The Journey: My First Month Experience Learning Tech

Introduction

Hi there,

This is Ini-obong Michael, and it's a real pleasure for me as I'll be taking you on a ride through my experience within the first month of my journey into the world of Tech.

The wrong notion

Truth be told, I had little or no knowledge about tech initially. It was one of those things I felt was for a selected few, probably for folks who had taken up Computer Science or any related course in school, who must have had prior knowledge of it.

It's true of the saying that what we don't know, we are afraid of. Meanwhile, the fact is that nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. In my case, I had a passion for tech, I've always been a lover of art and innovation but the problem was having the wrong idea. For someone whose discipline in school was Microbiology, I just thought Tech is way too different an aspect to go into then. But thankfully, at a point, I was able to see it from the right perspective, then my fears vanished and I decided to take the bold step into learning it.

What sparked my interest

Back then in my university days, I had a couple of friends and course mates who were into tech even while in school and most of them were already doing well. I, on the other hand, got busy with some other stuff. In my final year, a friend of mine talked to me about going into tech, since he was doing that already. He showed me a chat platform he was building while learning and it looked cool, I loved it, but then I still had to do my research so I don't just jump into any path.

How it all started

After I had graduated, that period of trying to find my path, an opportunity came and I applied for an internship where I got to learn a bit of Graphic design. After some time, my laptop crashed and I had no money to get it fixed, let alone buy a new one, (that was when Corona stroke) so I let it go, although, not totally because I was still making use of some phone apps to try out something. So, after that brief time away from practice, I heard about another digital skill-up program that was organized by The Incubators (a tech firm), so I applied for it and I went through the training. During the 2-week long training, I learned the basics of UI/UX.

In 2021, I went to serve (NYSC). While I was away, my mind had always been on how I could just get into tech again if I had my PC. Notwithstanding, I used that period to do a lot of research to know which path I should go into. I went to YouTube, watched videos and downloaded materials that had to do with web development. I tried to learn by myself but it wasn't helping much. I paid for some beginner crash courses on Udemy, SimpliLearn and other online skill-up academies, but I still had the challenge of not having a PC though.

So one day, I was discussing with a friend of mine who was also learning online then and he told me I could start with an IDE that would enable me to practice with my phone. I was happy getting to know that, and that's how I started learning how to code little by little with my phone. I did amazing stuff with it. I remember building a mock 3-page website, my friends saw it and were like "Wow! You did this with your phone?". That was a great encouragement to me. At a point, I just realized that I liked what I was doing, although I knew how challenging it could get. Having to type every single thing out on my phone was not easy at all. Not having a PC really slowed down my learning. I was tired and demotivated at a point, so I took breaks in between. Choosing the path to follow was a tough one, but based on my strong inclination to coding and advice from people I had reached out to who have been in the field for a while, I thought that with my little knowledge of Graphics design and UI/UX, I'd do well if I go fully into web development. So I decided to enroll in a boot camp I heard was coming up. I went for the front-end development path.

My walk into Renaissance Innovation Labs (RIL)

Towards the end of the year 2022, I was done serving, so I returned home. I was ready for it. So, I got a laptop, ready to join the boot camp at Renaissance Innovation Labs, which I got to know about through my friend. Getting there, I was told that I was a bit late. I was asked to join the next boot camp which was to come up the next year, so I waited and did just that. When the registration for the boot camp finally started, I was excited and it was like a long wait finally coming to an end, and that's how I began learning with RIL.

Challenges and successes

Through the first two weeks of learning with RIL, going to classes three times a week, it was all good and nice because we were still doing HTML, so the challenge was minimal. Afterwards, we went into CSS which lasted for 3 weeks. As I expected, it posed a bigger challenge. Some topics like grid and positioning weren't easy for me but I'm still learning and with time, I believe I'll get it perfectly well.

I was privileged to have really good and understanding instructors, coupled with the amazing colleagues I have, we got past that stage after it ended with a project which I would say was really tasking, although it's just the interface. It was a food delivery website that I pushed to GitHub (another tool we were thought how to use).

You can check it out here on GitHub via the link below. Let me know your thoughts.

https://inimichael.github.io/Food-delivery/

The main challenge came when I started learning JavaScript (I'm just two days into it). The logical part of it I guess is what's making it so challenging. But gradually, as I keep learning, I know it'll get better.

So far, so good...

The journey so far hasn't been a bed of roses. It came with a lot of challenges but at the end of the day, I learn from them and I take each challenge as a motivation to learn more and get better each day. In all, I'm happy that I chose this path and that I'm actually learning. I'm enjoying every part of my learning process, both the good times and the challenges it brings.

As we all know, learning never ends. Even those who have reached the peak of their careers never stop learning. The day you stop learning is the day your value starts going on the decline.

For me, it's a continuous process. I'm all out for it and at the same time, I'm looking forward to what the future holds. I know it can only get better.

Conclusion

In life, taking things one step at a time is always the right thing to do. The same applies to journeying into the tech industry. Definitely, the challenges and hurdles will come. But if you don't quit, you will overcome. There's no need to rush, just take your time, be determined and there'll be nothing stopping you!