If you're an IH in college, tell us about yourself!
I'm Cindy. 👋 I'm glad that I found IH and get to hear about people building their own projects. I think that sounds way more satisfying than working for someone else.
I'm studying computer science, but I don't feel like anything I'm learning is useful for doing the kind of coding I want to do, websites and apps.
I have met a lot of very bright people at my school, but not many are thinking about starting a business.
How did you hear about indie hacking?
What are you working on?
Does anyone else feel like the odd bird because they're thinking about starting their own thing?
Hey Cindy! I am Ananya. I am from India and I am in the final year, studying Computer Science. Even I feel like things taught in college are not useful. My college is not very strict with attendance in the final year so I am able to bunk classes and work on my projects. Before this, there was the Covid lockdown and colleges were closed. So I got away with missing almost 2 years (and counting) of college haha. I know it sounds unfair but I think I used the opportunity I was presented. I spent most of the time preparing for the campus placements, and now I am very happy to say that I will be joining Citi India after graduating. I spent the rest of the time on internships, learning languages etc.
I was reading an article on dev.to and came across this site and I instantly liked it. Since then I have been regularly checking it.
I am currently working on a project that I will be launching soon, its about Chess. If you want to know more about it then let me know, I would love to show it to you.
And about this "Does anyone else feel like the odd bird because they're thinking about starting their own thing?", what I have observed is that people want to start their own thing, but no one is taking any action to do so. I am not saying that they should just start now, but they should educate themselves about how to do so. They can read books about it, watch youtube, listen to podcasts etc but no one is doing that. Just saying 'I want to do a startup' will not help.
Well thank you for asking this, I think my experiences (as an Indian student) are a bit different from others. I hope you like this!
When I started uni as cs student in 2013 I thought everyone would be into building startups. As you've also noticed, that's far from the case.
I hacked on side projects, started hanging out on product hunt, and eventually IH when it launched. And yes, felt a bit odd when most people where interested in working at big tech.
I still enjoyed my education though and really liked spending time on complex problems, even if it's not always directly related to building web apps (I did my MSc in theoretical cs and programming languages).
Today I'm working on a CRM system for individuals and small teams Wobaka, and building it with Clojure, my favorite language :).
Hi Cindy, nice to meet you! My name is Sahana and I am studying Industrial Engineering. I heard about Indie Hackers through the YouTuber Ali Abdaal. Currently I am working on a newsletter about side projects. I don't have any hardcore entrepreneurship plans at the moment, just making stuff for fun and seeing what sticks.
I definitely feel like an odd bird, it's hard to find other indie hackers in college (both IRL and online) so I'm glad you made this post!