Being from the '24 batch, I too, started my tech journey during the pandemic. Fresh out of High School, I had no idea what to do in the big world of engineering and I did not have seniors to guide me as well. This is where I discovered "communities". I went onto YouTube and learned how to get started with tech - Get into development, be a part of a larger group of people who are doing the same things as I am and most importantly, create.

Discord was the greatest asset of all time. I joined many wonderful communities at the beginning which revolved around Open Source, Development and providing overall help. It was fascinating and being from a Tier-3 college in a pandemic, one could finally feel they were growing and learning with like-minded peers!

Online Communities

At the start of my first year, I randomly applied to become a member of the community called "Devs' Street". Little did I know that this would be the start of becoming a community enthusiast!
I gave the interview, which felt more like a conversation and got selected to be a member (Check out this post of me being selected!)

I started in the content team, wrote Linkedin posts and Instagram captions and posts (Like this one) and I also learned a lot about social media management and engagement. We also hosted many, many events and workshops online on google meet,discord and youtube.
Check them out here! (Sneak peek of me being in a session :P)

The community had the most awesome mentors and members and I learned a lot during that period. I learned management skills, and technological skills and it helped me with communication skills as well which was a big development for me as an introvert. (PS, We also had Kunal on our channel!)

After just months, I was promoted to become the PR Lead of the community, we expanded our members and I handled engagement and social media teams and the overall management. We all worked on content strategies, posting threads on Twitter and shorts on Youtube and Instagram.

After the pandemic and as the world went offline, the end of our community came near. I'm forever grateful to the mentors, people and everyone I worked with and the relations I built through Devs' Street!

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During the same time in pandemic, I also volunteered as a Content Writer for Design and Code - An Online Community to 'Create, Collaborate, Comprehend' together.

I made some content and designed their Instagram posts as well. (Check it out here) and made some amazing connections and learned a lot about community management, event hosting and design through the journey.
The community is still pretty active with lots of amazing folks there to help out!
Make sure to join the discord here!

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Once you're a part of a community, you are always somehow connected!
I also got the chance to become the Microsoft Student Learn Ambassador last year and become a part of something bigger!

Through this program, I learned the working of Git and GitHub and version control and how to create a better development environment. I also hosted my first-ever event myself and took a live session for the first time. I gained experience in managing the audience, engaging them throughout the event and taking up a session for the first time!
I also uploaded the same on YouTube!

I also took up sessions on Frontend Development and Codespaces online through the community.

Being in the MLSA global community connected me to lots of folks around the world and the exposure is amazing.

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The Little Things -

Being online for the first two years of college life, I also participated in MLH Local Hack Days (Global Hack Weeks, now) and met a lot of amazing folks, had fun with the community and explored new technologies in the week! It also helped me get into the hackathon culture and I teamed up with friends for a lot of them!! Now, we're ever-ready to build things on a weekend!

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Offline Communities

As we moved on from the pandemic, so did our college lives. I went to uni for the first time after almost 2 years and experienced the pressure of being in a hectic routine. Surely, it did take me some time to adjust and get back on my learning journey.

Building a community on-campus.

When I was still a junior at our university, we did not have ANY active tech clubs on campus. Being connected to some of my seniors from the pandemic, I finally met them offline and decided to start the culture on campus as well.

Building an environment and a community offline is a much more difficult task than it was online but we sure did learn a lot. Our main goal and focus were to build a coding environment to be welcoming to the next batches as well.

We built a team under CIIE (Center of Incubation, Innovation and Entrepreneurship) called the "CIIE- Tech Team" and thus began our journey.

The first ever workshop we kept was on "Flutter Development" and the new team managed everything - from the applications and transport for students to the smooth execution of the workshop.

The second workshop was a three-day "Frontend Development" workshop fully conducted and managed by our team for 1st to 4th-year students. We saw the engagement and audience much more than our previous one and that was a big win for us. We had participants not only from BTech, but BCA, MCA and other fields as well. This was the demonstration that tech is for everyone, no matter what field a person comes from! This was also my first time being a speaker at an offline workshop, teaching people without a screen as a medium and expanding my knowledge and experience as well!

After these small successes, there was no stopping us. We went on to take bootcamps, DSA workshops and expand our team.

Recently, we conducted our FIRST-EVER 36-hour hackathon on-campus in offline mode and had 20+ teams participate with over 50+ applicants.

Surely, building a community offline taught me how different it is to manage and execute events than it was online!

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Community Meetups and Hackathons!

Offline meetups were a growing thing within the community and it felt like we were missing out on something. So, I decided to fill out my first form for an offline meetup and I got selected!

My first ever offline meetup was Kunal Kushwaha's (WeMakeDevs/CommunityClassroom) meetup. I went alone for the first time and met some amazing folks there, made friends and learned a lot from the meetup from the mentors in an offline environment for the first time!

While people might say offline meetups aren't worth the time, I think I gained a lot more confidence in attending meetups alone and making connections in the real world and not just through a DM!

I went on some other amazing meetups such as Azure Meetup in the Microsoft office as well -

I also urged my peers from the university to apply as well and learn a lot from these meetups. Another amazing meetup I had the opportunity to go to was the "Twilio Champions Event" and learned and made a lot of connections there as well. Truly an amazing experience!

The offline-hackathon journey

Our offline hackathon journey started from the hackathon - "HackVSIT" conducted offline, in New Delhi, IN. We got the experience of building and working on the project in an offline environment and pulled an all-nighter to complete the project!

We met amazing folks, learned how to execute the impossible, got mentored from industry experts and got the chance to experience it all offline for the first time!!

Then again, we attended our first Web3 hackathon at IIITDelhi - Solana HackDay and got the chance to learn more about the domain, get hands-on experience with Solana and try to build something creative in under 24 hours.

It's always a learning experience building something with a team in a given time as it helps us work on team coordination and time management, both of which are very important skills!!

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Conclusion and what lies ahead...

Being in communities got me my first internship ever and communities are the way to go! Being in communities has been a big thing since the start and I'm excited to be a part of many such amazing, global communities. I have learned, grown and experienced a lot because of communities and I hope to give back in every way I can!
I would especially like to thank WeMakeDevs to motivate to finally pen it all down into one blog and share my journey with others.

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