Journey of a Google Developer Student Club Lead
After conducting various seminars, webinars, building projects, and helping around 1000s of students, I connected with amazing developers across India and a few across the world, experienced the thrill and adventure while conducting events, responsibilities, managing a team, and representing my campus at National Level and getting recognized too. I find this as an amazing journey throughout the year and the best utilization for COVID-19 lockdowns. I know many of you might be thinking about how I managed to do this and grow personally too instead of college works, Internships, etc. So just be with me for the next 10 minutes, I am sure you will definitely learn a lot and got to know about one of my best experiences in the last year.
Yes, Its Google Developer Student Club Lead — GDSC, for those who are new to this technical world or don’t know about this, so basically Google Developer Student Clubs are community groups for college and university students interested in Google developer technologies like Firebase, Flutter, Angular, GCP, etc. Students from all undergraduate or graduate programs with an interest in growing as a developer can be the part of this program. By joining a DSC, students got the opportunities to grow their knowledge in a peer-to-peer learning environment and build solutions for local businesses and their community. To know more about GDSC visit https://developers.google.com/community/dsc
Part 1: How I got selected for GDSC Lead for the first time at my Campus ✌
Our college doesn’t have any GDSC earlier and most of us were not aware of this wonderful program, one day around last week of April, one of my senior Shailesh Kumar Sahu aka Shellkore asked me to explore GDSC and apply for the same. So, when I explored the program, I got very excited after reading the experiences of previous leads, their participation, their contribution towards community, google swags, and of Course about the Goa summit (Didn’t happened this year, Unfortunately 😢).
So, on 7th May I applied for the Lead of GDSC at my campus with all the information asked along with one minute Video.
General Tips -Write very genuine answers, which describe who you are.
- Always mention your motive for being the Lead and how you have contributed to the community earlier.
- Try to write answers which explain your personality as a Leader, Geek, and Technical Knowledge.
- Be Natural.
- Don’t worry about the animations and effects in your video, I posted very natural and to-the-point content.
After Submitting the form on 8th May 2020, I got a response for the next round on 27th May 2020. After seeing the email, I was very happy and nervous at the same time. I was clueless about what to do next and what will be asked in the Interview and what to prepare. To proceed with this, I read articles of previous leads, DM them for guidance, and connected with a few of them over a phone call. After connecting with them I finally arrived at a point which I need to do, i.e. to explore myself.
Here is a list of few questions, if you are preparing for this Interview, better try to write down answers at your convenient place either notebook, word, etc. These questions will even help you in any other interviews as well. Have a look -
- What is GDSC?
- Self Introduction
- Why do you want to become GDSC Lead?
- About the events, you have organized so far.
- Are you a part of any other community as well or not?
- What is your area of Interest (Technology-wise)?
- Information about the projects you have worked on or build so far?
- How will you build GDSC at your campus? (If you are applying for the first time DSC from your campus)
- Have you contributed to the GDSC chapter of your Campus? If yes, How? if no, Why? (If already chapter is running at your campus)
- How is your knowledge in the Mobile and Web development field?
- What are your interests and passions, and how it connects with being a Lead of the GDSC?
- What are the types of skills (technical, business, soft skills, etc.) that students have on campus, and what are some skills that are missing?
- Your experience with events — from designing an event to marketing, to conducting the event. Also, any PR that you did around the event.
- Your networks in the college; your relationship with other students & faculty members.
- Have you faced any challenges in pursuing initiatives in your college, if any? And how you can overcome them.
Note — Do not make fake answers for any of the above questions, If you haven’t done any work or not very experienced with then say it clearly that you are not experienced with x thing but yes, you want to learn things. The attitude of learning and truthiness are your greatest weapons. Use them wisely.
If you know the answers to these above questions and you are not faking with any answers, then you will have higher chances of getting selected as GDSC Lead. The next thing which you should be aware of that you have to select one slot for your interview as per your convenience and availability. After that, your interview will be scheduled on the choose date and time.
Tip — Try to choose your interview as soon as possible once you are prepared with the above questions. Also, check if there are some other candidates also giving this interview for the lead position and how the other person can beat you in which field, etc. You should know about your competitor. It helps you to shape your own Interview.
After all the above steps, finally, I received a Congratulations email in the last week of August 2020. Finally, the day came and the Journey started.
I will be soon posting about my journey after selection and what I did last year in another post in this GDSC Series. Till then stay healthy and fit and grow every day by learning new things and helping others.
Check out my profile — https://dsc.community.dev/u/m4qh28/
Chapter Link — https://dsc.community.dev/army-institute-of-technology/
If you have any doubts or want to connect with me for some collaborations, connect with me at LinkedIn and Twitter.
