When I was in secondary school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew I was not going to further my education afterwards but I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing. Immediately after I graduated from secondary school, I received a scholarship as the best graduating student to study in a computer school for 4-6 months. We learned how to use Microsoft Office, how to type and just the basics of using the computer. That was where my knowledge about computers started.
After the training I discovered that I loved web design and started working with Joomla (A free and open-source content management system for publishing web content on websites). A friend of mine introduced me to WordPress and I found it interesting to use and I’ve been using it for a while. At a point I felt discontent with just using Content Management Systems (CMS) in creating websites. I knew I could do that well but I wanted to know how to code from scratch. So when I was 18, I signed up for a coding class. It was an initiative from the Lagos state government. I learnt python throughout the class but it wasn’t in-depth and it was difficult for me to grasp. I got scared because the development time was overwhelming for me so I dropped off.
Sometime in January, I decided to start again from scratch. I started with HTML. I had friends who were good at it and I gained knowledge from them. Then in March I got to hear about the Ingressive for Good scholarship program with Zuri and signed up to learn frontend development
Before the Zuri program I didn’t have the confidence to seek jobs. I felt I didn’t know enough to even apply for jobs. With what I’ve gained now, I’m currently looking out for internship opportunities as a web developer.
I networked with over 120 people from the Zuri program and we organized ourselves into a networking group where we get to create projects together and learn from each other. We get to teach each other what we know and that has really helped me because the more you share about what you know, the more you know.
The blog posts on Ingressive for Good website have also been really helpful for me since I got into tech. When I go on medium I read a lot of articles from Ingressive for good beneficiaries who write about the lessons they learned from Ingressive for Good and those also impacted me.
I have spread the word about Ingressive for Good with friends, one of which is with me and currently on the program as well. I’m so grateful and impressed by how much the community is impacting African youths. I look forward to completing my program and being a member of the I4G Alumni community. I look forward to learning more and increasing my earning power through tech jobs.