Thought of documenting my year 2023 and why not this year has given me a lot of lessons and rides. The year started with the most surreal moment of getting an award from the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Aditya Nath for the Samsung Innovation Campus Program in Lok Bhawan. And ends with the most unexpected trip to Bangalore.
2023 starts with some beautiful memories of Lucknow. I explored the old Lucknow, cafes enjoying myself with friends but on the other hand, hustling over LinkedIn to get my first internship. It’s not easy for everyone to get their first internship and I’m fortunate to get started with EVE Healthcare startup. I was their first intern and it was an unpaid internship. I was super happy because the only thing that mattered was that I also had some work. Entered as a Frontend Developer but left as a UI/UX Designer. That’s where I first learned FIGMA. I serve 3 months and realize that now it’s time to switch and explore more.
Left the internship and started learning UX principles where in May I got my 2nd internship at Mashrise. In between this period, I got two opportunities but things didn’t work well. I was so desperate to get some work with STIPENED. And I received an interview call from Rosan sir, cofounder of Mashrise. I never used WEBFLOW and they want me to build the whole website. It was challenging but it was my first paid work. And I did it (www.mashrise.com), one of my pride.
July was the turning point of my life when I got an invitation to mentor an in-person Hackathon — HACK HAVEN and deliver a talk. Grateful to Ayush who brings this opportunity to me and puts faith in me.
In August, I started working with Rosan sir on a new startup Wizdom and I’m still working with them wearing multiple hats and an amazing team. I also got to design websites for Parseable and DataInfra. In the same month, the pressure of placements is also rising. The graph of my life is now increasing with a lot of opportunities. A few things 2023 has given me -
Become financially independent from the start of my final year.
Suprising my family with some gifts and now supporting them.
My first flight experience and my first 1AC too.
Selected as the first GDSC LEAD of my college. My dream of having a Google club is now a reality
Successfully started a Community culture in my college
I got two tickets to attend conferences but travel was always an issue for me then being selected to Volunteer in INDIAFOSS 3.0 was unexpected and two months of preparation opened my eyes to how actual planning occurs.
Atteneded INDIAFOSS 3.0 and met CTO of Zerodha. Got a chance to even schedule an interview call with the Zerodha team and Frappe team.
Mentored one of the very well-known Hackathon HackCBS 6.0 and also delivered a talk
Interning as a Product Manager in a startup and also a freelance UI/UX designer.
Got an offer letter from an MNC for a Software developer role.
Invited as a speaker from different colleges. Punjab, Mysore, Delhi University, and Aligarh Muslim University.
Hosted the DEVFEST of Lucknow and attended two in-person Lucknow meetups of Push Protocol and Salesforce
Got felicitated by the Dean of the college over my GDSC achievement which made headlines.
Going to hit 1k over Twitter and 2.5k+ over LinkedIn
Going to start my design page
Despite these good things, I still lack discipline and consistency, which I promised myself on 12/01 of this year. I’m still struggling to know what I want from life. Do I want to be a full-time designer or a developer? Reading is still not my habit. But I met a wonderful set of new friends this year. Many were left behind and that’s also for good. Grateful that I have my family and friends with me who have seen me struggling through all these years.
Thank you 2023 for being this good to me ❤ and I hope I become a better version of myself and make my close ones proud and happy.