Projects : A way to learn!

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What are projects? Do they really matter for internships or jobs? If yes, then how do I get started with them?
In simple terms, a project is basically practical implementation of development skills & a way to learn how to code your ideas! Depending upon which development skills are being used in a project, it can be classified as a machine learning project or android project or something else.

Now, do they really matter for an internship or job? The short answer is YES, they do matter very very much.
If I ask you some simple questions like-

Is playing matches really important for cricketers?
Is composing music really important for musicians?
Is politics really important for politicians?

The answer is off course yes for all above questions because that's what each of them is mainly supposed to do. Similarly, once you get a job or an internship, you will be supposed to work on a project with your team, that's what you will be supposed to do. Now some of you might say, that's what we are supposed to do during the internship or job, so what is the need to make projects before getting internship or job? Answer is simple, if you want to select a cricket team for your colony/society, you will select those people who have at least held cricket bat once in their life right until & unless you want to loose? So, companies tend to select those candidates who have done some projects already, they don't want you to be the Virat Kohli of development skills but at least you should be a colony champion :).
I had no programming experience before joining my college, so in first year while talking about projects and all, my reaction used to be like-

😂Now before I talk about how to get started with projects & what level of projects are expected by you, let me tell you about the projects that I made when I was in second year & before I applied for Microsoft internship-

4 machine learning projects.
E-Learning platform with Django.
A simple game with JAVA.
Some simple GUI applications with Python.
Text compressor based on Huffman coding.

I just mentioned four projects out of above in resume & trust me 4-5 projects are more than good to go. Do remember, no one wants you to make FaceBook as a project, your project idea should make sense, it can be something that is beneficial for society like blood donation website, it can be a text classifier, image classifier, etc. Don't make projects to get a job or internship, make them out of curiosity & for learning.The only point is, you must be able to explain the interviewer about the projects regarding-

Why did you choose that project?
How that project can impact our society, obviously positively?
How your coding part actually works, you can use flowchart, diagrams, etc.?

You will be definitely asked about above questions in your interview. You might be asked to write a small segment of the code of project, so please make sure you are comfortable with such questions.

Now, how to do projects?

Start with exploring development skills. Explore about machine learning, web development, android development, etc. on YouTube, blogs, websites. See what hits you the most, then start learning it. For beginning use YouTube tutorials, websites, blogs or some other free resources. Then if you want, you can take some paid courses, depending upon your financial allowances.

Start with building basic things like a calculator ( GUI application ), tic tac toe ( android development ), blood donation website ( web development ), etc. Make sure your coding skills( data structures & algorithms ) are good before doing projects so that you actually do projects & learn from them, not just copy-paste. Once you get some idea of development, then try to build more complex projects, remain dedicated & surely one day your dreams will come true.

Checkout this link to get ideas about projects and start building your first project - Computer Science Projects.

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