How I got a full-stack internship as a beginner.
Tags: beginners, webdev, career, codenewbie
Published: 2020-06-30 08:42:32

I still remember the day I got my IELTS and GRE test scores. I got a decent 7.5 in IELTS and 301 in GRE. With these, I was ready to apply to the universities in the US, for masters in CS. Everything was going well, but then **IT**(The pandemic) happened. As if someone has jinxed it, I had to cancel my plans to pursue a master's degree. Putting me back to square one.

(little background: I am a final year grad student of CS from India and I love dogs.)

I was so disappointed, and the lockdown was not helping my cause. For a couple of weeks, I binge-watched shows on Netflix, to soothe my pain. Slowly I started to accept the reality and immediately started to look for other options. I contacted many friends and was asking for their opinions and suggestions. A friend of mine told me to checkout MERN Bootcamp by Hitesh Choudhary, which was at an incredibly low price of 199 rupees($ 2.60). I quickly bought the course before the sale ended, without any thought about how am I going to do it.
To be honest, back then, web development was never something that amused me. I was so naive to think it was all easy when compared to Machine Learning and Data Science. I was comparing apples and oranges.

The following will give you a measure of how stupid I was. After the purchase of the course, I started to research about the MERN stack(I didn't even know the abbreviation of MERN), what are the possible job opportunities. I was putting the cart in front of the horses.

After a little digging, I found that it was a decent enough choice for the start of my web development journey. At that time, I knew only a little bit of HTML, CSS, and a pinch of JavaScript. I didn't know any frameworks and couldn't even differentiate between server and backend.

With all the naivete and false expectations, I started the course expecting to finish it in 2-3 weeks. I was slowly pacing through the course, thanks to the trainer(who was dumbing things down). Before I know, I became a code monkey. How would I've even realized this? as it felt so cool to have the power in my hands.
Around week 2 everything was going smoothly until I encountered an error and the trainer didn't. I was scared.

I collected myself and started the debugging process. I was so clueless and afraid to even to go through the code base as haven't understood anything clearly. I was only following the trainer. 
But then, I made up my mind to understand everything that I've done up to that point and figure out what was causing the error, even if it is going to take a lot of time.
After 2 days of debugging, I finally solved the error. In that moment of euphoria, I realized that I want to do this for my life.

This scenario has taught me an important lesson in development. That is bugs are part of software development and handling, solving bugs will make you a better programmer. I am thankful that I faced that error. After this, I approached the entire course differently, documenting all the stuff I learn and all the errors I faced. Does this mean I happily lived after? no. I also faced many errors later in the course, but this time I dared to debug them and also the ability to find the root of the bug.
My point is don't be scared by the bugs, They are the part of the learning process.

Later on, after a decent understanding of the course, I started applying for internships on Internshala. Since I had some experience with the platform, I know how to get noticed by recruiters. I applied to 40-50 companies, out of which 15 responded. Before I know, I was giving 2 interviews per day and solving many code assignments. This is where I was implementing what I have learned. Amidst this, fortunately after clearing 3 rounds of an interview, a company hired me. 

**WAIT**. That's not it. My journey would be incomplete if I didn't mention the dev community. All of the above was possible only because I was motivated by the work and the people in the industry. 
I just didn't pick up some random course and started learning. I picked up a lifestyle. A lifestyle of a developer. 
I also consumed a lot of content from the creators in the community. From day 1 I felt like I belonged here. This also helped me deal with my imposter syndrome. 
It only makes sense for me to contribute back to the community.

Right then, This was my journey into web development. Please share your journey and highlights in the comments.