2018 - Year in review

👋 Hey there! As you might have known by now, my name is Saad Irfan. I am a college freshman who is following his passion of becoming an acknowledged Computer Scientist. Two things you should know about me before reading any further.

• It is my 2nd article so don't expect much 🤷‍♂️.
• I am a TV show junkie, a movie fanatic, and an adventurous soul 👓.

Writing and What 2018 brought me

It is true what they say that you don't start out writing good stuff. People tend to think that someone is born a writer, but I agree to disagree. Writing is a tough skill which I don't acquire at the moment. I have recently started blogging. The sole purpose of me doing it was to improve my pen downing skills. Today, I got a chance to write what last year brought me and how it changed my life in different ways.

2018 was a hell of a bumpy ride for me, and I am pretty sure for everyone else out there. Just like everyone, my life went through a series of phases. The most significant ones were when I graduated from high school when I met Ahmad Awais, and when I got into college.

Started building my website

The website on which you are currently reading this article (old one) was not into existence until January 2019. My big brother, Ashar Irfan, told me how important it is for a developer to have his own website. He bought the domain of this site for me in November and told me to use it and create a website for myself.

I used WordPress as a CMS and chose the theme developed by Paul Eiche. While working on it, I might even have pulled one or two all-nighters as I was devoting a lot of my time in bringing it to life. Thanks to this small project, my knowledge of WordPress was greatly augmented.

My first meetup

I never had a chance to attend a meetup before the Open Dev Con. My elder brother, Ashar Irfan, had already told me about it weeks ago, so I was pretty excited and was looking forward to it.

The lead speaker of the meetup was Ahmad Awais, who compartmentalized his talk on Github (largest open-source platform), JAMstack, JavaScript, API, Gatsby, Markup, and Netlify. Because of my skill level, I didn't get much from what he was saying, but I was trying hard to make something out of it. It was pretty exhilarating, and at the same time quite terrifying knowing how much the world had changed around us. That was the first time I met Ahmad, and from what I had heard and now seen, it was indeed an honor.

Completed my first Hacktoberfest challenge

If you don't know about what is Hacktoberfest, you are not the only one. I didn't know about it until last October. Hacktoberfest is a challenge where you have to contribute five times in different projects on Github, and in the end, you get a T-shirt. It is primarily organized to promote open source work.

After the Open Dev Con, I created my Github account. Saw tutorials on what is Github, what is CLI, and for what purpose it is being used. I managed to get ahold of a few things like some common commands of Git, and how we could contribute to someone's code. After getting a basic knowledge, I completed my very first Hacktoberfest Challenge, and I must say it felt good.

Transitioning from high school to college

When 2018 started, half of the final year of my high school had already gone. My finals were scheduled in May. I took my SAT at the end of 2017, so because of it, the first half of my final year was devoted to my SAT prep.

After I graduated from high school, my entire focus was shifted towards getting into the finest universities in my country. I sent my applications in numerous universities including LUMS, NUST, FAST, ITU, PUCIT and UET. Fortunately, I got into all of them. I took admission in ITU, but later I realized I had made a wrong decision and ITU is not for me. So, I left it and enrolled myself into University of Engineering and Technology (UET) for my undergrad degree. Because of my passion for computers, I selected Computer Science as my major. Now I am a proud UETian, and I am happy where I am.

TV shows and movies

As I mentioned earlier, I am a TV show and a movie fanatic. I spent a lot of my time last year watching movies and seasons. What's funny is that there was always something important going on in my life like finals, entrance examination, etc. while I was running this marathon. I completed the following series alone last year, and here I am going to organize it from best to worst so you may get some ideas before watching any of them. Just so you know, it's only my opinion, so feel free to criticize.

• The Mentalist
• Person of Interest
• Stranger Things
• Blindspot
• The Haunting of Hill House
• Scorpion
• Daredevil
• Supernatural
• Deception
• Iron Fist
• Constantine
• Castle
• Lucifer
• The Defenders
• Jessica Jones
• Luke Cage
• Smallville
• Shadow Hunters

Yeah! I know. It's a long list 😝

Resolutions for 2019

This year in review is incomplete without writing about some resolutions I have made since 2019 started. This year, I will try to

• Learn more deeply about WordPress and open source community.
• Get ahold of JavaScript, React.js, Node.js.
• Use git more and more in my upcoming projects to control my workflow.
• Create my theme by the end of this year.
• Maintain a CGPA of 3.7 or above. (this didn't happen 🥲)
• Start reading books apart from just novels.
• Limit myself from watching more than 10 TV shows.
• Visit northern areas of Pakistan.

Cheerio ✌🏻