the month) & got back to my work (becoming a better version of me). I didn’t have any idea regarding the further process. So, I waited.
After some days, I received an email from Developer Student Clubs (DSC) team that I’ve cleared the first evaluation round. I was happy that I could stand out of the crowd by clearing the first round of evaluation 🥳
The next step was the interview round for which I had to book an interview appointment.
I booked the afternoon slot for 27th April 2020.
The Interview Day:
It was a virtual meeting on Google Meet & my interviewer was Sumit Kakkar sir. We both greeted each other, after which he started the interview.
The following set of questions were asked to me:
- Tell me something about yourself
- What are your technical & non-technical interests?
- Explain the projects which you’ve done so far?
- Have you attended any technical meetups?
- Have you delivered any seminars/sessions? If yes, then how many attendees were present during the seminar?
- Have you worked in a team?
- Why do you want to become a DSC Lead?
- Any other points/achievements that you may have missed out on & want to mention?
- Any questions that you would like to ask?
The interview was scheduled for 30 minutes, but it lasted for around 20–25 minutes. I answered all the questions will full confidence & enthusiasm. The interview went awesome 🤩
Tip: While you book a slot for the interview, you get to know the name of your interviewer. Find out more about him/her on LinkedIn. You may find something interesting which might help you ace your interview round.
The next step was to eagerly wait for the response from the DSC team. One day, while I was scrolling the LinkedIn feed, I came across a post that mentioned that the student was selected as the DSC Lead for his campus located in Pakistan. I came across this post in June 2020. Now, I became very much eager to know the results. After some days (in July), I came to know that students from the India region have been selected as the DSC Lead. I got disappointed a little bit because I thought that all the leads across India have been selected & I didn’t get selected.
Some days later, I received an email from the DSC team. I opened it 🤞. To my surprise, I got to know that I was selected as the DSC Lead for my campus 🤩
I received the email on 11th August 2020 (after a long wait). I was pretty excited about it as I was the first DSC Lead on my campus. It was one of the greatest achievements for me as I was one among 275 DSC Leads across India & 1220 DSC Leads across the globe!
Special thanks to Shreyas Patil for introducing me to this program & guiding me!
NOTE: Make sure you double-check your application form before you submit it. Especially, cross-check your college name. A minor mistake in your application form may turn out to be a big mistake for you.
Some of the doubts which you might have:
1. How to become a DSC Lead?
- If you are interested in becoming a DSC Lead, the first thing you can do is start working on yourself! Create your GitHub & LinkedIn profile / update it if you already have one. You can have a portfolio website for yourself (optional), which showcases your work, achievements, experience, etc. (here’s my portfolio)
- You can reach out to any one of the current DSC Leads & ask them to share their experience & tips. If you have any doubts, you can reach out to me over LinkedIn, Twitter. I’ll be happy to help you. 🙂
2. Does branch matter?
Nope, the branch doesn’t matter. I am a student of Information Technology (IT) branch but I’ve seen students from non-Computer/IT branches getting selected as DSC Leads. The only thing that matters here is your technical interest & zeal to learn (irrespective of any branch you belong to).
That’s it from my side folks!
I’ll soon be writing another article about what are the activities which I did under DSC & the benefits of getting selected as a DSC Lead.
Till then, you can visit our community page to know more about the events which we’ve conducted so far.
