How to get involved in the community and choose the career path?

Hey Everyone!!

A bit about myself I Priyal Jain did my graduate degree a B.E. from the Computer Engineering branch in the 2018 batch. Before 3 years I was about to think about what to do and how will I pursue my growth. Then I thought about my skills and which technology I was good at or seeks interest at. Now the most important thing is when I entered into the community of Google Developers Group, Indore then I came to know how these things can create a huge impact on your professional and personal life. After further research about the community, I decided to join the Google Developers Group, Indore. After becoming a volunteer I participated and get involved into so many activities such as anchoring, marketing, and organizing some things. Being and get involved in the community or any social activities also helps you to grow and learn with your up skills.

What is a Community?

A community describes:

• A group of people where all the people can work together to achieve a goal.
• A group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.
• Where you might run into people you know or meet new people

What is a Developer Community?

Developer Community where peer-to-peer conversations and engagement are most likely to take place among developers, programmers, and other people involved in developing computer software and applications and share their knowledge and give numerous opportunities across the people. "Building and engaging in a developer community should be a most likely thing to connect and meet new people and learn something new".

My journey with the community

How did I get to know about the community?:

I was just chilling and sitting and took a cup of coffee into my hand, and search on google normally about community or tech community so I saw on the top named Google developers Group, Indore.

In the year 2017, I attended Devfest Indore 2017 at Sayaji Indore and it was an amazing experience to be a part of that event and had lots of networking as well. After that, I was curious to know how will I join the GDG Community or become a member because at that time there was no volunteering form that was open but I wanted to join. Then, I saw they had an email id so I put them a short mail about myself and how passionate I was to become a member of that then one of the WTM Ambassador at Indore accepted my email or Facebook message I didn't remember exactly in the year of 2019 I became the member of GDG/WTM Indore.

My first experience with a community event: My experience was amazing as my first event being a volunteer was IWD Indore 2019. I was a part of the website development team there where I contributed to a website and saw how they work in a team and networking and what they do and how enjoyable it was to be a part of such an amazing team. Lots of sessions were organized and diversity is and we did lots of networking and meet new folks around.

After that, I attended so many GDG/WTM/GDG Cloud Indore events and got a chance in 2020 to become a WTM Ambassador at the Indore and Co-organizer at the GDG Cloud Indore chapter. I am grateful to the entire GDG/WTM/GDG Cloud Indore family. Also for special mention those who supported and encouraged me( Tanishka Porwal, Ranu Jaiswal, Tushar Pal, Akshay Malviya & Aayush Agrawal, Akash Gangrade, and so on…..)

When I was into my career thing and how all of a sudden communities started building my confidence and clarity in life toward my career path and got to know what are the main key points that need to remember to achieve your goal

• What interests suit you? - If you are a fresher/beginner to any technology or wanted to pursue further your interests really matter what you want to opt for.
• What are the challenges the beginning you have to face - there are several things as (needing a good mentor, such as exploring things at Google or searching tutorials for on YouTube). Now at the initial stage, you have to learn to start from the very basics and make sure that your basics would be strong enough to catch each and everything so that you can solve the issues.
• Set the target what are your goals and dreams and how much growth you wanted to scale up
• Be passionate about something you want to pursue further into your ambitions/interests
• Certification into your core skills is also a plus point to showcase and make strong your professional profile

Example of my short story - I always wanted to pursue website development. So I searched what are the primary key skills to become a good web/UI Developer (HTML, CSS & JavaScript) then chose a good tech stack to work and grow with such as Angular and VueJs.

How did I crack my first job:

After my college graduation, I decided to pursue a job in Web/UI development but before that, I also want my profile needs to be very strong so I purse first my internship to learn all the technologies related to the web(HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, SASS, JavaScript & jQuery). Then gave lots of interviews to crack my first job:)

Never give up on what you wanted to pursue in everything!

Opportunities from the community (job/speaker / mentoring): I got numerous opportunities while connected to the community as job opportunities via LinkedIn. Connected with professionals/developers from various tech companies. I got my first speaking opportunity at IWD India 2020 where Lakshya Sivaramakrishnan was a regional Women Techmakers India, Program Manager & Nikita Gandhi (Community Manager) at Google. She provide me with a good opportunity there to speak at the host of IWD India 2020 with co-host Varsha Jaiswal(GDG/WTM Jalandhar) and helped me to develop my confidence and reduced my fear while speaking. A huge thanks to them:) Also, other folks too & Savvy Jain, and Shachita Jain who are also managing the GDG/WTM/GDG Cloud Indore chapter with me & supported me on various things, and we organized so many events together. After that, I got so many opportunities to speak at GDG/WTM events all over India while COVID-19.

Why you should join a community and N tips/points while you are in the community ecosystem?

You should join a community

• If you are passionate about something to learn and grow.
• You should be an active contributor(not every day but per week(6hrs max))
• You should have good communication skills
• You can bring more unity to the team
• Good coordination with the team
• Be transparent about everything you speak or share something with people
• Your energy and enthusiasm in organizing the events

Also, Devfest Indore 2022 is back! You can visit our website at https://devfest.gdgindore.in/ and register now for getting the extra tickets at https://bit.ly/devfest22indore/

You can follow me on my social channels and reach out to me for any help or queries related with:

• Instagram: [https://www.instagram.com/priyal_jain__]
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priyaljain919
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/priyaljain919
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/priyal.jain.9678

Also, I would like to give a kudos to Arpan Garg(GDG New Delhi Organizer/Founder at Commudle) who helped and encouraged me to write my first blog:)