MY TIIDELAB EXPERIENCE 1.0 (FIRST MONTH)
Hi there!👋
Welcome to my blog experience on TiideLab fellowship cohort5!!
Looking back about making a decision on whether Creative Writing or tech, I believe I can say that I made the right choice.
Guess what it is?
Yeah, you guessed right! Tech it is!
And that's not all! Thanks to TiideLab, I can now glide within the periphery of Tech and Creative writing as in the subsequent months, I will be sharing my experiences at TiideLab, feeding you with sweet and creative gists.
Get ready!!!😀
How I knew TiideLab.
I owe gratitude to my friend for this privileged piece of information. During last year, I usually see his posts on LinkedIn about how TiideLab has continuously developed him. He always dropped technical links to various topics on web development. I must confess that these posts, even though I view anonymously, got me implicitly motivated as I was just starting out in tech.
Fast forward to this year, where I decided to give my full attention to tech, as I just graduated from the University and I was awaiting NYSC, I looked out for full time, free tech internships and I happened to stumble across a LinkedIn post on TiideLab application for a new fellowship cohort. This was where I applied, even though I did that reluctantly due to imposter syndrome. A Few days later, I got an email and boom! That began my experience with TiideLab.
My Life Before TiideLab
Before TiideLab, I was just self-learning although, it was through an internship which I attended last year that I got ushered into Tech. But during the internship, It was more of self-learning. I battled with new technical terms and concepts and it was a tough one for me. We were given daily tasks related to the topics for the week, and this required one to read up and research before being able to implement the tasks. This was really tedious but I was able to keep up till I graduated. After graduation, It was just me, with no sense of direction — no compass, no structured learning, no mentor. So, I made a resolve to search for internships—free one at that (as sapa was intimidating me)—and that was when I stumbled upon TiideLab which I decided to give a shot.
My Past One Month at TiideLab.
I must say, one thing with self-learning, apart from its lack of structure, is that if you don't possess a strong will and deeper commitment (discipline), you are destined to spend several years on just an aspect of what you are learning. And the most important of what self-learning misses out on is mentorship. Something you could get for a short period of time, you could spend the whole year, and still not get as much as what mentorship will give.
Though my past one month at TiideLab has been tedious, I must say, but if not anything, I most especially value the discipline it fosters. You do what you have to do when you have to do it and I am especially grateful, to the Programs Coordinator, Mr. Shams for implementing this value. The discipline which is needed to become a successful web developer is ingrained in their daily, weekly, and monthly routines.
- The morning stand up, where we are warmly welcomed by cool music, with the vibes, to give us a new feeling, and brighten our day.
- The close monitoring of each individual to see that they are doing well and making progress.
- The daily peer review sessions, where we discuss in groups of teams, what was learnt for that day.
- The daily team presentations after each peer review sessions to further cement the knowledge and our build presentation skills.
- The coding partner session where we have to code along, with a partner assigned, to improve our coding skills.
- The bi-weekly Online Knowledge Sharing (OKS) session where we discuss what has been learnt for the past two weeks.
- The Friday professional development class where we are taught on soft skills, and given individual or inter-team challenges to improve our problem solving skills.
And so on!!!
Tell me, how will you not learn? Even if you decide to be un-serious? (But there's no room for un-seriousness, by the way, except you want out.😶).
Apart from the daily routines, in the past one month, I have learnt the following:
- Git, GitHub, advanced Html5 & CSS3, and Tailwind CSS.
- Job search & application tips, preparing a good resume,and LinkedIn Optimization.
- Big O notation, Data structures and algorithms--keys to writing a scalable code. A concept that really poked my interest.
- We had different enlightening sessions on Big O notation and starting out as a developer.
- Friday development classes on portraying the right attitude, team building, needing to offer value as an individual, and putting yourself out there.
- I built my portfolio website using knowledge on html and tailwind css from TiideLab.
- The need to put yourself out there and sell yourself.
- I developed a better perspective in becoming a successful developer and a better individual, especially approach towards problem solving.
- I was motivated by my other fellows especially in events they celebrated their little wins, success stories, etc as a result of TiideLab.
Overall, even though the ride has been both "smooth" and "bumpy", I must say that it is worth every event that has taken place and will take place at TiideLab as I know that it is connected to the direct road of becoming not just a good web developer, but a successful one whose approach to problem solving is rigorous and will produce results at the end.
Conclusion.
So, I want to say thank you to our Founder, Mr. Kadir Salami, thank you to our programs coordinator, Mr. Shams--whose passion to see every TiideLab fellow be among the bests of the bests and has continuously fed us with nothing short of value. Thank You to ITF, NECA and Tech Specialist, whose sponsorship birthed this great opportunity.
In subsequent months, I hope to become even better as a developer and an individual, becoming better at areas where I lack the skill, and becoming even the best, at where I am better now.
Thank you for reading to the end.
Stay tuned for the next update
Bye!!!'😇