You should start making your own project, here is why
At some point in our lives, have you ever thought of making something? Creating something that you are so sure will be useful for you and will be able to solve humanity top problem or help handling overpopulation?
Okay that might have gone to far but really, just creating something that can help your little problem in your life, i am sure that everyone has ever thought about it, maybe little things like i want to get a schedule of my bus or getting just getting information of the store discount around my place, those little things in life, you get what i mean right?
Especially if you are living your life as Software Engineer, in 20th century we are something now called Digital Magician(cool title huh, i just made it as i am writing this story), we can realize our thought and make it into anything we like.
It’s now the perfect time for you to start your own project!
And there are plenty of WHYs you should start it ASAP
1. You will learn about loving a product
At the end of the day, your project will come out as a product. It will feels like having a child of your own. You will learn to care about it and having a feel of proud of it. It is not just a chunk of codes put together and compilation happen then BAM, application happens. No, it is your beloved product, your own product, you and your own, not anyone. You are not working for a company or anybody else, you are working for yourself, for your own product.
2. You will find new technology and a lot of things to learn
Doing your own project, you will find some limitations on your current knowledge. Okay, maybe not everyone will, but i did find some so.. yeah most people will !! (i think)
You will learn to explore more things, technologies that you have never used before, in history of mine it is AWS and Serverless (And yeah i highly recommended it!) and you will learn a lot of things that is highly relevant for real work experience. You undoubtedly will learn about architecture and managing timeline. Why? Because you are an architect of your own project and timeline maker for your whole project.
Also, you will truly understand the need of development and production server, and the paint of it.
3. Handling Impostor Syndrome
Impostor Syndrome, oh how familiar am i with that thing! And there are a lot of story about that nowadays. In IT world, it is a very common issue for everyone, its pretty clear on why, because IT world is pretty technical. When you have handled your own project, undoubtedly you will have gained a lot more experienced and tackle your own Impostor Syndrome. You will understand that it is not all about technical stuff, every single flow and process that you have designed for your own project, everything will come in handy for you. When everyone is doing the same thing like you 8 hours a day for 5 days every week, copy-pasting from stackoverflow, no wonder a lot of people are having Impostor Syndrome.
4. Portfolio
Isn’t it obvious? Yes, it can become your portfolio! It can be considered hugely when you have made your own project. Using tools such as git, it makes it very easy for you to show it off (yeah, you should be proud of it, but don’t be overproud though). Nowadays having project in git will be considered highly by IT company, but don’t forget about quality and clean code though!
5. Things everybody love, Money
Yes! Money! If your project is an application, nowadays it is very easy to monetize the heck out of it. Google now provides Adsense which is very easy to use and the payment is not bad too!
But it is very important that you don’t think of money first when it comes to your own project. Of course everybody loves money, you can say that i am being to idealistic with it. But when you are too focused on the money, you will lose that essence of loving your product, it will just be another money making factory for you. Making your own project will not feel that much difference with working if money is the first thing you are focused on. Life is just too short why not having FUN coding when you are not working (yes, FUN).
There concluded my points on why you should start making your own project now. It might seems hard at first, but you will get used to it as time goes on.
I hope this article will help you in your journey into becoming a successful person(or at least a happy programmer guy).
If you like this article, do give it a clap and share it with your friends! Wish you success in life!!
