Tech Journey: A Fresh Start (pt. 1)

Hello to everyone reading my post! This marks my first Hashnode article of my Tech Journey Series, and through this piece, I want to share not only my journey in the tech world but also the academic path that led me to pursue a BTech in Computer Science at Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, West Bengal.

Academic Journey: A Twist of Fate

I am Ritochit Ghosh, currently in the first year of my four-year BTech course in Computer Science and Engineering. My academic journey took an unexpected turn. Initially, I was a NEET aspirant with little prior knowledge about computer science. Despite dedicating two years to NEET preparation and performing well in mock tests, the actual NEET paper proved to be a significant challenge. I found myself under immense pressure and nervousness, resulting in a rank of something around 108,000 with a score of 500 out of 720. Interestingly, I had not planned on taking JEE Mains or any other engineering entrance exams. However, my father, perhaps foreseeing an opportunity, filled out the WBJEE examination form for me. At that time, I had no familiarity with engineering entrance exams or their structure. I remember solving a few Physics and Chemistry PYQs for the JEE main paper. My exposure to mathematics was limited to the higher secondary examination, where I secured 92% from the WBCHSE board. I approached the WBJEE examination on July 1 with a positive mindset, treating it as a mock test before the NEET. The physics and chemistry sections were manageable, as they were based on concepts that were already clear to me. However, in the mathematics section, I faced challenges, having solved only a few questions due to a lack of practice since my higher secondary examination. Until the release of the results, engineering had not crossed my mind as a career option. I was prepared to reattempt the NEET paper, feeling demotivated and disheartened after what I considered the worst exam of my life. However, when I realized my performance in WBJEE would assure me a place in a government engineering college, I participated in the counseling process. Though I was initially against it, after several discussions with my relatives and friends, I considered shifting my focus from medical, as that would be a too-long path for establishing a career.

Thus, this is how I got into my present college...

Week 1: Excitement and Beginning

In the first week, I was excited to start my exciting new journey in college. Before diving into college life, all I knew was the C and C++ languages, HTML, and some basic CSS. I started to revise the C language by solving some problems, and then I started DSA in the C language. In the first week itself, I made some wonderful friends at the college who are on the same path, share similar objectives, and have a similar mindset of excelling in academics.

Week 2: Senior Guidance and Roadmap

One of the best things in this journey happened in the second week itself, which, in turn, played a major role in speeding up the journey. I and my classmates got introduced to our seniors Arindam Majumder & Swapnoneel Saha , who are currently in their 2nd year of college. Unlike other colleges, where freshmen introduce themselves to the seniors, our seniors introduced themselves to us first and provided a roadmap about how to look forward in the first year. They also guided us in many ways.

Week 3: MAKATHON & Google Cloud Computing

In the 3rd week, we attended the MAKATHON (the in-house hackathon) competition, where we were astonished by the innovative ideas and their solutions. Attending such competitions inspires us to think more clearly and technically about implementing our knowledge practically to solve some real-world problems. In the same week, our Google Developer's Student Club presented us with a chance to upskill ourselves in Google Cloud Computing through a course made by Google. I, along with my friends, grabbed that opportunity and completed that course within the next 3 weeks.

Week 4: Community Building and Learning Sessions

In the fourth week, I along with my friends, under the guidance of our seniors, started to work as a community, where they taught us various technical things in great detail and simple language via online sessions.

Week 5: Introduction to Open Source

In the first session of our community, we were introduced to open source. I came to know about what open source is, what the benefits of contributing to it are, and most importantly, how to contribute to open source. I also learned about Git and GitHub in this very week.

Week 6: Contribution to open-source projects

After understanding how to contribute to open source, we started to work as a team on a project started by our seniors. That means, within 2 months of our college life, we are contributing to an open-source project ourselves.

Week 7: GitHub Exploration, Problem Solving, and Project Development

As we got introduced and became a little familiar with working at GitHub, our seniors encouraged us to build a project ourselves so after a few group discussions we started to work on a project, which primarily will be made with HTML & CSS. I initially made the draft or structure of the project which aims to guide the student to find their career path themselves.

Week 8: Problem Solving

By this time I had almost completed the data structure & algorithms in C language. I under the guidance of my seniors have started to solve to solve leetcode problems. As I was out of the station during this week due to the Diwali festival couldn't make much progress and just solved 3 leetcode problems.

Week 9:Changing the tool for upgradation

While solving leetcode problems initially with C language I found it very lengthy and difficult. But when that same problem was being solved very easily in Java, with the recommendation of our senior Swapnoneel Saha I decided to switch to Java.

Week 10: Socializing & Learning in Public

This week our senior Arindam Majumder explained to us the importance of socializing to build connections with the concerned so we customized our social account. Here is the link to my social accounts:-

Twitter(https://twitter.com/18Ritochit)

LinkedIn(https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritochit-ghosh-3861372a0/)

From this week onwards I started #100DaysOfCode in public and consistently maintained it till day 20 (as of now).

Week 11: Learned the basics of Java

This week I consistently learned the basics of Java and solved a lot of leetcode problems. I am following Kunal Kushwaha's playlist to learn Java. He explained the concepts so clearly that if one follows his lectures hardly he/she will have any doubts. I also find solving the leetcode problems became quite easy after following his simple approach i.e., breaking the problem into simple parts.

Week 12: Exploring a New Way

I continued to follow Kunal Kushwaha's lectures along with solving leetcode problems. Here's the link redirecting to my leetcode stats(https://leetcode.com/ghosh_ritochit/). This week I talked to one of my relatives to get some more insights and he along with many other recommendations advised me to start following any particular domain from now. I also got a lot of useful tips from him.

That's it.

This is the tech journey I have covered so far in these 3 months since I came to college. My college life started on 11th September and now it's 15th December. I will continue to share my journey along the process of traveling on this tech path so that whenever I get tired, I will get immense energy, as it will work as a mirror showing my journey in a brief article. Thank you for dedicating your precious time to reading this post. I hope this seems valuable or adds some new insight to the readers. Stay safe until next time. Again, Thank you. 😊