My Story : Google India Challenge Scholarship 2018
Hello , I am Kundan Kumar from Ranchi. I am currently a civil engineering student. Although programming is not related to my course I am interested in it, specially android app development and I hope to become a professional andorid developer one day.
How I got into Android development
When I was in class 12 , there was an old android phone (it had andorid jellybean in it) in my house and it became slow and laggy overtime , it had no use and was kept in a corner. I decided to upgrade it , so I searched online and finally found out about android lollipop(It was released that year). It was a love in first sight , I was just amazed by the flow and smoothness of lollipop, it was simple amazing. I eventually figured out how to install custom ROM in my smartphone and upgraded it. It was a very joyous moment in my life. My interest in android development started from this upgrade. I really hoped that one day I will become a professional Android developer.
When my dreams shattered.
When I was in class 12 someone told me that if I wanted to be a software engineer I needed to qualify jee exams and get into IIT , so I started to prepare for it. I scored less marks in this exam and eventually ended up taking a civil engineering course.
I am currently a 2nd year civil engineering student. I am quite happy that I got into civil engineering simply because it made me realise how much I liked programming so I decided to learn programming , and I decided to go into android development. While I was searching online content for Android development I came across Udacity and I just fell in love with it. Its content was so perfect and to the point. And every thing was clearly explained. I spend 1.5 years doing several courses on Udacity mostly on Android and increased my knowledge.
Although I had acquired some knowledge I still have no proof for it and I can’t enroll into the nanodegree due to some reasons, I was quite dissapointed by this , but there was nothing I could do , then one day this happened.
I got selected in the scholarship programme by Google. It made me very happy , now I can finally have a proof of my skill given by Google and Udacity itself, what else could I wish for .
A new journey begins
I joined the programme on 14 Feb and joined , I found myself blessed to be part of such an active and positive community. I have met some very amazing people here. I spent most of my time in the slack workspace , asking questions, solving queries and taking part in challenges and quizzes .
I simply loved slack and gave it more time that the discourse webiste or the course itself. It greatly accelerated my learning speed. Taking part in challenges and ama sessions was very fun. I tried to be present in all the ama sessions but sometimes I was unable to due to my college schedule.
I recieved a chance to go into google IO 18 but I was not selected for it.
But I was still very happy because I got to fill out a form that will get me into IO18. I felt blessed while filling this form.
It is currently the final week of the scholarship program and I am hoping that I get selected for phase 2 , it will be a life changing moment for me , as I will finally have the opportunity to be a full time android developer leaving my current stream of civil engineering.
And I finally will be able to follow my passion and be happy.
