What I Learned in Tech: From Student to Full-Time Software Developer - Part 1/3

#webdev #programming #beginners

📚 From “Hello World” to Hello React: My College Coding Chronicles

Just a few years ago, I was sitting in a college computer lab, proudly printing “Hello World” in C, thinking I had arrived. Spoiler: I hadn’t.

🏁 The Starting Line: Confused but Curious

When I started my B.Tech in Computer Science, I wasn’t totally new to code—I’d dabbled in C++ and had made some static websites with HTML and CSS back in school. But like many students, I quickly realized that just knowing how to center a div doesn’t exactly make you “industry-ready.”

After scrolling through one too many LinkedIn posts and YouTube videos titled “How to Become a Software Engineer in 3 Months,” two golden rules kept popping up:

Master DSA

Build Projects

So naturally, I took the deep dive—into DSA. My browser tabs read like a saga: LeetCode, GeeksforGeeks, random YouTube tutorials, and those “Top 150 Questions” sheets everyone swore by. I was solving pattern questions with the enthusiasm of someone convinced this would unlock the gates to Google. Meanwhile, my RAM was full—literally and mentally.

🖥️ My First “Real” Development: College Curriculum Magic

In the 2nd semester, we had a course called "Web Development Essentials." Translation: HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript—served with a side of broken styling and copy-pasted w3schools snippets.

But it led to my first proper group project: an income tax calculator website. It was basic, borderline ugly—but it worked. Here it is in all its glory.

Our professor reviewed it and casually dropped a life-changing comment:

“Nice work. You should explore React or Angular next.”

Boom. That one line sent me tumbling down the JavaScript framework rabbit hole.

⚛️ React, Repeats & the Tutorial Loop of Doom

Armed with YouTube and a never-say-die attitude, I began the classic React learning routine:

Watch a tutorial.
Build the exact same project.
Add two “creative” features like dark mode or a counter.
Repeat.

I didn’t know it then, but this loop was teaching me a lot—state, props, routing, and most importantly, how to Google my errors like a pro.

Eventually, I stumbled upon the holy grail of full-stack web development—the MERN Stack. MongoDB, Express, React, Node.js. Everyone on the internet said it was the real deal, so I jumped on the bandwagon. (Spoiler: totally worth it.)

🤖 That Time I Briefly Dated Machine Learning

Around 4th semester, we got Python as part of the curriculum. Python felt like writing pseudocode that actually runs. I built a fun little Inventory Management System as final project Check it out here. using Tkinter and MySQL. Felt like magic.

Encouraged by that, I picked Data Science & Machine Learning as an elective in 5th sem. It started strong—but quickly turned into Excel dashboards and copy-pasting Jupyter notebooks. No hate, but I wasn’t vibing with it.

If Web Dev was a rom-com, ML was an awkward blind date. We parted ways peacefully. No hard feelings.

🧩 DSA, We Meet Again

Like every college student, I had an on-again, off-again relationship with DSA. I’d grind for a week, then fall back into watching frontend tutorials. But at the start of 6th semester, I came back with vengeance—reviewed earlier topics and dove into advanced ones like trees, graphs, and dynamic programming.

It felt like unlocking cheat codes. Suddenly, problems that once looked impossible started making sense. Sort of. Sometimes.

🚀 Hackathon Magic & My First Break

Then came the highlight of college: a 24-hour hackathon. Fueled by coffee, chaos, and copy-paste, our team built Code with Companion—a real-time collaborative coding app. Check it out here. We actually won! 🎉

That project gave me two things:

Confidence in my skills
A talking point for my first real interview

Shortly after, I landed an internship as an SDE Intern at Scaler/InterviewBit—a turning point that marked the end of my “learning in the lab” phase and the start of building for real users.