Who am I?

[Photo by Elijah Hiett on Unsplash]

A convert!

Yea, you heard right. I haven’t always been on this path. For the most part of my life, I have had other people or random circumstances make decisions for me as regards certain milestones - the schools to attend, the course to study etc…

During my one-year compulsory service (NYSC), it dawned on me that I don’t want to practice what I just spent four years studying. I needed something challenging. I want to be a problem solver not just getting a job done. What I had spent four years studying in the university somehow did not seem to fit. I dread the routine, so I had to make a decision, and I did - I wasn’t going to pursue practising Quantity Survey.

NYSC was over, and I was back to my parents' house. Suddenly I was faced with the reality of my decision - what am I going to do next with my life? Should I go into business, should I further my education? Months kept rolling by, and my mind couldn’t seem to reach an agreement. I had ideas, except they were tech ideas. I didn’t know how to code, so I couldn’t bring my ideas to life and I didn’t have the money to pay someone to do it for me.

[Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash]

I tried learning to code - HTML, then CSS - then I got to JavaScript, and the tutorials started to bore me. The beginnings are always boring:

Open the console in your browser, type 1 + 1 and press enter
alert(‘I am here’)
prompt(‘Enter your name here’)
Console.log(‘I can do this’) 

I was like wtf… I want something tough… what’s all this? Don’t I know 1 + 1 will equal 2? So I quit. I couldn’t relate how the little things come together to help create the big things. Then the months started rolling by again - my ideas still burning in my heart. I was restless.

At this point, I started getting pressured to further my education. Somehow I began to dread the idea of going back to school, to study more quantity surveying. My parents wanted me to. So I took the form and waited for the admission list.

While waiting, (i.e. about 2 month’s after I quit learning to program) I summoned a little courage to try again, so, I went online to read about different programming languages to see which could really help me to build what I want, and python caught my attention, so I decided I was going to try python.

Then I was back to that same boring beginning:

Open the python interpreter, type 3 + 5
print ’this is a string’
str = ‘I am a variable’
print str

Will this get any better? I decided to be a bit patient.

[Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash]

Then the loops came and I faced my first challenge - write a code to generate prime numbers ..., and I couldn’t do it. Finally, something I couldn’t do. That was the beginning of my love for programming.

I decided I was going to get apply to Andela (a software development company that trains talents and outsource them to companies). I was inexperienced and was considering going through a rigorous, technical hiring process.

The admission list for masters came out and I had to convince my parents that I was not going back to school (It wasn’t easy). After different discussion, they eventually allowed me to ‘have my way’. I felt I had one chance, so I put in everything for me to get this job and after all the effort (about 4 different stages), I wasn’t hired. I was devastated.

My parents encouraged me to quickly go and accept the admission I was offered before I lose it, but I told them I wanted to try again. I did my best to convince them and eventually, they accepted. So I put in my best the second time and this time I got hired.

It’s been about a year and 2 months now since I decided to try programming again, now I’m working and growing in my technical skills, and someday soon, I’ll build my product.

So who am I?

I am Victor Ayodele and I am a tech convert.

You can pursue your dreams too!