My Journey into Tech as a Backend Developer Part 1

"Tech is the new oil". This is the statement that I stumbled upon on Twitter some months before I fully started my tech journey. The interesting part is that this "new oil" is open to anyone interested in exploring it. As someone who is not so familiar with Computer Usage ( I barely know how to operate a Computer other than my mobile phone😃). I use to believe tech was not for me which made sense to me to some extent.

Even though I had been tried to be convinced several times by my elder brother who is a Software developer. He wanted me start as a Product designer, and made efforts to introduce Figma(a software for creating designs) to me, but I had no interest.

To be honest, one challenge I've always had was my work. Transitioning from being an interior decorator/designer into Tech. My work is focused on House Painting and decorations, which on it's own can be very exhausting. I always give it a thought, pondering on how to combine both. I dwelled on this thought for about a month untill I finally decided to start.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.  - Mark Twain

Mark Twain was right after all. Well, how did I get started? I'm sure that's the question you have in mind right now😉.

Firstly, I knew I was ready to get started but I wasn't sure on which stack to choose. I didn't want Product design because I wanted something a bit more technical and challenging(I didn't say Product design is not challenging nor technical, but based on my understanding then, that was how I saw it).

Weeks later, I saw post on Twitter about a Scholarship by ALX and Udacity on Data Analysis. While I was applying for the scholarship, it required that I take a test on Python and SQL before I proceed, although I had no knowledge on both but I gave it a try. The test ended with a score of 10/20. Unfortunately I didn't make the cut off, but I knew this is the "kind of challenge I wanted".

I went on to research about Python programming, but before then, whenever I hear techies talk about Python, the picture in mind has always been the snake 🐍 itself and it kept me wondering what does a snake have to with Tech 😂 ? Even though I was that curious, I never took time to research on it, but the test on Data Analysis scholarship gave me review of what Python is as a programming language. Sometimes we are just too reluctant to do little things as little as 5 minutes research, which ofcourse is of benefit to us. Imagine if I had researched on Python , maybe I'd have started earlier than I did🙂.

With somewhat a clear picture (not so clear) on which stack to choose, I told my brother about it and he was fully in support. A laptop would have been a challenge but I also got a HP laptop from him as part of the support. Thanks to him. Do you say I'm lucky? Well, I think so too.

I started learning Python from different resources online, but I wanted more of a structured learning. So I sought for Online courses which I later found, and it was another scholarship from ALX and Udacity on Python Programming. The course lasted for a month and I got a certificate from Udacity🎉.

You sure want to know how my learning experience was and the aftermath of the Certificate, watch out for my next blog post. Where I'd be sharing my detailed learning experiences. Thank you for your time.

The aim of this post is to inspire someone just getting into or trying to get into Tech, and probably anyone at all starting a new skill. You can help reach out to more people by sharing this post. Thanks for doing so. See you on my next post.

Cheers ✨.