JoyousFurnitire:


It won't, but when you get a laptop it won't be like your starting from scratch; you'll already know and can talk about some topics.

It's a good way to start even if you got a laptop because it helps to get your hands dirty and make writing codes a hobby.

Wow. I love this advice. I am installing the App now. Though I have a laptop, I have not been disciplined enough to make out time to learn everyday. But I'm always with my phone. So, maybe it will be easier to cultivate the habit if I start on phone.

Ayinke93:


Thanks boss

you mean BUS ? Lol. Here is a woman that has taken her destiny in her hands and working her ass off to achieve greatness. Hope others would learn

Ayinke93:

I think the funniest one is advising people to avoid frontend development . It's funny cause with my little experience, the demand is insane. Nigerian companies are especially starved of developers because all the experienced developers are doing remote jobs and the have to make do of the 1+ years of experience people in the country.

Did you have prior coding knowledge before switching?
I'm not currently employed and that's because i'm tired of just doing anything to earn a living
I'm looking for a mentor at the moment cos each time i go on youtube, i just get stucked.
I badly need a teacher who will guide me, send me exercises and projects to do, tell me how to achieve a certain task, etc.
Self teaching is really not easy, especially for something as mentally tasking as coding.
Finally, will you be my teacher?

Think9ja:


Did you have prior coding knowledge before switching?
I'm not currently employed and that's because i'm tired of just doing anything to earn a living
I'm looking for a mentor at the moment cos each time i go on youtube, i just get stucked.
I badly need a teacher who will guide me, send me exercises and projects to do, tell me how to achieve a certain task, etc.
Self teaching is really not easy, especially for something as mentally tasking as coding.
Finally, will you be my teacher?

Send me DM

HardMirror:
you mean BUS ? Lol. Here is a woman that has taken her destiny in her hands and working her ass off to achieve greatness. Hope others would learn

Ayinke93:

Hi.. Ayinke. Good evening. Mind being a mentor of mine? I've been dragging my feet for too long. Thanks

Ayinke93:
I created this thread to encourage someone going through the pain of transitioning to tech at the moment and to remind them that they are making a decision their future self will thank you for. Sometimes in June last year, I resigned from my job at a Nigerian bank to take up a 30K internship as a software developer. To be honest, that's easily the best decision I've made in my entire life. This month I got offers worth more than 5 times what I was earning at the bank after applying for jobs for just about 2 weeks. and I have not even spent up to a year in the industry. I'm going to outline some of the steps I took below:

1. If possible, get an internship: I know this can be difficult, but trust me, the experience accelerated my learning. One thing that helped with the two internships I got within the period I started was networking. Tell everybody you know about your plans, you don't know who might be willing to help.

2. Intense focus: I stayed off social media for over 6 months during the period I was learning. Trust me, this is not the time for distractions and frivolous activities.

3. Practice and build projects: I can’t emphasize this enough. Build projects and put them on your GitHub because some recruiters check your git. In one job I got, the interviewer was very excited about one web scraping project I did in my very early days. Sincerely, I had no idea that the project could help me in any way. So please, build and push to GitHub every time.

4. Redo your resume and LinkedIn: You want your resume to reflect that you've been working in tech. Nobody cares about the customer service job you did in 2015. Also, LinkedIn is the best place to get jobs, and I feel so many people underutilize it.

5. Get a mentor: to be honest, I couldn't have gotten anywhere without the solid mentorship around me. You need to have someone you look up to in this industry because they have more experience than you and the guide will take you far. Just show interest, be teachable, be hardworking and let your mentor see that you are motivated. You'll be surprised at how kind people are.

6. Network! Network! Network!: see I can't overemphasize this. you need people to grow. I surrounded myself with tech people, and I can't count the number of times random things I picked from conversations came up in my interviews.

7. Stay curious and stay motivated. The sky is the starting point.

Had to add in number 8. A lot of people talk about looking for jobs on LinkedIn and only sprinkle 1 or 2 applications here and there and get discouraged. Note that I applied to over 200 jobs in 2 weeks and got less than five call backs and 2 offers. Just calculate the success margin. In the end, it's a game of numbers. Keep grinding and grind hard.

Lastly, I’m not going to lie, transitioning to tech will test your sanity and I mean that with all seriousness. This is a link to a thread I created in December; https://www.nairaland.com/6887200/learning-code-hard,  but trust me, it’s worth it. Rooting for you all!

Hello. I just came across your post and it's awesomely put together.
Just a few newbie questions:

1. How do we deal with internship requirements that are usually like a full job requirement?
I saw an internship role that required at least 2 years of experience, working with technologies that I haven't even heard of.

2. Can you talk about the issue of sustenance while learning to code?
I feel like picking up another skill(maybe copywriting) to sustain me before I become job ready. But it seems that will take away the time I have to learn coding.

3. How can we network? I am an indoor guy with no social skills. Can online networking suffice? If yes, how?