Four years ago, in this very month of June, JEE Mains results were out. I had screwed up my JEE Advanced, so I had to settle for an NIT. My AIR was good enough to get me a seat of Computer Science and Engineering in any of the NITs except the first three (at that time Trichy, Warangal, and Surathkal). I was skeptical about going to NIT Calicut because of its distance from my native place, so NIT Allahabad was the most suitable choice.
Now that I am graduated from NIT Calicut, one more chapter of my life is over. It is time to move on to the next page, but before I begin that phase, I thought it would be nice, to sum up, the experience that I gathered in NIT Calicut. The last four years have been great for me. I learned a lot of new life lessons, but there were some decisions that I could have avoided.
I first heard about Google Summer of Code (GSoC) in my second year (2016). It was quite fascinating to know that such a program exists (possibly because of that super attractive amount of money, $5500 at that time). I researched about it and sent emails to some mentors. The replies were mostly encouraging, but I still could not gather the courage to apply as I used to doubt my capabilities. Then last year (2017) again, I decided that I should try for GSoC one more time.
A boy, probably of age 16, just cleared his 10th board exam. He saw people working on computers, and that fascinated him. So he had only one ambition. You got it, right? One fine day, suddenly his friend’s mother asked, “So what about the future? You are going to enter in class 11th. It is the right time to decide about your future. What do you want to become, a doctor or an engineer?