The new year began with the offline college for me. After the lockdown, meeting new friends, seeing new faces, and making memories with them were fun. I enjoyed my life to the fullest then and did not start anything related to coding.
Coding Journey
After my first semester of engineering, I had a subject called Programming and Problem Solving where we learned the basics of programming in Python. As a result, I began my programming journey with Python in April. Although I was excited to begin my programming journey, I wasn't improving it much.
Some Kick was Required to Start
In that same month, professors requested us to submit a Python project at the end of the year, and this was when I took big steps forward. Every day after returning to my room after college I used to work on the project.
I remember getting two stars on the same day I heard about Hackerrank. It was the result of coding every day. Those days helped in completing the project which we built from scratch. I don't know why but I feel proud when I say we made our project from scratch when we just started our coding journey just a few months ago. That project will always have a special place in my heart. Here I learned:
The project helps in the development of logic.
Don't underestimate the importance of small steps.
Starting Web Development
Working on the project has inspired me to start my web development journey in June. Then I got crazy about learning web development and started learning every day from youtube. Sideways I explored UI/ UX designing through Figma. As I was already familiar with Designing tools it didn't take me long to complete that.
This whole time I was learning everything, working on a project on Shirish's laptop (roommate). I am very grateful to him as without him I wouldn't have experienced these. On 24th August my parents gifted me a laptop and that was amazing. Now I had my laptop to work on and within no time I became a Full Stack Designer.
Change in Plan
This whole time I was thinking of becoming a Full Stack Developer until I heard a friend of mine (Hrushi) talking about Blockchain development. Their conversation had an impact on my mind, and I was curious and confused about what exactly is this Blockchain. And my research began for it. From these events I learned:
Be grateful for what you have.
Don't fear changing the path.
Explore different areas.
First Project Competition
A few days later I saw there was a project competition to be held in 15 days. And I somehow got an amazing idea for a project but days were limited so I formed a team for the project hoping that it will be ready on time. But unfortunately, we lost that competition maybe because our final product was not ready. This event made me realize a few things:
Good projects take time to complete.
Sometimes it does not goes as planned.
Blockchain is the best solution for my project.
More work is required.
Trying Out New Branch
After doing lots of research I made up my mind that I will start blockchain development. I would say at the start it was difficult but great things take time. To understand Blockchain better I started going to blockchain community meetups. It took me lots of time to deploy my first contract. Here are some of my learnings from this event:
- Blockchain is difficult because it has to solve the major problem
Started Making Connections
To make connections socializing was an important step so I became active on Twitter as most of the blockchain enthusiasts are found there. This is my Twitter handle Akshaykk12. Joined two clubs to improve my soft skills.
Connecting with people helped me get to know about Hacktober fest and ETHIndia. Hacktober made me understand GitHub and its usage. This event has made me become an active contributor to open-source. Where I won Hacktober fest on the other hand my application for ETHIndia got rejected. But you know what, Never Stop Building.
Share your work on social media.
Don't let failures get to you.
This is my 2022 developer journey so far. There were lots of ups and downs this year and the contributions to all those ups go to my sleepless nights, bunked classes and many more small events. But if we look at the overall year it was an amazing year with lots of connections, and lots of new fields explored.