cover photo from freepik.com

hi hi!!

If you were anything like the "old" me, you would have sworn never to have anything to do with coding. The "old" me really liked the idea of being in tech, coding and hanging out with geeks (well, that was what I thought tech was all about). One thing however was that, I definitely did not want to be directly involved. As a matter of fact, I had many of my folks studying engineering and other tech-related courses and I was genuinely happy for them. However, I wasn't interested a tiny tad little bit.

front-end??

As an individual from a non-conventional background, I was already interning at a Quantity Surveying firm and I was doing pretty well (for starters. Lol). However, things changed at the start of the COVID19 lockdown in my state. I was bored to death so I started using the social media a lot. I was scrolling through my Instagram feed one day when I saw this sponsored ad by Pirple.com. It read "Learn the fundamentals of front end development for free". Prior to that time, a friend had told me to enrol for some free Google courses which I turned deaf ears to simply because I thought it was too complicated for my level of understanding. However, on that fateful day, I took my first step into the world of tech and web development. I enrolled for the class.

fascinating discoveries...

One thing I found fascinating about the basics of front end web development was that it was very visual. You get to see what you have coded unlike backend or any other aspect of coding. I could see my progress and I really loved that. I completed my online class on Pirple.com by building Instagram's landing page. I was super excited at the end of that project and my inner sensei was gradually awakening to the fact that I could actually excel in tech. I started to research more on free resources online to help with my journey into tech. This was when I discovered freecodecamp.org where I took the "Responsive web design" lessons alongside several tutorials from several other websites including w3schools.com and YouTube videos. By this time, I had already learnt enough skills to be able to apply to certain mentorship opportunities but I only applied for the Google Africa Developers Scholarship (GADS2020) programme in May, 2020.

This particular programme was so enlightening for me because I had premium access to certain Pluralsight content. The videos were really helpful and I had deadlines that I tried to meet up with which kept me on my toes. The really exciting parts of the experience for me were getting to work with teammates on a certain e-commerce project (which we didn't complete btw ;-)) and working on my final project which was building an album store project using angular js. I also learnt how to write clean code and how to write semantic html as well as CSS flexbox and CSS grid. I eventually completed this programme in October (Five months!!!)

she code Africa (SCA)

Fast forward to September, A very dear friend told me to apply for She Code Africa (SCA)'s mentorship programme which I did and I got in!!! Another three months of learning, unlearning and relearning and it has been a beautiful journey. I learnt about basic JavaScript syntax, data structures and algorithms, object oriented programming and a whole lot of other stuff. There was a curriculum that was being followed and I liked that we were not only learning how to code, we were also learning technical writing and speaking skills to make us well-rounded. My SCA project was building my personal portfolio (sad-easley-2c445c.netlify.app), something I had always wanted to do. It's not finished yet(I have not added my desired content yet) but I will, before the year ends (hopefully).

My journey into tech has so far taught me that I can achieve anything that I set my heart to do. I mean, I used to think coding and tech generally was for the smartest of us (I was wrong!!). Anyone can learn to code as long as they are genuinely interested in it. The amazing thing about tech is that you don't even necessarily have to write code!!! You can do other really cool stuff like Technical Writing, UI/UX design, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and even Data Analysis. Tech is a really interesting field and it excites me that every other field (medicine, construction, finance, even arts) rely on tech to thrive in the 21st century.

in conclusion...

I'm really glad that I chose to venture into tech and I look forward to the amazing opportunities it has to offer. Going forward, I will learn a JavaScript framework (React JS) so that I can build amazing websites and help solve problems in my own little way. Also, I would like to contribute to Open Source projects. This will be my way of giving back to my community, which has helped me thus far. You can also share your journey with me in the comments section below. Ciao!!!