Hey Everyone 🙋♀️ !!!!
Welcome to my first blog ever .In this blog I'm gonna share about how I started my programming journey as an open source contributor after making many excuses and failing at several attempts. I'm writing this blog keeping a newbie in perspective by giving an insight for those who has not been directed in a right path to start and stick to their programming journey for a long time.
What are you waiting for !! Let's get started 🙂
A Quick Introduction about me :
My Name is Kavya Sree. I'm currently a third year student pursuing electronics and communication with a bachelor of technology. Right now I'm learning ML. I have experience working with PYTHON, HTML and CSS.
How I started programming:
It's been more than 1 year since I've joined Twitter but used it *passively till January of this year. Back then in 2020 I used to scroll down the tweets with no purpose. Eventually I got awestruck by looking at the projects people were building. Before, I thought programmers were some creatures from mars by looking at the projects they have built 😅. Because at that point of time I had absolutely no knowledge and I was scared to try building stuff. In the programming world I constantly called myself as a "MEDIOCRE".
HOW ABOUT NOW ? AM I ABLE TO DO SOMETHING WITH PROGRAMMING ? YESSSS !!!!!
Today I know something and I'm totally fearless .The fact of the matter is that learning to code is no more difficult if you start building some side projects. Likewise I got better at it and could see the benefits of building projects overtime. Once I started working on small projects there has never been looking backwards.
My Experience :
Last year I started coding in a platform called "Code Tantra" and solved quite a few logic based problems in C and Python. But I wasn't much excited and not really enjoyed in contrast to the coding I was doing now by building projects. In January I realized that I'm much of a development side person rather than the competitive coding side one's with the support of the amazing twitter developer community help. The bird app has been a life saver for me. If you are fascinated to learn new things then definitely make the most out of twitter. You can find incredible tips and guidance from awesome developers. But still as a normal human I came across many failures and made a lot of excuses as well at start. So, Here's What happened
-> Attempt 1
I have a thing in my mind to start building projects. Due to the environment I was surrounded with I convinced myself and made an excuse that since I'm doing majors in electronics I wouldn't be able to get enough time for coding. I also had a fear of what if I fail in coding since it was my first attempt. The mistake I made this time was not googling things and apparently frightened to experiment for the first time.
A Quick Google Search can be a great source of inspiration when you feel low at times
-> Attempt 2
This time I got my confidence back. To brush up my basics in web development I came across this course called THE COMPLETE 2021 WEB DEVELOPMENT BOOTCAMP.And I must say I made a right decision because it is something that pushed me out of my comfort zone and stretched my mind. Eventually everything went smoothly. Unfortunately I found java script really hard. I have lost my interest in web development considering concepts of java script into account and on top of that my semester exams were about to start which was the utmost reason of me getting distracted. My mistake this time was I took great pride in my work and when I encountered problems, I tried to figure out things for myself.
IF YOU DONT ASK THE QUESTION THE ANSWER WILL BE ALWAYS NO
It would be more beneficial to seek advice from others, more experienced people.
-> Attempt 3
This time I kept all my fears aside and got my hands dirty with python and open source contribution. Building projects is definitely fun but also terrifying sometimes because of the bugs we face. From open source contribution I got a chance to track my progress, ask questions, finding answers and narrow down the topics.
IT'S OK TO FAIL AS LONG AS YOU DONT QUIT
You can build anything with your creativity. There are plenty of resources across the world available for free. The key is having patience and positive mindset to look into all those stuff.
SO GET OUT THERE, WRITE SOME SOURCE CODE AND MAKE IT OPEN SOURCE
HERE'S THE TAKEAWAY
- Contribute to open source by building projects.
- Don't ever compare your journey with other's journey. Because everyone growth looks different.
- Be open minded and teach others what you have learnt about.
- Do enough google search, still if you get stuck reach out to people for help.
- Takes notes and code everyday for at least an hour. It helps you to stay consistent.
- Surround yourself with people who are willing to learn new things.
- Never neglect your physical fitness & health.
Furthermore I started #100DaysOfCode challenge in python recently. I mostly recommend everyone to give it a go once. For beginners I advice to start your coding journey with python as it is easier to learn. It's up to you in picking a programming language. But I found python as my go to language.
CONCLUSION :
NOTHING IS MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE MISSED OPPURTUNITY
I'm inclined to agree with this statement and I really mean it. Sometimes we have a lack of confidence in our plan. A lot of time we make a plan that seems perfect, but for some reason we hesitate to take action. Because thinking of something you want to do can be easy, knowing how to get it done can be a lot harder.
But don't let that fear stop you to start. Believe that if you start something the path itself will appears. The same thing happened with me as well. When I started following the above takeaway's, unknowingly I have discovered many new things on my way of journey.
Lastly, My heartfelt thanks to twitter developer community which was an absolute blessing for me in times of adversity. I will be back with another super cool blog and also will share what I have learnt through 100daysofcode challenge which I have started recently.
If you have read this far, I really appreciate it.
Do share your valuable opinion. I appreciate your honest feedback 🙂
Now here come's the magic word """ START """
All the best and Keep Coding 👍