Hey folks,

I hope you guys are doing great and that you guys had a wonderful experience this year, or maybe you are still looking forward to some in 2024.

So as 2023 is ending, I thought of doing a year-end review to see what I have learned over the past year. How have I grown, and what's my thought process? To be honest, 2023 was a whole rollercoaster ride for me; it came with all the highs and the lows.

Let's see the highlights:

January: "New Year, New Semester, New Language: Embracing Python's Challenge"

The year started fresh with a whole new semester, a new language, new things to do, and new resolutions, with the same aim but in a newer and better way. New semester, new subject, and that's how I bumped into my journey of learning Python. Yaaah, Python came to me like this. As a student who had my command in the C/C++ language, I wasn't very ready to switch to Python very easily.

Well, if you ask me, python is one of the top languages I have skills in. I will be telling you more about them, so dw!!

"February Fun: My First Hackathon Adventure: Coding, Creativity, and Cheers!"

I was at first pretty hesitant to take part in it. I usually take part in tech events organised around the internet. But a hackathon gave me a different perspective. It was a 3-day event, and it became one of the best experiences for me. My teammates were very supportive, and so was our mentor. I got to learn about teamwork, leadership skills, pressure handling, and a lot more technical skills, which were the major parts of it. It served as a great way for me to recognise my interests and potential, whether designing website layouts or making fronts to make the servers work. Overall, it was a great experience to be shared, a great achievement for me, and our team was in the top 8 teams out of all 150.

"March Marvels: Nurturing Figma Designs, Acing Studies, and the Sweet Rewards of Consistency"

I nurtured my skill in the Figma designs and also shifted my focus to studying, as I have to score better this time. I did awesomely well as compared to the prep I had. Well, sometimes being regular in class helps a lot with exams.

"April's Tech Odyssey: Python Logic, DSA Exploration, and Navigating a Tech Crossroads."

After discovering and exploring the libraries of Python, I knew it was a lot easier to look at them, so I started building my logic while simultaneously using my knowledge from previous. As I said earlier, I had a pretty good command of DSA, which piqued my interest as well. I tried some experiments with the data structure, but I wasn't really into algorithms at that period.

One of the major decisions of my life was also taken during this period between April and May, which was a struggle for me on a personal level. In the diverse world of technology, I had to choose a specialisation for myself. I had an interest in coding, yet I wanted to do design at the same time. I want to make algorithms, and at the same time, I want to have a secure way of doing so. AIML is the talk of the industry, while the cloud is still a base for networks to function properly, and all this went through my mind. I roamed around, taking suggestions from serious faculties, friends, and family, browsing through multiple articles, and then finally settled on DevSecOPs, which are perfect for a person like me.

Fast forward to the end of the semester, which happened in May. And then the summer break started—the most anticipated one.

June and July:

June came with an opportunity for me to experience my first internship at PPES, which has a worldwide connection to women's empowerment in our country. It was a great learning experience, as I got to lead the team and work on my technical as well as my soft skills simultaneously.

We made a Python chatbot as well as a Web portal for the management of their work while digitalizing and fast-forwarding their methods.

August -September:

It was the beginning of my sophomore year. And I had great plans for the same. I was looking forward to the Hardwars's hackathon as an organising committee member. I had my share with volunteering to design poster, decorate the event venue and, ofcourse course, be the main member of the food committee It was looking more fun.

October- December:

Well, this time of the year is more about partying and stuff. I had an opportunity to see more of the industrial prospective as we had a Xebia event at our university for us. I got an introduction to AWS and Docker and also learned a lot about more of the devops tools. These types of internships are always good, as they help me build a better perspective on my career, my wants, and my experience using them as a tech background person.

I also entered the world of Java, which opened up a whole new set of features and tools to explore and work on. Java is a robust, object-oriented, and secured language that provides us with the WORA (Write Once and Run Anywhere) feature, which is great, and you don't have to worry about the platform on which you are running it.

Silutaneous I learn the design analysis and algorithm while understanding the core concepts of computer architecture and it's operating system.

I would say the start of my sophomore year's 1st semester, i.e., the 3rd semester, might be slow, but it can be great with a great learning and exploring personality while having the devops culture as the core heart of the whole semester.

Looking ahead to 2024, I carry these experiences as stepping stones towards a future filled with endless possibilities and continuous growth. Cheers to the lessons learned, the challenges overcome, and the excitement of what lies ahead! Here's to a joyful and promising conclusion to an eventful year!

Until we cross paths again, Adieu.

~Aarushi

Life Update and the learning of 2023!