On this new year night reflecting on the journey of this year will be quite nice. I encourage everyone to share their learnings, achievements they had this year. Everyone faces ups and downs but that’s what keeps the game adventurous. So let’s celebrate these wins we had this year, grow together and step into 2025 with a fresh and energetic mindset.
Highlights:
College + Hackathons + My first Interview:
College has been an interesting part of this year. I got into second year in 2024, completed my semester 3 too with good grades. Our college has a nice faculty, thanks to Mahesh Chaubey Sir, Daljeet Sir, Mansi Ma’am , Ruby Ma’am , i don’t know I can just keep going. But truly these teachers really supported us and are also very friendly. I am also grateful to be part of such a nice group of friends.
This year we participated in 3-4 hackathons. Every hackathon bringing itself some new challenges and learnings. To mention Code-cubcile-2.0, Build With Delhi(by Hive), Hack Vortex by Geek Room. Our team smart brains was the finalist in 2 of them. Seeing the enthusiasm within the hackathons and the amazing community we are planning to open our own society/chapter in our college. It’s fun to share things, grow together, organize events as everything we are getting from the community itself.
I gave my first interview this year for a backend internship, although I got rejected in the last round, but it was a unique experience for me too.
Conferences:
City Js - A Java Script Conference
Kubecon+CloudNativeCon India - One of the best events I had this year. Met with some amazing folks like Kunal Kushwaha, Saiyam Pathak and an awesome community of CNCF.
Side Fun Project (Asterin041 - Whatsapp Group Bot)
I Built a real-time WhatsApp bot using Node.js and WebSockets via the Whiskey Sockets Baileys library. It can tag all the members of the group using the !tagAll command, it can spam messages continuously in the group. It can also react to messages. Used Firebase for session management and data storage.
Its fun we can use commands like !help, !tag, !tagAll, spam, Stop spam. It can also react to messages.
I am planning to further make an npm package for this providing more abstraction and also adding some more cool features like sending stickers or scrapping a website and providing some info maybe or what not. You can check this project here https://github.com/CodexRaunak/Whatsapp-TagAll.
Open Source Programs
I participated and contributed to GSSOC (Girl Script Summer of Code) and Hacktoberfest.
Learnings:
Open Source :- I am really inclined towards contributing to open source and I would encourage people for the same. Like think about it isn’t it amazing that you can contribute to big company level projects, tweak the code with your own flavor, providing value to the users and learning from senior engineers. Its soo cool!!.
Study a lot, care a little :- I would say study a lot but don’t care too much if you didn’t get into any open source program or get rejected from an interview, just take the learnings from there and improve. Always ask why didn’t I get in.
Be a Feedback Vacuum :- Receiving feedback from others is a gift. Always take it with wide arms. It is the common trait among high achievers in tech. Make it easy for others to give feedback. This way you can easily learn things and pivot quickly.
Network is your net worth :- They say network is your net worth, but what actually is networking?? Is it just going to events and talk to people a bit, and then just post about it on LinkedIn and connections and all, is that it?? Everybody loves to talk to people whom they can learn from which provide value.
First step to build a great network is to work upon yourself and polish up so that you can actually provide some value. Second I would say is being empathetic and honesty, if you are honest people will trust you which is a key.
What’s up for 2025?
I will definitely focus more on open source in 2025, programs like GSOC and MLH fellowship and more would be one of the targets. Even if I don’t get in still be contributing to the projects I like. Cloud native and DevOps has cached my interest. I would be planning to grow my skills in that domain too.
Thoughts on AI:
AI is evolving very fast, it has now reasoning capabilities as well. I thing writing code is the easiest and a small part of software development which would be made more easier because of AI. Mediocrity will be replaced in future or would be paid very less, and people who can genuinely provide value will survive. Keep upskilling yourself and take leverage of AI tools, learn them as AI will automate things so that we can focus on other things that matter more.
Happy New Year !! Stay safe.