2021 — A Year in Review

Review story of the year that made me believe more in myself and the universe.

Hi everyone! I’m back with another year's review blog. Last year, I reviewed the year 2020 and felt so good after putting my heart out in that blog so why not do it again. You can read that blog here.

Here, I’ll be recalling all that I did and have happened last year in a month-wise order. From planning to achieving my goals; from manifesting to living my dreams, this year has been the happiest year of my life. I’ll be sharing my major takeaways from this year at the end of this blog, till then stay tuned!

MARCH

This month, I was occupied by a lot of college assignments and lab file submissions. I invested my time in learning new skills along with college and internship work. I discussed some startup ideas with people I found on LinkedIn and that made me learn to always be open for discussions with new people. I also attended the #IamRemarkable workshop and that made me learn the value of self-promotion.

APRIL

I worked on some side projects this month and improved my skills along the way. I updated my GitHub profile and started being active on Twitter (One of the best decisions ever!). I learned new technical skills this month as well. I built my website this month but it’s not live currently (working on the updates). I invested my time in regular workouts, listening to podcasts, and reducing my time spent on social media and that made me more productive throughout this month.

MAY

Started doing Google’s data analytics specialization course from Coursera at the beginning of this month. I read two books — ‘Sunrise within You’ by Pritam Goswami and ‘ReWork’ by David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried. Both of the books are great and gave me a new perception about a lot of things and made me learn how much reading helps in thinking with clarity. I worked on some freelancing content writing projects along with my internship work. I did work out but not so regularly. Also, this month I completed 3 years of my college life :)

JUNE

This month, I worked on some side data analytics projects and some internship work. I started applying for new internships this month and got one internship in a startup called ‘The Switch Fix’ as a front-end web developer. I also got my first jab of a vaccine this month. I appeared in the Microsoft certification exam for Data Analyst Associate but failed in it. I also appeared in the grand finale of Toycathon and failed there as well.

JULY

I completed Google’s data analytics specialization course and acquired great skills. I used to work really hard in my internships to complete the projects but that led to burnouts sometimes and because of that my health was somewhere declining. So I thought of taking a break and got an opportunity to go out but that too was for work. I made sure to have a great time with my friends even I was going out for work. I went to college after so long and met my friends and that impromptu trip made me realize that I was ignoring my health for work and that was not right at all.

AUGUST

College placements began this month and I wanted to purely focus on the placements so I had to quit my internship with The Switch Fix. It was a wonderful learning experience for me. I started appearing for all the companies coming to campus and got rejected by almost all the companies. One fine day, I got selected for one testing automation company in Noida but I was not satisfied with it. I kept trying and kept appearing in all the companies. I started revising my concepts and started building some more projects along with my college minor project. Every rejection or failure in placements was teaching me a lesson though.

SEPTEMBER

And here comes the month when all the hard work I did pay off and I got placed in a prestigious company ‘Shell’ as a Software Engineer. You can read about my interview experience with Shell here. I was the happiest this month because getting placed was a big relief for me and it was a dream come true moment for me. I then spent this month doing some pending work, working on my minor project, and some freelancing work.

OCTOBER

In October, I started participating in some competitions with my classmates. And I also planned a visit to my friends in college to have some chill time. When the visit was coming to an end, we got the notice of college reopening and offline examinations, and boom! Now I had to come back and look for a place to stay there for 2 months. I finally found a good flat to live in with a flatmate for the next two months. I have always lived in PGs and hostels before COVID so it was my first time living in a flat, managing everything on my own and I was pretty excited about it.

NOVEMBER

This month was all about festivals, setting up and managing the flat, exploring new places and having fun with friends, meeting new people, and the start of offline college exams. It was challenging to live away from home after so long but fun at the same time. I learned a lot to manage things by myself this month.

DECEMBER

I can say that this month was the craziest of all the months of this year. Exploring new places, things and having fun in the middle of my college offline exams was super crazy though I did well in my exams. Started the month with some family functions then celebrated my birthday with my college friends for the first time and ended this year with going on my long-awaited Dubai trip. I couldn’t have asked for a better end to this amazing year of my life.

This year kind of changed a lot in me and my life. I am super grateful for this year of my life. It made me believe more in myself and in the universe. It made me believe that dreams do come true. I faced a lot of challenges this year too but everything fell into place and made sense after a certain point in time.

Major Takeaways:

1. Be open to talking to new people and about new things.
2. Learn to promote yourself. Talk about your achievements.
3. Build a strong online presence for yourself.
4. Invest your time in working out, reading books, learning new skills, and spending time with your family.
5. Never ignore your physical and mental health for work.
6. Never give up on your dreams.
7. Always be grateful for things that you have.
8. Have stories to tell not things to show.
9. Always say yes to new adventures.
10. Experience everything!

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog. Thank you so much :)