Aright, c’mon, let’s do this……#clears throat. I’m sure you’re wondering if that few seconds prep-up was necessary, well, honestly, I needed it, to send my brain a ginger-up alert to start writing this piece and stop saying “oh I’ve got nothing to write about, besides, what would I be writing on, that has not been written already”. 😩

Here in my head, I’ve created nice articles to write on, and in this same head of mine, I’ve criticized almost all of them. I’ve been on this endless cycle moving from not knowing the best title or topic for this article, to not knowing what angle to tailor-fit it so as to make it worth anybody’s while. But as I write-on and refuse to give into the urge to simply close my PC, I can attest to getting some quantifiable level of clarity which I’m sure you can see from the words that follow this line. It just dawned on me that my very first hashnode blog post, doesn't need to be so technical, doesn't need to speak to a certain stack or programming language in the tech Industry or even tell you about a certain plugin or extension for your code. Clearly, I might still write about any of those in the foreseeable future, but for now let’s focus on delivering this very first post.

My Tech Journey so Far!

I got interested in the tech space during the pandemic in 2020, as a newbie I had a very scattered knowledge of what language to learn or what stack to even start with, I was confused to say the least. I say ‘scattered knowledge’ because admittedly, I knew and heard from some of my friends that their was such a thing as Data Science, Java, Python and FrontEnd/BackEnd Development but I didn’t know the various languages, how they align and the exact ones one should start learning in order to become any of those. Suffice to say with all that confusion I didn’t even know what part of Tech I wanted to venture into. But on asking a friend, he advised me to start with the ‘FreeCodecamp’ syllabus, which is carefully structured to assist self-taught individuals with learning how to code.

So, by 2021 when the ugly fist of the pandemic had loosened it’s grip on the world and students were allowed to go back to school I was then in my finals, and of course, no one likes to fail their final lap exams, so I left the little interest I had picked in Tech to face my exams and Final year project. Guess what ?lol by the time I was done with exams just before I could at least defend the project I was working on, my laptop got spoilt. So for the later part of 2021 I was without a PC, hence, no way to continue my coding lessons where I left off. It seemed as if the whole coding thingy wasn’t for me.😔

So What?

Since I couldn’t do nothing, owing to the absence of a PC. I had to go looking for mobile phone apps that could help me continue my coding lessons, at first the apps on playstore didn’t exactly do the trick for me, some of the apps were loaded with tutorials and examples, but no practice environment to test run the knowledge base of what I’ve watched. Since my case was special; “wanting to learn how to code without a laptop” 😂 , I needed an app that simulates a practice environment. On one of those random days of watching Facebook comedy videos I stumbled into an ad. by 'Progate' and that’s how my problem of learning and not practicing became half solved.🙈

How About Now?

Well, it wouldn’t be fair of me to leave out the tiny bits of how the ‘progate programming learner’ got to the point where he’s even comfortable writing in a dev. Community, by doing so; churning out this hilarious piece you’re reading…… Alright let’s get on with it…..😂. Just before the Christmas period of 2021(I know you must be saying "2021 again"...😀) a friend told me about a school where persons interested in venturing into a career in tech could be taught by experts and with a guided curriculum, this school is called 'AltSchool Africa', it boasts of industry-wide experienced tutors, who'd stop at nothing to make your learning process less difficult and enjoyable 👌 . The good part is, I registered and sat for the entrance exam, which BTW this same friend helped me prep and I eventually passed. So I make bold to say as of now in this tech journey "I'm a student of AltSchool Africa and I'm 3months gone into the program, with a Whooping 6 more months to go."

What’s Next For Me?

I'm going to normalize this new found idea of writing in this Dev Community, so expect and look out for some;

• Conceptual explanations of things I've learnt.
• Tricks and hacks that help beginners to do better in programming.
• My tech journey and hurdles I encounter.
• Of Course, as I improve you'd see more technical writing and techy posts.

Till then….. 😎