PeaceJoyLove:

Von02, is this guy your son or younger sibling?

Well sir, I have read everything here. I have this to say. I was in engineering when I was encouraged to pick up programming. Imagine, I was provided nothing order than cash to attend a programming school then. I didnt have a computer then because those who encouraged me did not know a computer is essential. I just couldn't navigate what I want to do with it. Anyway, I quit it. I left Nigeria after some years, and I faced C in school. That was my first serious encounter. This was a long time ago ooo. I still didnt understand what exactly it was meant for.

Until I started working that I saw the need. I saw need for Automation (robotics) cos artisans I work with are useless. Also, I read wide, I started seeing the same challenge all over the world. And then, Elon Musk came up with his recent Telsa robots. And he said that "Almost all unskilled activities will be replaced by robots". What does this mean, mainly activities which require our cognitive part of the brain will remain relevant in the next 20 years. Very soon, laborers carrying cements in construction sites will not be available. Police non skilled work will be almost dead except deep invsstigations, restaurant attendants, cashiers in banks, etc. will be eradicated very soon. In short robots will take over almost all repetitive jobs. Jobs that dont require our brains but are repetitive in nature will no longer be available. So, start thinking.

My advise is that you follow big fours and some management consulting quarterly or annually released documents. Usually they release business trends. I read that of McKinsey recently and they wrote about rhe future market place. The whole market place on the internet will change. I believe you understand how Jumia and Konga operate in Nigeria. So, think of Ebay, amazon, and other ecommerce sites you know. Have you ever bought anything from Jumia? If yes, you should know that the first challenge they face is returning of goods. Customers were returning goods they dont like. This is bad for ecommerce sites. Some dont like the colors, sizes, efc they picked. And you know most clothing are from China where standard of production is not followed. 10 different shoes can have size 40 written on them, and they are of different sizes. You buy shoe A and it's ok, and shoe B is too small, shoe C might be too big. And all have 40 on them. Lol. But when you go to a market where you can test the shoes you have no trouble. Right? In the future, there will be virtual testing of products. You can put the shoes or clothings on virtually so that you know how it fits you without having physical access to them before buying. That's tech bro lol.

See, virtually everyone presently not working on the computer will lose his job in 20 years. This is just the case. So, those people who provide alternatives will rule.

But if you ask me exactly what you should learn, I cannot tell you. No one can tell you. Can you predict the business which will be relevant in 20 years? Can you still say Dangote will still be the richest man in 20 years? Will he even be alive? No one knows. We can only take steps day by day as we go with it. And it is why we keep updating ourselves. We keep learning. We keep shaping ourselves.

The reason I have decided to take you on a long talk is cos someone tagged me to answer you. And you are still very young. See, if you are being advised to look into programing, it is good. But from what I am seeing, it is not what you are really exposed to in your secondary school. To me, someone is trying to ask you look into it. If not, you wont even think of law if it's your first passion. No one born to be a coder will ever look into medicine and law. Engineering is still ok. But law and medicine? Nope. But it doesnt mean you cannot do both, but if you have to study law in Nigeria, the truth is that it is almost impossible. The system here is rubbish.

All I am saying is that you have to find your place in it. Even I was in engineering, it took me many years to find my place. And it's because the Nigerian educational system was not structured well in my days. And when I moved abroad, I still couldn't find my bearing. So, I really think the educational system contributed to confusing me, and then, but i faced the reality that i was my own challenge. It was just me. Maybe if I attended high school in the UK or US, I would have entered it earlier. Maybe. I dont know. But I am certain, the system delayed me more.

