Most students hear about hackathons, open source and developer communities in their third or fourth year. By then, a lot of the best chances to use...
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Omg that's great! I wish I would come, but I am from another country entirely lol. XD
One advice I would tell myself, and to all first-year students, is start being proactive. You don't need to wait for permission to do something like doing open source, create projects, etc.
A lot of people, including myself, falls under this predicament where we just do the bare minimum and in hopes we get a job after college. 1% of people can do that surprisingly, but it's really rare, especially with networking. Do beyond what college teaches you. If there are opportunities, you take it. Don't let it sit and fade out. You will be surprise on how much progress you have made in a short amount of time.
Thanks Dhruv and have fun organizing the event! Shout me out if you want :D
I'll surely shout you out. You're the most famous person on DEV for me.
At the end part of the event, I'm gonna talk about DEV, MLH and Hacktoberfest.
So, people become aware, as I wasn't till v start of my final year. And start doing things early that I did v late.
This is a massive win for the local community, Dhruv. Sharing that 'start early' realization is the best gift you can give to younger students. It takes a ton of trial and error to figure this out on your own, so breaking that cycle for them is elite work. Have a killer event, man!
100% facts. Relying solely on a college degree to get hired in today's tech market is a high-risk strategy. Building in public and hitting that 'open source' button early is what actually makes your resume stand out. Proactivity is the real cheat code.
Louder for the people in the back! That '1% getting lucky with the bare minimum' stat is scary accurate, but relying on it is a massive gamble. Going beyond what classes teach you is the only real way to stand out now. Solid take, man.
Alright, let's make this useful 👀
If you could go back to your first year of college, what's ONE thing you wish someone had told you earlier?
Could be about open source, hackathons, AI, internships, communities, projects, anything.
Drop it below — I'm genuinely going to collect the best answers and bring them into the meetup. 🚀
Stop waiting until you 'know enough' to start building. Tutorials are a comfort trap. Pick a real, annoying problem you have, open an IDE, and hack together a terrible solution. You learn 10x more from fixing broken code than from watching someone else write perfect code.
This is such a great initiative! 😸
If I could go back to my first year of university, I think meeting a community I could really get involved in or finding a mentor early on, would have changed my life quite a bit.
I really like that you’re creating that opportunity for students now. Good luck with the event! 🚀
Thanks for the kind words!😄
Actually my story is the same, I came up across these opportunities in my final year just 3-4 months ago and it helped me a lot in interview, gain confidence and everything. Hope I can make people aware of it and they don't miss out like I did.
Have A Great Day!
That’s exactly why your meetup is going to be so impactful. Realizing how much 3-4 months of active networking changes the game is a massive wake-up call. Passing that knowledge down so underclassmen don’t miss out is top-tier leadership. Good luck with the session, Dhruv!
Heavy on the community aspect. Having a solid circle or a mentor early on cuts down the learning curve by like 10x. It changes your whole trajectory because you stop guessing what to do next and actually see how the industry works. Spot on advice!
Heavy agree on the mentorship part. Finding a solid mentor early on is literally a fast-track for your career. It completely reshapes how you learn and approach problem-solving. Such a massive value add for these students.
Woww !!! That's a awesome newsss
Thanks!😄
third or fourth year" problem is real — I watched half my batch graduate without ever touching a real codebase that wasn't a college assignment. Running Claude Code on local open models is a solid pick for the session, most students think AI = ChatGPT and never see what runs on their own machine. One thing: make sure people leave with at least one merged PR, not just slides. That's the difference between inspiration and actually starting.
Real talk. Graduating without touching a production codebase is way too common and honestly pretty wild. Love the idea of pushing them to get a merged PR on day one — that’s how you actually break the ice with open source. Slides are neat, but shipping is everything.
Heavy on the 'one merged PR' advice. Slides and theory inspire people for about an hour, but actually getting a pull request approved and merged onto a real repo changes a student's entire mindset. It completely demystifies open source. Elite advice.
This is awesome! Good luck. You'll do great and can't wait to hear how it went!
Thanks! I'll definitely share about how it went and all!
That 8-12 week wait for international swag shipping is so relatable. At The Printing World, custom packaging logistics can be tricky too, so seeing open models streamlining workflow updates like this is super cool. Great agenda!
Fr, waiting 3 months for a Hacktoberfest t-shirt is a rite of passage at this point. But using open models to bridge the gap between digital workflows and physical logistics/packaging is where tech gets really interesting. Awesome to see it applied to real-world bottlenecks!
Cool Bro. I'm happy we're organizing it together!
Yes, and sorry I didn't mention your name in the post but I was planning a small team of volunteers and wanted the post to be just about the fest!😅
this hacktoberfest explanation helped, thanks
શુભકામનાઓ!
ધન્યવાદ!
nyc buddy
Organizing an official MLH Hacktoberfest meetup entirely as a solo student is an absolute power move. Huge respect, Dhruv! Open source is exactly how you bridge that gap between college assignments and actual production code. Have an amazing event!
Hello, I have a question about the Hacktoberfest Meetup.
Will there be a way to join the event online, for example through a video stream or recording, for people who cannot attend in person?
Also, is the event open to everyone or only students, and is participation completely free?
Thank you!
This is awesome. Building community and bringing Hacktoberfest to your campus is real leadership. Companies love to see this kind of initiative when hiring grads. Wish I had someone pushing me into open source in my first year. Keep up the amazing work!
what i wish someone told me: you don't need permission, expensive hardware, or a cs degree to start building. constraints force you to be creative.
i'm 12, and i've been building koda (an ai coding mentor) entirely on a $150 android phone with 4gb of ram. no macbook. no fiber internet. just raw constraints that forced me to ship a 92kb single-file vanilla js app that loads on 3g networks.
the students in nadiad don't need to wait until they "know enough" or have the "right setup." they can start today with whatever they have. open source doesn't care about your hardware. it cares about your curiosity.
massive respect for organizing this solo, dhruv. the fact that you're teaching claude code on free open models means these students will learn that ai isn't just chatgpt — it's something they can run, audit, and build on themselves. that's the real cheat code. 🐯🚀
Việc sinh viên đợi đến năm cuối mới bắt đầu tìm hiểu về open source thực sự là một lãng phí lớn về mặt cơ hội. Mình từng mất khá nhiều thời gian loay hoay với các pull request đầu tiên vì không hiểu quy trình đóng góp chuẩn của cộng đồng. Thay vì chỉ đợi đến lúc cần thực tập mới bắt đầu, việc tham gia các sự kiện như Hacktoberfest hay các buổi meetup tại trường ngay từ năm nhất năm hai sẽ giúp xây dựng "muscle memory" về cách làm việc với Git và review code cực kỳ tốt. Những kết nối trực tiếp tại các buổi offline như thế này thường mang lại giá trị thực tế hơn nhiều so với việc chỉ học lý thuyết suông trên giảng đường PS: the tool I meant is on labagent .tech