My Career Journey So Far…
Choosing a path in Tech is usually the bulk of the journey as a newbie because you could end up meandering the “streets” and depression could set in. In my case, the first code I wrote was in C++. I just felt it was a good place to start, as I wanted to develop games initially. Thereafter, I felt “lost in the codes”, and I wasn’t just satisfied with it. I moved over to app development (I actually did develop my first mobile app — a browser — yeah!). It felt cool at first, but it wasn’t just what I wanted. I felt there was something more I needed to explore.
Afterward, I attended my first ever “Tech meeting” in 2019. It was a meeting for newbies, and my eyes were opened to see various possibilities in Tech. Later, I got into frontend web development and still felt unsatisfied.
I finally settled for data science. Data science was one field that piqued my interest (and it still is). My first “stage moment” was sometime in 2021 when I gave a talk about “Getting Started in Data Science” at an event (Ladies Can Tech 1.0) hosted by Harvoxx Tech Hub. It was quite a scary moment for me. I was in a disorganized phase, as I did not even have a well-defined path for myself. It was a “wake-up” for me after I delivered the talk.
The defining moment for me was in November 2021 when I had my first data science gig. I felt like I couldn’t deliver (…the imposter syndrome thing again). At the end of the contract in January this year, my client was super-pleased with me and even had to refer me to someone else too. It felt good then.
I participated in my first hackathon (organized by DataFest Africa) early this month. We were required to build a machine learning model that could predict the outcome of a FinTech’s lending process—if the credit facility process was completed via e-process or not. It was a fun and interesting experience, although my team didn’t make it to the final round. Our model’s accuracy was about 64.8%, which was not very good. However, I enjoyed working with my team, and I learned a lot.
Just recently, I took a major step by enrolling in a Writing Streak Bootcamp, and luckily, I got accepted. It has been a cool ride so far, and I am hoping to explore the world of Technical Writing and contribute to the Tech space by documenting my learning process.
Conclusion
It has not been all too rosy, of course. I have learned so many lessons so far and had so many losses. I have learned that diligence and consistency would keep me on the right path. I just have to keep on pushing and being focused on the journey ahead. I have also learned gratitude for every step or leap forward I make.
A major lesson I would never forget is about building projects. I began my journey “theoretically”, and I felt all that mattered was my certifications. I went through information overload and tutorial hell. At some point, I became confused. I know better now. As much as possible, I try to avoid consuming too many resources, and I stick to just a few.
