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My First Introduction to WordPress

I dropped out of engineering college in my 3rd year.
I didn’t have much to do all day, so I joined a friend’s company and started working as an intern.
That was a good decision, and although I was introduced to WordPress there, trust me, at that time I didn’t know coding at all. I only learned HTML at that moment.
My friend who ran the company became my first WordPress mentor, guiding me through the WordPress dashboard and showing me how to tweak a WordPress theme.
That much knowledge was enough for me to survive a month-long internship. (It was 3 months but I left after a month)
Money plays an integral part in our lives and that’s why when I got a job at a call center with a decent salary, I accepted the offer right away. That was a start towards a fruitful journey.
Most of the employees at the call center were like me from college.
Once a friend asked me that since I was doing Engineering could I help him make a website for his college festival. I happily agreed, and then came home and started searching for event-based WP themes, and WP themes for college events.
And that’s how I landed up on the 2014 WCMumbai website.
Going through few more pages I came to know that WordCamp is a WordPress Conference and it was happening a month later in Mumbai. I planned to attend. I found a post that read ‘Call for Volunteers’. I applied as a volunteer, and soon got a call from Aditya.
You can read about my volunteering journey here.
With that, I truly started to appreciate what WordPress is, what Open-source is, blogging is, and what exactly a true community is all about.
Soon, I started engaging with the WCMumbai community. I started attending local WordPress meet-ups and other WordCamps all across India. And I’ve done that right up to this very moment.

Discovering WordCamps:
I was so happy to see the scale of the WordPress community.
What I’ve learned from working with WordPress is, you don’t need to feel or be a major techie to get involved. WordCamp welcomes beginners and experienced the same way. There is always more to learn on the basis of your expertise level.

WordCamps are WordPress conferences, usually taking place for one to two days. WordCamps are open to anyone who loves WordPress, whether a developer, blogger, designer, SEO, UI/UX expert, entrepreneur, business or a not for profit organization.
Everyone here comes to discuss, share knowledge/ideas and establish networking/relationships for their personal, professional and WordPress growth.

Wordcamps I have been part of

WordCamp Mumbai – 2014
WordCamp Mumbai – 2015
WordCamp Mumbai – 2016
WordCamp Pune -2016
WordCamp Mumbai – 2017
WordCamp Pune – 2017
WordCamp Ahmedabad – 2017
WordCamp Udaipur – 2018

Inspiring people I met at WordCamp:
These are only a few of those inspiring people that you will find in WordCamps across India. And, there is a lot to learn from them.
I would like to name a few:
Alex
Aditya
Ratnesh
Vachan
Saurabh Shukla
Nirav Mehta
Rahul Bansal
Nagesh Pai
Raghavendra Peri
Karthik Magapu
Bigul Malayi
Mahangu Weerasinghe
And the list goes on …

My Future with WordPress :
Within 7 days of passing out of engineering college in 2015, I got a job! And I was chosen for it because I knew what WordPress is and how to customize any WordPress theme.
It has since been 3+ years that I have been working with Flying Cursor Interactive. I use WordPress on a daily basis, and love coming up with unique solutions to problems using it.
I don’t know where the future will take me. For now, I am just going with the flow.

Your Future with WordPress:
The WordPress community is so welcoming that you don’t have to be a developer, don’t have to feel completely techie or know coding to feel a part of it. Working with WordPress is very simple. And the best part is, if there’s something that you don’t know how to do, you can reach out to the community. And you’ll find a group of people who want to support you along on your journey.

Why should I attend WordCamps?
Why Not?
Even if you are not working with WordPress, just attend a WordCamp happening in your city to have fun and meet other people who are just like you or just as new to WordPress as you are. There is usually a casual after party for you to meet new friends, business partners, employees, employers, and life partner too (because who knows?).

What people think I do at WordCamps:
Parents – “What is this WordCamp you go to in different cities?”
Brother – “Get an XL size t-shirt for me.”
Friends – “What is WordCamp? What is WordPress”
Girlfriend – “Get me some swags.”
Me – “Let’s have some good time networking and meeting new people”.”

So even if you aren’t planning to attend WordCamp and just read my story, I request you to please attend a WordCamp in your city. Because I’m sure you will find a reason to attend the next one.
Looking forward to meeting you at some WordCamp.