Gaurav Thakur: How it all started?

Introduction

Hi, my name is Gaurav Thakur. I live in a very beautiful valley of Kullu, Himachal Pradesh. Currently, I'm doing my BTech in Computer Science from the Lovely Professional University. I'll be graduating in the year 2022. Along with that I'm working as an Associate Software Engineer at MAQ Software

Early Childhood

From the starting of my childhood, I had a profound interest in technology. I still remember it all started when I got my very first Android smartphone. At that time, I was in 9th grade. I wanted to create my own website on the internet. Long story short, I created a blog on Blogger and named it Tricky-Tricks. I also purchased a [dot]in domain for it. I was very much inspired by Harsh Agarwal, Founder of ShoutMeLoud.

School Life

From the starting of my childhood, I had a profound interest in technology. When I reached 10th grade, I got very fascinated by the hacking. At that time, I didn't know the real meaning of hacking. I just thought that hacking means gaining access to someone's Facebook account or a website. I learned how to create a phishing page on Wapka. I also tried to gain root access on my android device. But during that time, it was not easy to root your device. There was no Magisk at that time. Due to lack of resources, I was unable to root it.

Things got changed when I got into the 11th standard, I received a brand-new laptop as a scholarship from the school. It was an Acer machine with quite low specifications. I wanted to learn about android development. I came to know that android applications are developed in a special application known as Android Studio. I downloaded and installed it. As soon as I opened the application, my laptop got stuck. Also, I didn't have any idea of Java back then.

However, I started learning Python from a great Udemy course, which is still a bestseller. The course was going very smooth, and I was enjoying the whole journey until the OOP section jumped in. I watched the video many times but was unable to understand / relate the meaning of the Classes.

I was very clear about what stream to choose after completing the 12th standard. Without any second thought, I got myself enrolled in the BTech program in Computer Science from the Lovely Professional University. I scored very fewer marks in JEE exam. So I didn't have many good options when it comes to universities.

College Life

I enrolled myself in the BTech (CSE) program at LPU after 12th. During my life in college, I worked the hardest. I don't remember a single day that I haven't coded anything.

Competitive Programming

I started competitive programming at the end / min of the first semester. I solved around 400-450 questions from various sites like HackerRank, CodeChef, CodeForces and SPOJ. I used to participate in every CP competition organized by our university. I still don't know how I was so motivated at that time. Didn't achieve many heights in the field of competitive programming like some of my friends but became a 3-star coder on the CodeChef.

If I look back today, CP really enhanced my thinking skills. I learnt how to divide big problems into small manageable chunks which itself is a very big thing in the field of Software Engineering.

Introduction to Web Development

At the end of the fourth semester, I started doing development also. I started my dev journey with Flutter. I really liked the concept of Flutter and how quickly we can build something with it. Built a couple of basic apps with it and created my account on Google Play Console where I published those apps. I and my friends participated in the SIH hackathon where my job was to build the mobile app. We successfully qualified for the SIH hackathon from our university but did not make it to the next round.

Fast-forward to the mid of fifth semester, the covid-19 pandemic came. We all had to go home and continue our studies in an online manner. I always wanted to learn core Android. I'm very much interested in the Kotlin language. I think it is a very well-polished language.

During the lockdown, I didn't have my laptop with me. It was in service center. So, I had to borrow the laptop from one of my friends. Her laptop was an Intel Core i3 machine with 4 GB RAM. It could not run Android Studio. So, I had to move towards any other technology. I choose to learn web development. I started from HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Later I started learning React.js. I was very much fascinated by the React.js. I still remember the first time I used ReactJS, it blew my mind like how its component-based architecture can solve all the issues that I was facing with raw HTML and CSS.

// to be continued!