Get To Know GDG VIT Vellore: Shubhodeep Mukherjee

The unsaid philosophy behind GDG is, GDG is for the student, not the other way around.

Hi guys! I’m back but let’s rewind a bit. Seems like a long time ago but when we first joined VIT, we were all a bit clueless to say the least. I was super lucky to get the best lot of friends within the first month of college itself.

So what do you think we did next?

Introduce friends to other mutual friends.

Pursuing IT or CSE, you tend to meet people who are exceptionally good at their field unlike people like me who randomly chose a branch just for the sake of getting a degree.

I actually remember it quite evidently when I was with one of my friends just strolling around the campus wherein suddenly he fondly started talking about this new guy he had just met.

With ebullience he said, “This guy is so cool. He already knows 8 programming languages can you believe it? Like it took me years to perfect Java and he has already mastered 8!! I’m telling you, he’s going to be an inspiration for so many people out here. “

“What’s his name?”, I ask.

He says, “Shubhodeep”

Right about that time a curly haired guy wearing 3 quarters is approaching us with a guitar in his hand? WOW. And it doesn’t stop there, he sings awfully well too.

That was the first time I met Shubhodeep.

No wonder we would become good friends. One day I randomly strike a conversation with him and upon asking him his journey as a programmer he said, “During class 9th finals, I borrowed the movie, ‘The Social Network’ from my cousin, and came home and watched it. I don’t know what got into me but I then watched it for 9–10 times in the coming days, and furthermore started searching for web development books in my school library. Whilst the school covered Java as their curriculum, I was scraping PHP codes in my class notes, working on whatever I got.”

Exuberantly, he continues saying “My first complete project was Frnzmash, yes it was a ripoff of FaceMash, made by Mark Zuckerberg, but don’t judge me, I was in high school. The website was backed by the same algorithm used for FaceMash.”

Well who was I to judge? Till that day, I didn’t even know about such terminologies.

Keen to know more, I excitedly ask him to continue. He goes, “I would have stayed with PHP, if I didn’t watch Iron Man and had gotten the idea of building my own AI. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t even have been a programmer, if there were no movies. So to build AI and speech recognition system, I learnt Python and Linux system programming.”

By this time, he joined GDG-VIT. And well what a beautiful ride and a learning experience it’s been for him.

Straight out I ask him what his journey has been as a programmer after joining GDG and very honestly he replies saying “GDG gave me a reality check, and showed me how to grow as a developer. I met Ashwini, Rishi and Vignesh, with whom I worked on several projects. I remember, whenever something exigent would come up, it was me Ashwini and Rishi to the rescue, sitting late nights in M.B. I made some awesome friends from the Management team especially Nikhil and Shiv and got an opportunity to work with so many creative people. Well those were the days!”

While on one side, the members are provided with all sorts of schwags, loads of resources and cool tools to keep the motivation going and the zeal to keep on learning and experimenting, it’s actually the friends we meet along the way that help us appreciate the journey.

To lead the GDG team as their Vice-President (Technical) for a term, he proudly calls it a great experience. He got the opportunity to meet some really exceptional people from both the Technical and the Management team.

And when it comes to the projects he’s done so far in his tenure, oh well you name it and he’s been a part of it. My personal favourite? IT HAS TO BE MyVIT. Don’t we all love that app?

The GitHub link to all his projects is: https://github.com/shubhodeep9

Link to His LinkedIn profile is: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shubhodeep9

You must be thinking what the impact of GDG in our lives is and what happens after your tenure. Well I had the same doubt and so I asked him about it.

“GDG has taught me so many things, and I am more prepared to face the problems with more optimism than I was before joining GDG.”

Shubhodeep was a part of Data Analysis project along with his two seniors in Creation Labs, worked on many side projects like GitChat, a terminal chat application for GitHub Developers, also got his first research paper published under IEEE titled “Big Data As A Service”

But you know you have achieved something, when you get a job where you see yourself working with what you love. Shubhodeep is placed in Naukri.com and will be working on AmbitionBox.com

Towards the end, he gladly says “GDG is the main ingredient in making me the developer I am today. People at GDG are smart and helpful. The unsaid philosophy behind GDG is, GDG is for the student, not the otherway around. The members are open to choose the projects they want to work on.

I found people like me in GDG, and believe me, that feeling is wonderful.”

Awestruck as always, I realised how lucky I am to be surrounded with such amazing people.

Shubhodeep, we wish you all the very best for your future endeavours. Keep rocking the way you do. And for all the others who are reading this, there’s nothing I’ve got to say except that “The expert in anything was once a beginner “

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