I had been watching WWDC Keynotes for many years and had read about some scholarship program for students but never really bothered to find out more about it. And why would I? I had barely coded in school and now was pursuing a mechanical engineering degree.

What changed? Well, my friend won the WWDC17 Scholarship, and that got me jealous. More importantly, what once seemed unattainable, now looked like a goal I too could set and possibly achieve. With a little bit of research, I found out that Apple selects 350 students each year, based on a project submission and a short essay question. What’s part of the Scholarship? A coveted ticket to the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, lodging for the week (need-based travel assistance was also offered) and a one-year membership in the Apple Developer Program. It was a pretty sweet deal.

I downloaded The Swift Programming Language, Apple’s free iBook to start learning Swift, the new language that was required for coding the project. This was August 2017, and I had just joined university and was reading the book whenever I had some free time. But it got boring because I wasn’t applying the concepts.

It is never too late

Time flew by, and it was March 2018, I hadn’t finished even half the book and Apple announced WWDC18, along with it the Scholarship program. This got me into a frenzy! The timing was, however, perfect. My classes for the semester had ended, and we were supposed to prepare for our end-semester examinations. Instead, I would put all my effort into my application.

The prompt was simple — code an interactive Swift Playground. Yes, that was it. The possibilities were infinite, but I knew my limitations. I had forgotten most of what I had read, having never actually coded anything using Swift. So the first step was to figure out what to make. I knew that I was good at design, but there had to be some practical use for what I made. I somehow landed upon the idea of creating an Income Tax Calculator. And I started by making an introductory animation, which was turning out to be pretty cool. But when it came to the calculation, I realised that the Indian Tax Code was impossible to implement in code in such a short time. I got in touch with my Chartered Accountant to understand the necessary provisions, i.e. the deductions. There were a lot of overlapping deductions, so I started mapping them out and then wrote code. Before I knew it, there were hundreds of lines, and I was oblivious to the hours flying by.

I spent an entire week, sleeping not more than 3–4 hours each night until I finished it a few hours before the deadline. Then I quickly wrote the answers to the essay questions and submitted it. With examinations looming, at least I wouldn’t be spending all my time anxious for the results.

The email finally came on 21st April 2018. And that marked the beginning of one of the best summers I would have!

Here’s the gist

• Attending WWDC is a fantastic experience, whether you’re a developer, designer or love Apple.

• If you are a student, the WWDC Scholarship is your way to get there (for free).

• It isn’t impossible to win, be creative and put in some effort.