Journey to the world of coding ..!!

Programmers are essential to the development of computers because without coding that is necessary to make a computer work properly, the machine would be useless.

Hi guys, I am Kenith Aiyappa a passionate software developer from a small, beautiful place called Kodagu, located in the southern part of India. My love towards computers and great desire to learn new stuffs helped me to get into software Industry. I wanted to share my experience since a long time as how I started my carrier as a coder, where exactly I learnt programming and the drawback that I came across in our education system.

Starting from my school days, I had a subject called Computers which was almost like a leisure time. Since I was put in a school which had state syllabus, my learning scale was limited only for MS office package, but unfortunately most of us never understood even that. I hardly knew what I would type in computer during practical sessions or what I memorized in order to pass with good grades in exams. My learning was just for the sake of good grades in exams and nothing else.

During the vacations of my 10th grade I took up a basic course in computers from a institute called 'APTECH' which was pretty much close from my house. This course included stuffs like basic computer operations, MS office package,paint,internet usage & etc, this was the first stage where I actually understood some thing about Computers. I was amazed by the power of computer and amount of work we could do using it and gradually started to love computers. After that basic course which lasted for a month or more, I took up C programming in the same institute, I would like to mention a name "Nanjappa"-Man of simplicity and wisdom, he was my first teacher of programming. His excellent teaching helped to put up a good foundation for my programming skills. Later during my Pre-university education I took up computers and had determined to complete my Engineering in computers itself. Even during those days of pre-university I studied all subjects just for the sake of good numbers in exams and never understood where exactly I could use or implement the subject knowledge. Math was the only subject which never bugged me because its purely logical and nothing to memorize and I excelled well in it. Though I loved computers I hated its theoretical part which had lengthy explanations hence I studied it just to get high scores in exams and never understood its theoretical concepts in depth.

I remember a joke to describe the situation of our Education System –

What I m trying to tell is we are following the same algorithm again and again. And we are expecting a wonderful result. If we want to get the desired output, we have to make changes in that algorithm and execute it. Or else we will keep on saying that 'India is a developing country' for ever.
To put in a nutshell – India Reforming its education will become Developed from Developing.

During the vacations of my Pre-university education I decided to take up Hardware course and learn the internal structure and working of computer. As a result at the end of my course I was capable of handling basic repair works of computers and understood the internal functionality of computer well. This was the time my mom got me my first laptop for which I rejoiced whole-heartedly. Once I got into my Bachelor of Engineering in computers I found all programming related subjects much easier. But, still my mind was programmed only to get good numbers and grades in internals and exams, apart from it never understood the need for better understanding of the subject. During those days from my 1st year till 4th year , every year during the programming competitions held in our college I would make sure that my name is always there in the winning list. Inspite of all these, I am not hesitant to share that my knowledge in programming was limited to less than 5%.

Since I had a better knowledge in C programming some how I managed to crack an interview and got placed in a prestigious company called "Sasken". But that didn't work out for me because Sasken delayed my date of joining and I had to spend couple of months at home. That was the time I got in touch with few good coders in the Industry and started to learn programming languages on my own and built my first website and hosted it successfully. With the reference of few good friends I got an opportunity to attend an interview in a small startup company called "Enfini Technology Pvt Ltd", managed to get into this small startup of 5 guys including me.

Enfinites took me with open arms, helped me gel up well and were the torch bearers of my knowledge. I started my work as a web & mobile developer, found great passion on it and just loved what I was doing. Henceforth, never turned back to join Sasken. Having known a smattering of programming, I was like a Tod in the well, It is this small team which helped me learn programming better and taught me each and every stuff that a programmer must know. Only after joining this startup I understood ups and downs of coding and the art of programming irrespective of the language we use.

Through out my education the only thing I did was studied only for the sake of internals and exams. Not only me there are several students who follow the same principle. I still repent for those lost days of mine where I could actually sharpen my coding skills and could have gained better knowledge of programming. Our Education system is designed in such a way where students are made to study the subjects which they will never use in real life. Parents at home and teachers at school pressurize students to study only to excel with good grades and never ask them to study to understand the subject. These numbers and grades in exams play a key role in student's life, only if a student gets high grades he is capable of getting into a good college and later a job. One should realize that by delving deep in a particular field which they love, they could do miracles. Here it doesn't matter whether the student really has knowledge of the subjects in his work area, only thing that matters is his high grades. Most of the Software companies hire students from college based on their grades, irrespective of the BE branch they are in. Do you really feel grades are sufficient without the basic knowledge of work area?? Suppose a student from Civil, Mechanical or any other branch apart from computer science and Information science has good grades, do you really think he is eligible for the Software Industry ? Currently our Indian Software Industries works out this way , they are in competition to hire the students with high grades. This curbs the talent the student has in his platform or stream.

Probably you might have heard this sentence which was buzzing in facebook
"INDIA IS A COUNTRY WHERE PEOPLE FIRST BECOME ENGINEERS AND THEN FIGURE OUT WHAT THEY WANT TO BECOME"

This sounds like a joke but this is the naked truth. Several students get into BE because of parents and relatives pressure, though they are not interested in the particular field and later struggle for jobs and end up in any job that comes to their feet. I want every individual who reads this post to understand the fact that its better to make children understand at an early age that they study for the sake of knowledge and not high numbers or grades and encourage children in any field that they love.