What I learned as an Under-Graduate Computer Science student

Few of my friends have asked questions on quite a variety of things - from creativity, problem solving, programming to my journey as a computer science student. I felt this is the right time to pen down my thoughts and things that have worked out for me. What I am writing here is fairly targeted towards B.Tech CSE students in their 1st and 2nd years, but others might as well get something out of this. Before you read any further, I just want you to be aware of two things. Firstly, this is only my experience and may not be the magic formula for all of you. Secondly, I am deliberately limiting the scope of this article to just the technical aspects of my journey, keeping it concise yet informational. So read at your own discretion :)

With this prologue, I am diving into the रस of my story.

Curiosity, not necessity, is the mother of contemporary inventions.

Be curious, be innocent, be dumb. Why is the Mouse and Bluetooth called so? Why do I have to use the QWERTY layout? Why don't we fall off the spinning ball? Why do few programmers look down on people who use Windows OS? When you practice being curious, you will easily flow into the 'Flow' state (pun intended), a state which has been working wonders for scientists and engineers for centuries. When you are in flow, your productivity increases and you unconsciously keep negative feelings like entitlement, self-doubt and anxiety at bay. Sounds great, isn't it?

So, the moment you do not understand something, or you have different opinions, discuss and strive to get a proper and satisfactory answer to your questions, be it from your professors, friends, communities or the internet. Well, sometimes you may not get answers to all the questions, but with every question, you have the opportunity of learning something new.

Try out stuff

Before the start of first semester, I used to develop small games in Construct and Unity. Although I was terrible at framing logic and coding back then, the enthusiasm and the fact that I was making something tangible kept me going. This is something that I cherish myself for. I made my hands dirty in 3D modelling, sculpting, drawing, animation, video editing, game dev and music composition to name a few.

Here is one of the games that I made

Jumping Rhino - A simple infinite jumper game

Here are few of my digital artworks

Abstract Poly sphere

A Diya

3D Logo for GLUG

A Spaceship

Check out my music on Soundcloud

I lost touch on most of the stuff by now, but this activity of trying out things has helped me appreciate the work that goes into digital art, electronics, films, games, music etc. It helped me in staying curious about almost everything around me, I feel like I have another set of eyes and ears.

Figure out what you like and stick to a group

You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

I believe this phrase a lot. If you surround yourself with the best people you could have, you are going to be the best. Out of the many things that you try, choose the one you like the most, be it competitive programming, developing apps, games or animation etc. then, form a circle of 3-6 good and like-minded friends, who genuinely share your interests, and start to work collaboratively on projects. Start with something small - A small mobile app for curating regional news, or attending local programming competitions, composing music, creating animations or posters for your college events etc.

I had couple of such friend circles, we worked on few college projects, side projects, attended events and hackathons and even organized some. Because we genuinely stuck to a single ideology, we ended up effortlessly doing things that were considered difficult or impossible by many. And the end result? We won prizes, were recognized by many, and more importantly, we have a strong sense of mutual trust and we don't give up on encountering difficult situations.

Here are few snaps of the awards we received

Felicitated by Chandrababu Naidu Garu 

Felicitated by our college, MVGRCE

Award ceremony at GMR College

You see me mention some things like drawing, music composition etc. which might seem irrelevant for a Computer Science student. I think not. Steve Jobs once said

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.

In conclusion, this approach of Curiosity leading to Trying out stuff leading to figuring what you love and practicing it with like minded people has shaped me into what I currently am. There is no way I had this framework figured out before I got started, but looking back, I indeed followed this framework, and I believe every one has the ability to do this and see yourselves successful, it only requires awareness of your self and a bit of effort :) Stay Curious :)

What are your thoughts on this? Please share in comments.