Training, Growth, and Real-World Experience at OpenSense Labs

At OpenSense Labs, we believe learning happens through hands-on experience, mentorship, and real-world problem solving. In this blog, our intern Mohnish shares his journey of learning Drupal, building projects, and contributing to open source during his training program.

Starting from the Ground Up

When I started this training, I honestly did not know what I was getting myself into. I had a rough idea of what Drupal was, a content management system, something used by big websites, but I had no real sense of how deep it actually goes. By this time of the training period, I can say with confidence: it goes very, very deep.

This is not a technical write-up. This is just an honest account of the experience, what the learning felt like, where I struggled, where things clicked, and what I am taking away from it.

Building Layer by Layer

The training started with the basics, not jumping straight into Drupal, but first making sure the foundation was solid. Things I thought I already knew, I realised I only half understood. That structured approach turned out to be one of the best decisions of the programme.

Instead of rushing to the interesting parts, I took the time to make sure each layer was solid before building on top of it. It felt slow at the time.

By the time I actually got into Drupal itself, I was ready for it. Not fully, nothing prepares you fully, but ready enough to make sense of what I was looking at.

The Moment Things Got Hard

There is a specific kind of frustration that comes from working on something complex when you cannot quite see how all the pieces connect. I felt that a lot during the middle phase of this training.

Drupal has a lot going on under the surface. It looks straightforward from the outside: you log in, you manage content, you build pages. But the moment you start building something custom, you realise there is an entire world of systems, patterns, and conventions that experienced developers carry around in their heads.

I did not have that knowledge yet. So a lot of early sessions involved getting stuck, asking questions, thinking about it overnight, and slowly seeing the picture emerge. It was uncomfortable. It was also, I think, the most valuable part of the whole experience.

Something I learned:  Getting stuck is not a sign you are bad at this. It is a sign you are working on something real. Every time I pushed through a blocker, the next similar problem was easier. That compounding effect is what training is really about.

Building Real Things

The projects we worked on throughout training were not toy examples. They were real features with real requirements, things that would actually be useful, not just exercises designed to tick boxes. That made a big difference to how seriously I took them.

The most challenging project was building a complete module from scratch, something that addressed a real gap and required me to understand not just how to write the code, but why Drupal works the way it does.

That shift from “how do I make this work” to “why does this work this way” is probably the biggest intellectual growth I experienced in the entire programme.

Contributing to Something Bigger

Towards the later stages of training, I started contributing to open-source Drupal modules. This was a completely different experience from building your own project, and a humbling one.

When you are working on your own code, you set the standards. When you contribute to a community project, the community sets the standards. Every change gets reviewed. Every issue needs to be documented clearly. Every fix needs to hold up to scrutiny from people who have been working with the codebase far longer than you have.

That process forced a level of discipline and communication I had not needed before. It also gave me a genuine sense of satisfaction that is hard to put into words.

What I Am Actually Taking Away

Looking back on this training period, the things I am most grateful for are not the specific things I learned; they are the habits and mindsets that formed alongside the knowledge.

I learned to sit with confusion instead of panicking. I learned to read carefully rather than skimming for quick answers. I learned to ask better questions. I learned to think about code from the perspective of the person who will maintain it next, not just the person writing it now.

A genuine thank you to Anmol Doel and Shivam Sen for mentoring throughout this training. The guidance, the patience through difficult moments, and the honest feedback all made a real difference. This experience would not have been the same without that support.

The journey is still going. There is always more to learn, more to contribute, more to build. But the foundation is solid now, and that is everything.

We're proud of the progress Mohnish has made throughout his training journey. Experiences like these reflect our commitment to nurturing talent through continuous learning, collaboration, and open-source contribution.