But guess what? The year I saw where I fit in was my own start. Though, it took a long time, but eventually, I got it. It is called self discovery which gave birth to innovation. It is not exciting until you start enjoying it. Seriously, I dont know how you will enjoy studying law and coding in Nigeria. It is almost impossible. I should be real with you. If you find yourself doing good in it, trust me, you will abandon law. Dont get me wrong...it is ok if you combine the two. But for you to be successful in school studying law in Nigeria, you must pay more attention to law; else, your grades will suffer. No matter how brilliant you are in Nigeria, you will lose focus if you dont focus in law cos the lecturers here are mad set of people..even in private universities, they are same. It will be fine if you are successful in programming after you quit law, but if you are not, your parents may even disown you. The ones who told you to start programing now will not be there for you. And if you study law and you have no job after, you have yourself to blame also. You just keep struggling and then, you are already getting oldschool and newer things are already happening.

This is life. Most advising you here are not even successful in life yet. Lol. They are just telling you to do Kotlin, dats science, bla bla bla, etc..

I do not know how good you are with what you know. You just said you have started learning sql. How you even enjoy doing it is a misery. It's boring without knowing what you need to use it for. No one needs to tell me that you are just pushed into this. It's not what you really desire to so. Or how did you get to know about sql? You dont want to learn what you wont use later, and its sql you started with. Dont get me wrong, computer may be what you like, but there are different aspects. Parents even mix up designing with coding.. they are complete two different areas. I k ow someone who did well with corel draw after secondary school, and went to study computer science. She hated coding so much that her grades were affected. But after school, she rediscovered herself and she is a big game in photography and video making. She is even into 3 d designing now, and then trying to get into building designing. Lol. And her work is on computer even now. 24/7. It's obvious this was what she was meant to do. She should have read architecture, building, sculpture, or art in school.

Find out if you can get any free boot camps around you. See if you can join any technological groups for your peers where they teach coding, building of engineering pieces which involves using electrical circuits (it can be virtual and not necessarily buy real electeical circuits), etc. The aim here is to work with your peer group. It may even be games they will introduce you to first. You may have to play games to understand the trend. If you dont play games, how will you know what gamers like and what should be done? Gat it? This is my point. If you don't knkw the trend of what's happening, how can you build? You must know the trend. You must enjoy it. So, get yourself into a boot camp for your peer group. Dont join older or too young people. Join people of your age and start learning.

If your passion is really in this, why go for law? And if law is your passion, why worry yourself with it now. Just focus on law and somehow when you find a need for it it in law, then go and learn what you need to solve the need in law. It is a simple as this. You aren't in the US UK, or Canada where you can get counselling. Even the counselor here doesnt understand it, or the fellow is hustling to meet ends ...so no time for you.

If you insist on doing something now even without full understanding of what you want to do, pick up a programming language instead of database. SQL is about database and can change anytime. Picking a programming language which we know will be relevant is ok. The aim here is not to just know the language, but to program your brain into how computer program works. When you know a language, you can easily learn another. But the challenge here is that it will not be easy. It is boring. If you dont see the need, it will frustrate you. This is the truth. This is the challenge of many. Since it is boring, they eventually give up.

So, go and try python and see how it goes. If you dont like it, drop it and focus on your law. Honestly, I would have shown you more things but that law you wrote up there is why I cant. Your first passion is not coding. I will just advise you to face your law if really you ask me. But before you do, try python. If you like it, fine...you can continue. But I dont see how you can combine coding and law esp in Nigeria. If you are still in school studying law, trust me, you arent enjoying coding, or you haven't see the real reason to do it. And I know how Nigerian parents are, they will almost kill you for bad grades in school. Even you study computer science or engineering in school, you must limit coding. Those lecturers dont teach new things. They teach crazy old things..and you must pass.

If truly your passion is coding, your best bet is just to leave Nigeria. If not, please focus on law here. When you leave school, you can still enter. Though it will be a bit late but not too late. Still better than losing focus in the uni, your parents disown you, and then that's when life turns upside down for you. This is the story of Nigeria. Stay safe bro.

Goodluck sir!

