My Journey to becoming a world-class Software Engineer.

I am Cassie🙍‍♀️, a girl in her early 20s who wants the best for herself. Passionate and driven by the quest to succeed.

During the pandemic, I was introduced to tech by my sister. According to her, she is certain that I can do it and that I have what it takes to excel in the space – the analytical skill, the problem solving skill, the resilience, the drive to excel and being able to put in the work. So, she recommended for me this YouTube video that I started with. I continued researching different tracks to know where I could fit in. I realized that frontend has to do with solving problems associated with the clients' side and that it requires knowledge of web design in most cases. I spent these whole times researching, following tech twitter and getting acquainted with what tech really entails.

I wrote my first ‘Hello World’👩‍💻 at this stage. I was beyond excited and somehow fulfilled. As a beginner, it meant a lot to me😩.

Fast forward to when I bumped into an advertisement for a tech school - Zuri Team, in 2021. It was an opportunity to get trained and to begin my career in a more organized way, I thought to myself. I made the decision to enroll. I thought of the track I can easily combine with my Law degree. Studying Law at the University of Nigeria Nsukka demands a whole lot. I knew this, I also knew that choosing any demanding tech track will not be a good idea especially at that period where schools were rushing to meet up with the months lost to the pandemic. I knew it would be difficult juggling between Frontend development and my Law degree. I chose UI/UX design track.

I enjoyed working with figma and I learnt a lot about the User experience part of the studies. We were then taught clients’ interview, identifying pain points, drawing up user notes for various user personae and finally creating low fidelity and high fidelity prototype of a cloth donation platform using figma. We were taught about colors, padding, white spacing and a lot more. We were given tasks and deadlines which I worked so hard to meet. The project phase came and I was shortlisted among the students who are qualified for it. Unfortunately my excitement was caught short when my school examination timetable came out the same period🙅‍♀️. At this point I had to make a choice to quit one. Of course it wasn’t a hard decision to make; because four years already spent studying law cannot be wasted. Sadly, I dropped from Zuri at that point.

Towards the end of 2021, opening my Twitter I saw where I was mentioned by my sister. It was a tweet for sponsorship into the Altschool Africa - an Engineering school. I immediately responded stating that I really wished to get into tech to learn Frontend in a more organized manner. At that point I was already in my final year in school, about to graduate. So I had ample time to learn my dream track. On a fateful day, I opened my twitter and saw a notification where my name was mentioned.

It was the response to the comment I made two days before then. I was mentioned as one of the lucky ones who got selected for the sponsorship. I didn’t believe it at first, until I checked closely. It was my name. I confirmed it🤭. I was beyond excited. I proceeded to apply formally with the sponsorship coupon.

I got into the slack group where we were informed about the assessment that would qualify us as students. The application phase was not the only criteria, we were to take an assessment test of 100 questions within a period of one hour. The most striking part of the information was the cut-off score. We were informed that any score below 85% was no pass😭.

I was nervous. I downloaded my learning materials and started studying. The terms I came across in the programming part of the resource were not new to me, thanks to my self learning days. I was gaining confidence as I studied further. My school work was also there, waiting for me. I continued pushing until I couldn’t, I broke down in tears. I needed motivation at this point and I got it.💪 Thanks to my sister and a classmate who came around to visit at that time.

I got back to reading for the assessment, writing my project and studying after school but this time, in a more defined way.

When the quiz link came, I was a bit scared again but I had the courage of someone who is prepared. I decided to write mine at night.

It was a Saturday night. I prayed and was set to write it. At this point, I was ready for any outcome. I opened my laptop, connected it to my phone’s hotspot and then opened the link. It was a combination of English Language, aptitude tests and basic programming languages. A hundred-Question assessment. I went through the questions as I ticked the answers I assumed correct. I submitted a few minutes to the time I am supposed to submit. My heart was beating fast.

Before I could shut down my laptop, my phone beeped. It was an email notification from Altschool. It read ‘Altschool Assessment Exam Result’.😳 My heart began to throb faster as I unlocked my phone. I opened it and behold I saw 90% as my score.😊 It was an experience indeed. My night was made. In fact my whole year was made. ‘What if I had given up’ I thought to myself as I finally lay down to sleep.

I announced to whomever cared to listen- my friends, family group. They were all excited.

It was April, the official Altschool resumption date. I waited patiently for that day. We were taught how to use the learning management system. The LMS was the platform for all our learnings - the text and the video content.

I logged in to the platform after setting my profile. I immediately scrolled down to where my first semester week one lecture materials are. I started watching and reading up the contents for the week. I learnt why technology is important. Technology was defined as the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and the use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society and environment. I also learnt that it is important because of the possibility to use technical means to create cars, instant messages and light bulbs for electricity which makes life, society and environment more comfortable.

We were also taught how to use various platforms such as the electronic mail, slack, the learning management system and google calendar. Although these platforms are intuitive for any user who had used them before, I learnt newly the function of ‘Bcc’ (Blind carbon copy) in email. It is used to send mail to multiple recipients or to copy multiple recipients to a mail without these recipients knowing they were copied or without notifying them about other people that were copied alike.

First week has ended and I am so excited about what's next.