Lockdown 2020— A Year of Change
A review story of my lockdown journey.
The last year has been the toughest year for almost everybody. The changes introduced in our personal life to professional ones made the whole situation challenging. In spite of the work/life stress and constant efforts to cope up with the situation, I made the last year a productive one for myself indeed. I explored a lot of things, experimented with different fields, tried my hands at whatever I could, and didn’t stop learning.
In this blog, I’ll be recalling all that I have done last year in a month-wise order. From challenges to achieving the milestones; from problems to their solutions; from being lost and confused to feeling the most confident and cheerful, this year has been the craziest 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
One day, I was all pumped up and ready with a list of new goals and tasks. The very next day, the college announced the shutdown and I was sent back to my home, lol. It wasn’t easy to adjust at home (I think all the hostellers suffer from this problem XD).
My daily routine got screwed up with online classes and the heavy workload of college. At that time, I was focusing on my mental health and continued to practice meditation. It really helped me to cope up with the work/life stress.
APRIL
In this month, I tried my hands at whatever I could and explored so many things and opportunities. I enrolled myself in various online courses and started working on my programming skills. Along with that, I started practicing coding problems on HackerRank.
I started being active in my college clubs and participated in various club activities. I decided to get back on LinkedIn (One of the best decisions I have ever made). It opened the doors for many more opportunities in my life.
I tried my hands at cooking new dishes after a long time and also watched a lot of movies with my friends :P
MAY
I worked on my college summer project this month. It was an android web view that helps people to stay updated with covid-19 statistics and also helps in assessing the covid-19 symptoms.
After being done with my project, I formed a team with my friends and participated in my first ever hackathon organized by my university. We didn’t win but it was a wonderful learning experience for me.
Apart from the summer project and hackathon, I invested my time in reading books and cooking.
JUNE
June was pretty fun for me, I got my interest in web development and started learning the basics. I also found my interest in writing stories and converting them into videos. So, I started making such videos and when I made the first video and uploaded it on my YouTube channel, the response was amazing and I didn’t expect that. Every week, I used to make one such story video with a social message and used to upload it on YouTube. I think I have to start doing it again (need suggestions for the story ideas, help me!).
JULY
This period wasn’t much productive. Struggled with my online classes and spent a lot of time not doing anything. But at the end of the month, I started looking out for opportunities and found myself interested in writing tech-related articles, and started volunteering for the Scholarship Track organization as a content writer. You can check out my articles on Scholarship Track Blog.
AUGUST
I wanted to explore more of my skills and the work opportunities so I applied for a graphic designing internship at Guby Rogers and got selected. I started enjoying my work over there and later became the lead graphic designer there. I was just doing the content and designing work and completely forgot about programming and web development.
I kept on exploring the opportunities in different fields and it actually makes me happy that I never restricted myself from learning or exploring something new and different.
SEPTEMBER
This was a lazy phase, didn’t feel like doing anything but still kept pushing myself to meet the deadlines of work. I wanted to join the Google Developer Student Club at my university for a long time and one day I finally came across its page on LinkedIn and filled the application form and soon got selected in the core team as a mentor. I met some amazing folks over there and it has been always fun working with the team.
I started meeting a lot of people and I felt really good interacting with people and listening to their stories. I feel grateful that I am connected with people who are non-judgemental, passionate, supportive, and kind.
OCTOBER
A pretty hectic period was because of the heavy workload of assignments, presentations, lab submissions, and whatnot. Amidst this heavy workload, I didn’t forget to spend time with my family and with myself. I feel grateful that I have got so much time to spend with my family.
I experimented with my hair and got them highlighted red. It didn’t turn out to be the best but I am a person who is always up for weird experiments and never going to stop doing that :P
NOVEMBER
This month was so much fun, full of festive vibes, outings, and celebrations. I was a lot more positive during this time period and invested a lot of my time in consuming valuable content from YouTube and started listening to podcasts.
One thing which was constant till now is exploring and learning from every possible source. I also tried to understand the perspectives of industries, recruiters, and content creators.
DECEMBER
This month was full of surprises and good opportunities. Celebrations didn’t stop till the end of this year. Some of the best things happened during this month. I landed upon my first paid internship and on the same day, I got selected for another paid internship opportunity \o/
I got a chance to talk to one of my favorite Youtubers, Saloni Srivastava during one of her live webinars (another exciting moment!).
I joined one more community of amazing folks which is EquiCode and contributed there as a content writer. I also volunteered to make a website for an organization There For You :)
And with such past great months, I was all pumped up to kickstart my new year on a good note!
JANUARY
I started the new year on a positive note but was a little confused and anxious in the initial days. I started filtering out a lot of things and opportunities. I decided not to work for free unless it is for a good cause. I started working on my skill set and learned about new tools and technologies. I also started documenting everything in a proper way.
I wanted to join or start my own startup for a long time. One day, I got a call from one of my contacts for joining the core team of a startup that is based on the fields (marketing, analysis, and automation) of my interest. So, I joined that startup and the work is in progress now.
Apart from that, I became the Lead Community Manager of Guby Rogers’ Student community, Design Team Head at Destigma and I also started working as a freelance web developer and got my first lead in that time period.
FEBRUARY
This month, I started working on some python projects and also participated in Toycathon with my friends. Till this time, I was occupied with a lot of work and realized that this much stress was affecting my mental health so I decided to take a break off. I left my past few internships because I wasn’t seeing myself growing over there.
I revived myself after a lot of deliberation and started focusing only on the important things that help me to grow :)
I have seen a lot of self-growth in the past year. Not only I discovered my potential but I also figured out my priorities. I learned and explored many different fields. My perception has changed about a lot of things and I feel more grateful and resilient now.
Major takeaways:
- Try doing things that help you come out of your comfort zone every single day.
- Never say no to any learning opportunity.
- Experiment with different fields and domains.
- Invest time in feeding your brain with positive and valuable content.
- Prioritize your work above everything.
- Take care of your mental and physical health.
- Practice the underrated skill of being consistent.
- Keep trying your hands at new things and surprise yourself with the results.
- Understand the value of time and don’t let it go wasted.
