Getting Selected for the Second Phase of the Google Challenge Scholarship

Opeoluwa Iyi-Kuyoro
Sep 3, 2018 · 4 min read

On May 26th, I published a blog post about my first week at ALC 3.0 with Google. I wrote about how chaotic it was at first, and how I was overwhelmed by the number of people that were enrolled in the program. Well, all that is slowly becoming history now, as I am happy to announce that I was again one of the recipients of the second phase of the scholarship.
In this post, I want to share with you how I did it, and how a recipient in 2019 and beyond may achieve success too.


Set a goal:
I received the congratulatory mail on the 2nd of May. That evening, I wore my running shoes and hit the road. Earphones in, I used the time to think about what I was really going to try to achieve with this great opportunity. You see, opportunity comes once in a while for some of us, and we simply can’t let it just slip away. Within those 30 mins of jugging, I set a goal. I was going to make the best of this opportunity.

May 8th came and we were on-boarded. When I realised that there was going to be a second phase of the scholarship and the selection criteria were outlined, I reviewed my goal. I decided I was going to finish the course in 3 weeks and focus on being active in the community by interacting with my peers on a daily bases. I measured success for activity in the community by others mentioning me on the slack channel when issues came up.
Setting that goal helped me stay focused.

Be very active:
I already said something about being active in the first point. This is very important. The selection for the second phase of the scholarship is done by humans like you. Imagine 16,000 participants and only 500 will be selected for the second stage. You just have to be active!

At the beginning of the program, the slack channel was buzzing with messages. It was so busy and chaotic that I felt overwhelmed. But before long, all that smoke settled. What I tried to do at the beginning was to concentrate on one or two threads at a time. By doing so, I was able to interact with the people in that conversation on a personal level and connect better with them.

Another very important thing I did was to read other people’s posts before sending mine. You don’t want to be that guy or gal that is spamming the channel. I realised that it is always better to reference what others have said and build your points on them, than start afresh. This way, I was able to make friends, that in turn mention me in their conversations.

Being polite and friendly also took me a long way. I personally reached out to people that were struggling to encourage and unblock them. You need to come across as someone who is willing to collaborate, rather than a bad critic who is only looking for faults in other’s coding practices.

Finish the course:
I think it would be quite disappointing if you offer someone an opportunity and they just abandon it halfway. Apart from that, a sizeable amount of money is going to be invested in you for the second phase. The stakeholders want to be sure that you are not going to waste their money. Whenever that voice whispers to you that you can’t, take it as a challenge and prove that voice wrong! Do all it takes to finish the course.

In doing all it takes, please don’t try to plagiarise others code. You will be blacklisted! Seek help and finish the course.

Seek help:
Let’s face it. We all face challenges from time to time. I was challenged quite a bit during the program. I had a few bugs and blockers here and there. One thing that helped me was to head straight to the community to cry for help. Sometimes, a fresh set of eyes can help you see your blind spots a lot faster.

I always found answers to my questions on the channel. In fact, I brought questions from outside the course to be answered. Use the community as much as possible.

Have fun:
Just enjoy yourself every step of the way. This is something you wish to do for the rest of your life. It has to be something that you enjoy doing and brings you joy. It’s okay to bring your bugs to the community. In fact, you must. Just ensure to be optimistic about it.

I hope these will help advance you through the scholarship, and become a better developer in the process. I have surely benefited greatly from it and I hope that every interested and passionate person can benefit as well.

Thanks to Egwuenu Gift

Opeoluwa Iyi-Kuyoro

Written by

Software Developer at Andela | Google Udacity Scholar | Minecraft and Code

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