I rounded up my internship about three weeks ago and I should have put out this article then but I have been procrastinating. This is partly because I was having a bitter-sweet feeling about ending my internship. I am happy because I got the opportunity to learn a whole lot with the most supportive mentor and community (JupyterHub) but I had to deal with the fear of not knowing what follows after Outreachy.

I spoke to my mentor about this fear and with his help, I was able to have a Coffee-chat with someone in the community who I admire and can confidently say embodies all I aspire to be. I also talked to members of Jupyter Lab's accessibility team who helped me immensely during my internship. Now, instead of seeing rounding up my internship as a dead-end, I see it as a stepping stone to even more amazing opportunities.

What feels like the end is often the beginning

In three months, I have gone from doubting my technical skills, and not being able to initiate conversations or ask questions to doing so seamlessly. Right now, I might not know everything but I have the right attitude to learn ANYTHING I set my heart to because of how helpful and supportive my mentors and members of the JupyterHub community were to me. My technical skills and interpersonal skills have improved. I am grateful for this and hope one day, I will be able to pour the knowledge I have gained into others.

I started Outreachy with knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap and Angular. But right now, I am exploring Python, testing (using Pytest, Playwright) and React framework. I plan to continue developing my skills as I keep learning and contributing to Open-source.