In The Beginning...

My love for technology goes as far back as my childhood. I began using a computer at the age of 7 as my family had a desktop computer in our living room. My mother helped create my very first email address which I still use to this day.😅 I surfed the web a lot looking for girly online games, funny cartoons, and eventually, I made my first 'website' with an online tool that mostly enabled me to add text and insert pictures. I felt very accomplished, however, at that age.

I spent time fiddling with the computer, playing around with the in-built Microsoft programs, and drawing pictures of stick people and houses on Paint. I became quite conversant with the computer and started to troubleshoot minor software issues for my parents. I got my first personal computer in 2012 as it was required for my ICT subject back in secondary school. It was a small Acer laptop with the Windows 8 0S. Learning about computers in secondary school and watching beginner tutorials on YouTube on know-hows increased my love for computers. Consequently, I decided on studying Computer Science (Technology) for my undergraduate program at Babcock University, Nigeria.

My First Gadgets

I used my Acer PC for about four years before I upgraded to an HP Spectre 13t, to meet up with some software demands of my course work. The HP laptop enhanced my computing experience significantly, and some of its notable specs include a 512GB SSD, 8GB RAM, and the Intel Core i7. During the time of newly owning my Spectre, I was so immersed in my BSc program, working on projects that gave me an encompassing view and understanding of some technology fundamentals. Over the course of my getting my degree, some group projects I worked on included:

1. Student and Lecturer Classroom Scheduler (Database Management)
2. Family Budgeting Application (Software Engineering)
3. Academic Resource Locator (Artificial Intelligence)

Finding a Sense of Direction

With several resources at my disposal to help in my tech journey and a computer system able to handle technologies relevant to whatever path I may choose to follow, I had no idea what I wanted to do after I completed my bachelor’s degree.😥 I was only knowledgeable on the basics of a few programming languages but nothing concrete and engaging enough to settle with and start my career path.

I met with some Facebook employees in Lagos, Nigeria, a few months before I graduated. They organized a coding challenge I was fortunate to participate in. At the event, we started with introductions and delved right into three sections of tasks. In between the tasks given to us, a few of them spoke about their journeys in their respective fields, the positions and activities they engage in, at Facebook. It was a day filled with brainstorming, group participation, motivational words, food, and a few light jokes.

spot me in the middle with my curly hair😁

After that event, and being inspired by people of the company building great products I use every day, I decided to try web development. I got put on to Andrei Neagoie’s course- The Complete Web Developer in 2018 Zero to Mastery and, as I progressed in my learning, the stronger I realized my desire for developing solutions for the web. The popular saying goes;

“Practice makes perfect.”

This is what describes my journey so far in web development. I try to take on lots of challenges to sharpen my technical skills. I currently solve challenges on DevChallenges.io, FrontendMentor.io and Code Wars.

I wouldn’t call myself an expert at what I currently do, but I am much more confident in my prowess in HTML, CSS, and Vanilla JavaScript technologies than I was a year ago. I recently completed a challenge from BuyCoins Africa to replicate the GitHub page that lists my repositories using GitHub’s GraphQL API to retrieve the data and no frameworks. Check it out here! And yes, I will learn a framework soon as I have settled with React.

I choose React as the framework/library to learn because:

1. It is a JavaScript library with which I am familiar with JavaScript, I believe I will blend easily with its new concepts;
2. It is highly sought for by employers because of its many benefits across many enterprise cultures;
3. I like that React has a reusable component feature and great integration with most modern web libraries that will increase my development time as I currently write most codes from scratch (markup, styling, and dynamic techno).

Conclusion

I have my learning path outlined for 2021 in hopes to write more technical articles, learn a front-end library, and some more technologies. I believe this will boost my front-end development skills and make me confident to apply for front-end development roles in companies that build valuable products for clients.

Cheers to growth in the new year!🥳