Very wicked long post.

harveyosho1:

Well u can do both... u can be a full stack developer.... on the front end html and css is a breeze thanks to bootstrap... it get easier.... well u obviously need to learn javascript, actually it not hard. Learn functions, methods . If u can dedicate ur time u would be able to manipulate svg on the Web page do other mundane task on d page..... well for backend development.... well the trend is dat professional developers aren't using d f*cked up language anymore (PHP) I don't even use it... I wouldn't recommend cus outside of Web development.... it doesn't exist anywhere compared to high-level language like python/cython, javascript, kotlin, c++, so if u are up to the task u can learn some of the framework for python web deveopment... like flask, django and tornado, I use flask by the way... I haven't gotten a project dat needs the heavy lifting of django. But if u prefer using javascript(if u ve already learnt front end) express.js on top on node.js is recomendable... the good thing is dat u can't really go wrong with dis two language, as they are general purpose language. Happy coding!

Thanks for the advice sir.

Newman20:


Ok, seems like I'll have to abandon coding when I'll enter uni so I can make first class. That's what I'll go with.

Thank you so much ma


God bless you

Not saying you abandon it. Focus less on it. Concentrate more on your studies. You can pick puthon now like we agreed. One month is enough for you to know what exactly you want from it. Then, you can strategize well. Abandoning it is not looking at it at all. But you can just have it like a nicel you look at when you are very less busy. And if you see that it's interesting and you have nothing doing, pick it at your leisure time and go over it. Everything depends on you.

PeaceJoyLove:

Not saying you abandon it. Focus less on it. Concentrate more on your studies. You can pick puthon now like we agreed. One month is enough for you to know what exactly you want from it. Then, you can strategize well. Abandoning it is not looking at it at all. But you can just have it like a nicel you look at when you are very less busy. And if you see that it's interesting and you have nothing doing, pick it at your leisure time and go over it. Everything depends on you.

Thank you!

PeaceJoyLove:

Not saying you abandon it. Focus less on it. Concentrate more on your studies. You can pick puthon now like we agreed. One month is enough for you to know what exactly you want from it. Then, you can strategize well. Abandoning it is not looking at it at all. But you can just have it like a nicel you look at when you are very less busy. And if you see that it's interesting and you have nothing doing, pick it at your leisure time and go over it. Everything depends on you.

I have replied your email

Sheriman:

You would not enjoy Android development on a 4GB RAM laptop becos it will be hanging and slowing down your development.

What if the ram is upgraded to 8gb?

jesse8048:


What if the ram is upgraded to 8gb?

Better at least 8GB you check Android Studio latest requirements

tensazangetsu20:
You just finished secondary school. If you can, go for a degree in computer science.

I wouldn't even bother with languages at your age. From your post, it seems your parents are well to do. I would instead focus on the fundamentals of computer science than languages, tool or frameworks.

about this fundamentals of computer is Harvards CS50 a good recommendation??

toby345:
about this fundamentals of computer is Harvards CS50 a good recommendation??

Yeah it is but if you are a teenager it's better to go to the university and gain the full experience.

tensazangetsu20:

Yeah it is but if you are a teenager it's better to go to the university and gain the full experience.

though I am in Elect Elect in the University

toby345:
though I am in Elect Elect in the University

Then try take up CS50, it will help you.
I have the certificate and I can root for it any day any time.

This is an educative thread!
I happen to be a 400 level engineering student..and to be sincere,it is challenging combining software engineering (web) with my materials engineering degree program..But by God's grace,I am doing well academically but I am still learning web development..
I know HTML, CSS and Python (intermediate)... currently on SIWES and my full dedication is on my skill set for now before another session..
My laptop just got damaged of recent..so bad!
Please can anyone help me with a PC??
I will be glad if someone can help my career here.. because coding on phone has not been easy so far for me..

I can't even follow up again with my guys on developer students club(OAU chapter) just because I don't have a laptop again.

olioxx:

Then try take up CS50, it will help you.
I have the certificate and I can root for it any day any time.

what platform did you use EDX ??

With what you've said maybe I'll just try the python and SQL and just try to get through university without going insane.

How far? Have you learnt the Python language?