How I became an Author while being a student?

Srishti Guleria -

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This article captures how I became a technical Author in a couple of months while being a student. I wanted to become an Author for a long time but did not have the idea of how to accomplish it. It all started with an Internship, expressing my interest of authoring a book with my mentor and working on the idea with full focus for a couple of months.

Over this article, I have shared my journey and some of the lessons I learnt which you should follow as well.

A Litte bit about myself 👧

I am Srishti Guleria, an undergraduate student pursuing my degree in Computer Science and Engineering at Rajasthan Technical University, Kota. I have a deep passion for technology and development. I am an Open Source enthusiast, a technical writer, Algorithmic Problem Solver, and have knack for Web Development and Machine Learning. I believe in the power of community and have hosted many events at my University.

I have looked into and worked around an immense variety of technologies in various languages. I am the recipient of multiple scholarships.

My passion for technology has been the biggest driving force to contribute towards spreading knowledge. My passion is driven by the fact that I want to help people understand Computer Science better. From reading various technical articles to becoming an author myself, the journey has been super exciting.

It all started when I was a kid. I remember working on Microsoft Logo, Paint and playing games. I always wondered how this all functioned. The satisfaction I got on successfully solving coding problems further strengthened my will to take this field up as my career choice. With this curosity, I chose computer science and engineering after my schooling. This exposed me to a whole new world. I started to connect with amazing people, organise and conduct numerous talks and workshops.

Internship 💻

It started when I started with my Internship at OpenGenus. I wrote about 2D arrays in C++ as my screening task and at that time, my focus was covering this topic in depth. It went well and I started my Internship on 11th January 2021.

I started with my mentor and expressed my interest in Algorithms and Machine Learning.

Previously, I went through some nice books by my mentor and other OpenGenus members on Amazon. It all started when I asked my mentor if it is possible to me to become an Author or a Contributor to one of OpenGenus's upcoming books. This was the turning point.

We kept a positive view and moved forward with the idea of becoming an author. After working on a couple of different topics like:

We decided to move forward with the idea of a Book completely focused on Binary Tree data structure.

One lesson I would like to share: Ask people around you anything you have in mind even though it might seem difficult or impossible. Things can take a turn anytime.

I started to do an Internship and in the path, I became an Author.

My Book

I believe with grit and passion everything is possible. The understanding of the concepts is vital to teach something. I wanted to author a book since long.

Finally, after working non-stop on various aspects of Binary Tree for nearly 2 months, our book was ready.

Our book: "Binary Tree Problems: Must for Interviews and Competitive Coding" is carefully crafted to present you the knowledge and practice (around the data structure, Binary Tree) needed to ace Coding Interviews and Competitive Coding Contests.

The book takes you through the fundamentals of Binary Tree, presents how to implement it in a good and secure way, make you practice key problems, present variants like Threaded Binary Tree, Binary Space Partitioning Tree, Skewed Binary Tree, AVL Tree, Treap and much more.

See a glimpse of our book (Page 136 and 137):

This is not the end. While working on the technical aspect, I realized that I have an artistic side as well. I proposed this sample design for our book which formed the basis of the final cover:

As you can see now, we worked over the prototype design and polished it to prepare the final cover of our production ready book.

Another lesson: You can do anything. You need to try different things occasionally.

I started to do an Internship and gain some experience but with my hardwork and drive to do more, I became:

  • A technical Author
  • Maintainer at OpenGenus

Another lesson: Do your thing with full focus. When you give your best, results are more than expected and even, normal things can turn out to be extraordinary.

Book Published 🎉

Our book was published on 13th May 2021 worldwide.

The best part of the book is that there is no other book in the Market that covers the content we have covered. It feels satisfying that I have filled a void and contributed to the community.

It has been a couple of weeks and our book is doing good. It ranked #1 on New Releases in Algorithm Programming on Amazon.com.

Concluding note

OpenGenus has been an integral part of my life to help me accomplish this. I love opensource and this community is thriving. This gave me the opportunity to contribute and work on various technical topics and finally, become a Technical Author.

Another lesson: Writing a book is difficult and usually, takes over a year but with hard work and working with people with similar focus, we can complete big tasks easily. Stay focused and never get discouraged with amount of work/ effort.

I have looked into immense variety of fields and participated in various hackathons. I wish to spend my life exploring various fields and spreading knowledge. I want to empower communities and help opensource thrive.

Usually, I spend most of my day solving coding problems and developing projects.
When I am not on Computer, I spend most of my time writing poetry and petting dogs. I have had a journey full of learning and I am looking forward to learn and grow!

I strongly, feel this is just the start. Many more interesting things is yet to happen.

Find Sristi online:

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