Seed — Apr 16, 2023
How my time went until I was 17.
- Cue: I used to binge-watch Silicon Valley from a friend's hard disk, the first 1 TB HDD I had ever seen. I often heard stories about relatives who left for tech jobs in the USA. I even remember being in the send-off cab as a kid for some of them. I had friends of my brother who came to play street cricket in front of my home, and they had already been slogging in Java since their school days.
- They left one by one to pursue their Master's degrees in the USA, and I watched them join companies like Cisco in San Jose, Microsoft in Redmond, and Facebook (currently Meta). It's interesting how, coincidentally, movie characters like Rani from Vettaiyadu Vilayadu, Meghna from Vaaranam Ayiram, and Nirupama from Viswaroopam were willing to pursue MS/PhD in the USA, just like them.
- I attended a school where, at the age of 7, we began learning Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel in three dedicated computer labs. By the time we turned 9, we were introduced to BASIC and QBasic in the MS-DOS environment. Remarkably, by the age of 15, we had already developed 3D games and various applications.
- I was among the first users in my area to have access to BSNL WiFi, which enabled us to browse YouTube, blogs, and use Torrent for downloading games, movies, songs, as well as patching and modding PC games. Additionally, I would sometimes purchase CD copies of games or buy 8-bit TV video games from nearby bazaars.
- I created Adobe Macromedia Flash projects (now known as Adobe Animate) during a school lab activity, which received praise and were also included in the syllabus.
- I learned Photoshop and created movie posters that gained internet fame from 2013 to 2015. I also learnt AfterEffects, Premier Pro, and the Adobe Suite during this time. Subsequently, I ventured into YouTubing and managed to accumulate 500 subscribers and 85K views, allowing me to generate income from Google Ads. I reinvested this earnings into buying equipment such as stabilizers, DSLR cameras, and tripods. Setup from 2016.
- I received my first payment of $$$ through PayPal by securing gigs on freelancer.com, which allowed me to join the technical team responsible for organizing numerous events at my school.
- This marked my second foray into programming, which took place when I was 15/16 years old. During this period, I explored various software tools, including Android Studio, MIT App Inventor, Blender, AutoCad, and the Autodesk suite. Facebook Post from 2016.
- At the age of 9, I joined a Quality Circle group, where we met regularly to identify, analyze, and solve various problems. This early experience played a pivotal role in honing my skills in presentation, research, analysis, pitching, problem-solving, and statistics. It also inspired me to participate in hackathons, through which I achieved 12 wins, including one at the international level. First side project from 2017.