Ever hoped that you shouldn’t get a scholarship? Well.. on January 10, 2018, I received the below mail:
My first question: WHY? followed by when did I apply for that? How? What is this for? Hahaha, I know. I literally spent some time trying to figure out how is this possible. Is this a scam?
Precap: When almost* everyone spends their New Year’s eve out with friends or family, in the pub or at a restaurant, I was sitting at home in pajamas crying, in depression, and in a very bad shape. I did not live in 2017. I literally survived. Every month sucked. In the end, something very unfortunate happened on December 27, 2017, and I lost the hope. All the ‘uncertainties’ about future hit me up. It was very bad. It was very hard. My first lesson: “One single thing cannot define my life or my future. I know how to figure out stuff and rock-on!”. I remember thinking about making sure the rest of the days I’ve in the United States of America are very well spent. I made a pact that I’ll travel once every month, that I’ll work towards making my career, that I’ll do every impossible thing I can, in 2018. Not going to waste another year of this drama called ‘life’. Maybe (I still think), that time I applied for a Grow with Google scholarship for Udacity.
So, later, I read T&Cs for getting a scholarship: You should finish the coding challenge, be active on community forums, You should be active on slack, help others, and what not. Since I was still coping from depression, and trying to get out of a bad phase, I completed all the coding challenge in two days, a week apart. I couldn’t do anything else. Seriously, nothing else. In February, I finished my Java certification and realized I cannot spend time on a Nanodegree because I’m still hopeless and unmotivated.
We all wish for good things to happen to us. Getting a scholarship? Oh hell YES! I, obviously, wished for the opposite. 😉 I believe in God. I always prayed that I hope I don’t get the scholarship. I don’t deserve that. I couldn’t stay active or help anyone. I struggled taking out time to work on the challenge. I don’t know if I will be able to work on any of the projects.
I had no idea when the scholarship challenge end date was. However one late night, I got another mail from Udacity.
The mail changed my next 6 months. I was SELECTED for the scholarship. I couldn’t believe that. I thought I was the least deserved person. Why me?!
Well, the only thing I knew that night was I can’t quit. I can’t afford to stop there. I was selected, that means I do deserve that.
Credits: Ara the Star Engineer, by Komal Singh
My actual challenge started here. I changed all my plans for the next few months. All I knew was I needed a new plan. A plan which has time for nanodegree in that. One of my goal this year was to do #100daysofcode challenge. And my plan..was to mix it up. 😉
IT WASN’T EASY!!
That’s how it started…
#D1 And so I restarted #100DaysOfCode challenge, with FrontEnd Web Dev Nanodegree by @udacity! Excited and nervous at same time. Today, I completed basic HTML quizzes and worked on creating a mockup https://t.co/WbxCSAo005 #GoogelUdacityScholar
— Riya Dashoriya (@ReeyahSDasoriya) April 30, 2018
Then…
#D4-#D10 Responsive CSS, viewport, flex box, css optimization, and Project1: Build a portfolio site for Udacity's Front End Web Developer Nanodegree! Tomorrow starts JavaScript :) #100DaysOfCode pic.twitter.com/st9uuhSEn5
— Riya Dashoriya (@ReeyahSDasoriya) May 9, 2018
And…
#D11 Basics of Livescript aka JavaScript: loops, conditionals, arrays, objects, functions. Hurraaaaah #100DaysOfCode pic.twitter.com/SyaplU37cx
— Riya Dashoriya (@ReeyahSDasoriya) May 10, 2018
(in progress…)
(in progress…)
This too happened.. I’m very grateful to Udacity Front-End Web Developer Nanodegree Support group on Facebook for their inspiring and motivating words when I was feel exhausted. ❤️
Credits: Facebook Udacity Front-End Web Developer Nanodegree Support group
(in progress…)
(in progress…)
Developing @reactjs app from scratch for the first time. Oh my!! It’s very difficult for me to not use @vuejs in between. 🤦🏻♀️
— Riya Dashoriya (@ReeyahSDasoriya) October 21, 2018
One last project before I graduate 👩🏻🎓 with a @udacity Front End Nanodegree (Thanks to Grow With Google Scholarship) 😀
END!
I struggled to take out time and work on projects. It was tiring. It was difficult. With a full-time job, plans to travel every month, organizing events for Google Developers Group Salt Lake, and then this! This was one hectic year, full of plans and their execution. I’m glad all these things helped me come out of depression. I’m better now. :)
I did it. I finally graduated with a Front End Web Developer Nanodegree TODAY.
Frankly speaking, I learned a lot working on projects. I learned many new things. ReactJS, ServiceWorkers, Accessibility, aria-labels, Flexbox, Angular, Jasmine, ES6 and much more. I don’t know if ever I’ll use that in the real world, but that was one hell of an experience. I’m glad this happened.
To any future Grow with Google FEND students:
FEND can be completed in a month or two, if done seriously and regularly. You will end up spending 3-4 hours a day. The projects on average took me 6 hours because I skipped some videos sometimes (not recommended). Don’t quit. It will be fine. Once you accomplish this goal, there will be a different feeling. You’ll be more proud of yourself.
Be active on Slack and community forums. That will help you. Its amazing to see how different people have different opinions about writing a single line of code. This will help you to broaden your horizons. Use Udacity’s career services. We are no experts. They have the best people, and their suggestions helped me to improve my Resume, LinkedIn, GitHub and Cover Letter, not to mention that that boosted my confidence in applying for a job.
Grow with Google scholarship is a privilege. Don’t let it go waste.
Oh..You ask my next goal? Well..fix up all the projects on Github: https://github.com/riyadashoriya/ and have a rocking Google Developers Group DevFest 2018 on November 17, then take a break and visit family in India! :)
Over and out,
Riya
PS: I still haven’t figured out if I like Front End more or backend. I don’t want to know right now. I’m not ready for that. I love coding, be it anything, everything. I love to solve problems.