My Experience with Crio: Winter of Doing
Tags: webdev, github, beginners
Published: 2021-01-28 09:20:14

[Crio.do](https://crio.do) is a platform that empowers developers to crack real-world industry problems with a moto **Learn by Doing**. Crio’s mission is to empower developers with excellent applied-learning opportunities at scale and construct the country’s product development talent.
> Read more at: [Crio.Do, by YourStory](https://yourstory.com/companies/criodo)

Crio launched an initiative called **Crio: Winter of Doing**, considered to be India's largest tech externship program for developers. I got to know about this program through my college seniors, I applied for this program, and fortunately, I received an invitation for stage 1.

I have completed Stage 1 of this program, and in this article, I'll be sharing my adventurous journey with Crio.

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# Learning Bytes

<img alt="Header2" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/26124625/106111171-bae99100-6171-11eb-82e4-15da104d5a1e.png">

CWOD's stage 1 was a complete package of an enormous learning experience. It consisted of 8 modules with hands-on experience, and a participant must complete these modules properly to get qualified for Stage 2.

CWOD referred to these modules as Bytes. These bytes were important basic concepts of software development that every software developer must be equipped with. The list of these bytes are:

- <h4> HTTP </h4> Objective of this module was to get a clear understanding of how HTTP works and use tools like cURL & Postman to perform HTTP requests and analyze responses. 
    

    I have shared my notes of this module in an article: [Link](https://dev.to/anubhavitis/http-fundamentals-5831)

- <h4> REST </h4> Objective of this module was to understand what REST APIs are, and how to make REST API calls. I have already been working with rest API's for a long time, still, this module was a good learning experience for me.

    I have shared my notes of this module with some extra research: [Link](https://dev.to/anubhavitis/apis-for-beginners-34ie).
- <h4> Linux Basics 1 </h4> This was the most interesting module of this stage, I always preferred Linux for my computer, and I had a basic understanding of how Linux works. After this module, I love Linux more.
- <h4> Deploy app server in AWS </h4> Objective of this module was to help participants to launch their first virtual server in AWS, deploy the app backend server, and connect the mobile app to the app backend server. I must say, with 0 experience this module was most challenging for me.

    More the challenge, better the learning experience.
- <h4> Git Basics </h4>
    It's tough to imagine software development without version control systems. Git Basics bytes was a complete learning path for beginners to get proficient with git and GitHub. Its hands-on experience equipped with GitLab and Gitpod made the whole process very smooth.
- <h4> HTML and CSS </h4>
    HTML and CSS are the fundamentals of frontend development. The objective of this module was to get started using HTML for web pages, using CSS to style web pages, and create finally create the first static website.

- <h4> QPrep JavaScript </h4> JavaScript is one of the most famous languages among developers. In this module, we learned Javascript ES6 features, and we practiced them by solving several problems. For every problem, we had to construct a solution coded in JavaScript on Crio's editor.

- <h4> QProfile </h4> The final byte, and the most amazing one as well. This module was all about implementing what we learned in previous bytes. Here we were supposed to construct a portfolio website fetching details from our GitHub through APIs and host it on [Netlify](https://www.netlify.com/) & [Heroku](https://heroku.com). We were equipped with materials and the format of the profile.

    Check out my Q profile, [Anubhav Singhal's Qprofile](https://anubhavitis.netlify.app/)

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# Other activities

![Crio2](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/26124625/106111511-187ddd80-6172-11eb-93cf-be1f8e3848f0.png)

Stage 1 was a lot of fun, we had a lot of learning experiences and we had few fun activities as well. Some of them are listed below:

- <h4> Speaker Sessions</h4> Crio team onboarded some of the great influencers from the tech industry such as Binny Bansal (Co-founder of Flipkart), Vivek Ravishankar (Co-founder of Hackerrank), etc. It was great hearing from such eminent personalities and learn about their experience.

- <h4> Meme war</h4>One of the slack channels was filled with memes made by thousands of developers from various parts of the country. It was great to see how hilarious they were.
    I didn't make any meme but surely enjoyed a lot.

- <h4> Sherlock</h4> A puzzle game, with interesting problems about the internet and it's working. I did participate in this, and I wish it had more level to solve, cause I had a lot of fun doing it.

There were more activities since they weren't mandatory, I only participated in these two as per my convenience.

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# Badge and Achievements

I received two batches,

- **Disciplined Rooster** for showing up every day, and,
- **Unstoppable Bull** for completing all tasks with excellence.

![Certificate](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/26124625/106109520-a3a9a400-616f-11eb-8c1f-35923eebb417.png)

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# Conclusion
I wasn't sure while applying to this, but it really worked out to be great.
- I connected with some good devs across the country, who helped me whenever I was stuck somewhere.
- I polished my existing skill-set, and ofcourse acquired new skills as well.
- I always wanted to have a portfolio website, now I have one: [Anubhav Singhal's Qprofile](https://anubhavitis.netlify.app/)
- Community on the slack channel was just amazing.
- The best start to 2021 for sure.

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Thanks for reading, I hope my insights were helpful to you.
Find me on various platforms: <a href="https://linkedin.com/in/anubhavitis"> LinkedIn </a>|<a href="https://twitter.com/anubhavitis"> Twitter </a>|<a href="https://github.com/anubhavitis"> GitHub </a>

> **Happy Coding**