My Journey Into Technology — The Genesys
Technology is the future or so I have heard a thousand times from different sources but as a young person, I never got to know what it means at the time. My curiosity began when I attended a venture capital meetup sometime in April 2018 at this event was an eye-opener on what technology meant, that it meant so much more. As a young electronic major, I never saw the value of tech beyond transistors, logic gates, and control engineering but here I was at this meetup that brought together industry leaders, startup founders, venture capital firms who by the way is a goal to become one and policymakers. In all honesty, I could barely remember the events of that day beyond a presentation by one of the startup Accounteer.
Accounteer was building for those small businesses struggling to grow due to the lack of accurate financial accounts. I was fascinated. These guys were disrupting an entire industry with a few lines of code, I mean someone went to school for four years to learn this accounting as a course. It was on this day I got hooked to learning the technology that powers the web.
Prior, my knowledge of technology never went beyond my school curriculum and now here I was in a new field. I was more than interested I was ready to get into building such a disruptive world also but How do I start?
NOW, THE JOURNEY
I was in my final year in school with a borrowed laptop which at the time I used for my project and it could only do so much as its specification wasn’t so great. I went to trying out so much, I got my hands dirty with a PHP as my first language and after a few weeks, I dropped it and was reading some random java course which I did not understand. And a few months later one thing led to another and things got complicated and my plan on getting in the disruptive technology world was put on hold.
During the first quarter of 2019, I had finally graduated from university, I was grateful because I needed a certificate and now I had one but what next? You Know, this is Nigeria.
This time I didn’t have the borrowed laptop and I was without a laptop. Time for my National Youth Service Corps(NYSC) came and gave me a unique opportunity to access soft loans which I took to purchase the laptop I currently use. I revert to my journal and got back to learning on my path to becoming a web developer.
This time, I dived into taking Angie Jones course Java for test automation which by the way is one of the best java courses for beginners available out there. And after a few weeks, I could understand write some basic java code but there was just one problem, I felt like nobody was going to hire a graduate with a few months old Java skills and there was just this need for basic HTML, CSS and JS knowledge always required as such I couldn’t even apply for any entry role or internships after my service year. It was at that point in knew I had to go back to the very basic of web technologies and I went ahead bought a course on Udemy sometime in December. It was also at this time I meet a crucial mentor Abdulbasit Kabir and he has been my guide who has helped me greatly in setting and meeting goal targets.
SKILLS ACQUIRED
My learning model has always been project-based. Tutorial and documentation have been the tools by which I have used to forge myself till this moment. I have been able to learn HTML, CSS, Javascript, and C#. During my time at start.ng a software development program I also picked up a keen interest in web development using asp.net. This has been my path for the past months and I have been growing in it tremendously thanks to my teacher and mentor Vincent Nwonah(MVP) on Microsoft product. He is a skilled engineer and I love his approach toward teaching the .NET framework. Start.ng taught me so much most especially about collaboration and teamwork, and with tools such as git for version control, slack for communication, and google meet for remote meetings, I would like to pride myself on being better than I got in to start.ng
Finishing start.ng as a finalist goal achieved, I was my team leader and I did as much as bringing in the right energy and communication skill required. My desire to lead comes from my will to grow. My desire to grow also lead me to join the famous HNGi7 internship program.
LESSONS LEARNT
Growth is a process. And I have come a long way from being the guy with a borrowed laptop to the guy who took a loan just so he can learn to code. During these times I have learned the importance of communication, networking, and owning your growth process. I believed what has helped me over thees passed months has been my ability to adapt to the learning and learning environment. Communicating with persons through social media platforms has given me more opportunities than I can access should I have not indulged and reached out through popular networking platforms such as twitter. Twitter has been a great instrument for my growth as a web developer.
MOVING FOWARD
I had just recently got accepted to the Genesys paid internship program codename learnable. Genesys run a software development internship for young talented graduates who want to build a career in technology and this is not the only best part. As a graduate trainee with Genesys, you also get trained in business development. Isn’t that awesome, what more could a trainee ask for? You get paid, you get trained in both software development and business development.
I have understood the importance of learning from those before me and there will always be challenges. and in the words of Karen Salmansohn “The most challenging times bring us the most empowering lessons.”
I’m excited mostly about the program considering it is coming at a time when I just finished service and the thought of job hunting will be after the program hopefully.