2015 was one heck of an year. It was an year with so many jaw-dropping moments to cherish. I learnt so many new things along the way to the year end. I inspired & got inspired. This was also an year when this blog’s visibility grew the most than ever. Here are some of my awesome-st moments of 2015 (chronologically listed),

1. Bagged 2nd prize in State-level project competition

However self flattering it may sound, this is one event I cannot miss out on mentioning in this list. We were a group of 3 best friends working hard & smart for our BE project (BE project is Engineering students’ mandatory final year project in Mumbai University).

Our project was based around gesture recognition system. We had initially planned to just develop a hand gesture controlled game that captures inputs from the user’s hand gestures via a webcam. Unexpectedly, we finished our project well before time & had left with a plenty time for experimentation.

Hence, we modified our code into a hand gesture module & worked around it to be able to build another few applications such as Virtual Mouse, Virtual Paint & Arduino Robot. We also got our research paper published in IJRITCC. No wonder, we were to bag at least a consolation prize in the ISTE organized project competition called ‘Prakalpa’15‘ in our very own college. To our amazement, we won the 2nd prize.

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2. Project X is here to help you get your business online

I had been freelancing for a good 2 & a 1/2 years by now. These 2 besties of mine (Same 2 guys from my BE project), also got pretty enthusiastic about the idea of freelancing & growing their web skills. Their seriousness about freelancing itched me to think of some way to get our talent channelized.

And bang, we got our creative ruts running & started Project X. At Project X, we help you get your business online. Remember, your projects are as important as X in maths, to us.

3. Job? Oh yeah, I got 3 of it

To be honest, my college K. J. Somaiya Collge of Engineering is quite famous for its campus placements. Even if you got several number of KTs (I had just 1, that too in a practical) or an year drop, you’ve pretty high chances of getting placed.

There are these bulk recruiters like Accenture & Infosys who hire Engineers like shit (No offense meant, Accenture & Infosys. Keep employing us poor Engineers). I went though the recruitment process of both Accenture & Infosys, which was like an ice-cream job, to send home a happy news of me securing a job.

Around 200+ were selected including me, no big victory for me. Then I waited for the right company to come to our college. In the meanwhile, I kept my research on, looking for a fitting role in a fitting company. But, I had to wait longer than expected, we were almost done with the placements & I was still to find my perfect fit.

Then came BookMyShow on the verge of academic year’s end. They were looking for enthusiastic coders in the domain of Open Source, .NET & Data. I wanted to somehow get into web development or design. Since BookMyShow’s business was purely based on web, I decided to apply for this company as an Open Source Developer.

I wasn’t very sure about my interests in Open Source development, but I didn’t wanted to get stuck in a MNC & this seemed to me like the last opportunity before my job at Accenture (I had decided to go for Accenture if things didn’t go the way I had planned).

To my surprise, the BookMyShow Interviewer saw my potential in front-end (Thanks to my freelance projects & Designer resume) & considered me for the front-end job. He made me a promise to go back to the office & check whether they had a vacancy for a front-end newbie.

The very next day, a list of 13 shortlisted candidates from around 60 was announced & I was so damn pleased to see my name on it. Yes, things went pretty smooth thereafter. The 2nd Interview at BookMyShow was a memorable one.

The Interviewer was very energetic, young & visionary. During my interview, he visited my blog, went through a couple of my design series, shared his genuine feedback on the same & showed faith in my work. I’ll be ever grateful to him for giving me an opportunity to work as a Designer at BookMyShow even though I didn’t have any commendable design work under my belt. He said he liked my thought process and I could learn a lot of things here at BookMyShow. It is for him that I’m now designing User Interfaces for Ticketing Giant (Soon to be an Entertainment Giant).

4. Trust me, I’m an Engineer

Successfully completed BE project, secured a job at BookMyShow, who bothers about the degree now? Well, a degree is a degree after all. It doesn’t matter whether you hold a degree or not when you apply for your 2nd job or start your own startup. But, it do matter when you’re yet to get your 1st offer letter.

Enough of degree shit, what I do cherish about my Engineering is my college days, my college buddies, my college teachers, festivals, sports, treks, food fights over canteen bill, little treats over little achievements (Yes, buying a cell phone with your Dad’s money was also considered as an achievement then) & our semesterly vacations.

5. 1,00,000+ views milestone

I had started this blog back in Aug’12 as a learning experiment. Who knew I would develop such passion for blogging under the guise of learning WordPress. It took me 2 years to get pass the 50,000 mark & then just an year to double it up. That’s how little grows bigger & bigger ever after.

6. Opened an online print shop at Postergully

I’ve always been a strong believer of passion/personal projects. There’s no denying of the fact that it’s the passion projects that play a major role in your creative growth at personal & social level. Working in an agency or reputed company, switching jobs won’t earn you any special place in the designer community, passion projects will.

Postergully is like the icing on the cake, it allows you to monetize your designs that you had done just for fun or as a tribute to someone who had inspired you. The sales of my artwork have not been of any mention-able numbers, but that’s okay for me since I don’t actively upload or promote my artwork there. But, that doesn’t mean I won’t feel happy if you purchased any of my artwork.

So, go ahead & visit the store & let me know if I could design something that might catch the eyes of you awesome people.

7. Goa calling

My blog’s worth suddenly touched the sky when IndiBlogger & Tata Motors invited me to the launch of Tata Zica in ever awesome Goa. It was an all expense paid return trip to Goa & a night’s stay at 5-starer Alila Diwa (Mannn, I loved the fresh vibes this place instilled in me). Also, this was my 1st time flying in an airplane. The experience was surreal & I’m so damn happy & satisfied that my blog brought me all this glory. Earned it.

Wasn’t that an amazing year? I cherish & respect everything that 2015 has given & taught me. I believe that one may never stop growing if s/he never stops learning. May 2016 bring us a lots of learning lessons & we shall never stop growing.

I was inspired to collate my awesome moments of 2015 after I read this wonderful year review article by the design great, Tobias van Schneider. This man is intensively thoughtful & never misses out on giving me some crucial life lesson via his writings.