A journey — closure; a new beginning
Digital Academy by Czechitas is over. One the 14th of December 27 girls graduated from the Academy after two months of intensive learning. It ended with style on a gala evening, where we graduated from the Academy. It was wonderful, full of fun, encouragement and positive vibes. Each girl had a 200 sec talk about her project, the fun and obstacles she faced on the road to finish it. I am still amazed, that my project received a unicorn award — an award only the top five projects in the class received.
The competition was fierce, some projects set incredibly high standards in means of what girl with no IT background can achieve in two months. The diversity of the projects was amazing, ranging from development of an app for dog walking to analysis of the on-boarding processes for a big software company. From my point of vies all the girls made awesome progress.
And that’s it.
No more meeting thrice a week to learn something new, to share the progress we have made, to exchange friendly words and encourage each other, to raise a neon-pink sticky note (which was our SOS sign during the lectures) and get an advice from a lector. Our further progress and direction, which we want to take, is entirely on us. We are behind the stirring wheel, each of the girls is now responsible for her next advancements. From now on, we are on our own. But, are we?
I don’t think so.
I am not exaggerating saying that signing up for the Academy has been one of the best decision in my life. It was a course where you get to know something new and test your limits, where you learn to thing a different way, where you think so hard steam is coming out of your ears (the last think is not true, but damn, you think hard). But it was also a lot more. Meeting like-minded people, making new friends, creating connections. Although the Academy is a history now, most of the mentors and lectors are still willing to help us, answer our questions and advise us if we ask.
“You’re The Average Of The Five People You Spend The Most Time With.”
— Jim Rohm
The above-mentioned quote is exactly why people around us are so important. During the Academy I met so many amazing individuals, who inspired me to continue with what I’ve started months ago. And for that I am grateful and would like to thank Czechitas and all people who got involved in the Academy. I wish all the best of luck to the girls, they pushed their limits, worked hard, faced lack of sleep but still somehow manage to create an atmosphere full of support and healthy competition. You all did a great job and thanks to your involvement and enthusiasm you elevated the experience on a whole new level.
I was unsure about making a career change and even more unsure to write about it. But I want to mention it here, someday this might help a person in a similar situation that I am now facing. I doubted my abilities and wanted to do it the easier way. My inner self-consciousness was saying something like yeah, I will a job where I will work mostly with excel, maybe some SQL, you know, you have to start somewhere. But there was a voice whispering you can do better, don’t go small when you can go big, you know you can. And after all the encouragements I heard from people around me finally took their toll. I listened to them and heartened by the inner voice I decided to give it a try. I’m going to pursue a career of software tester, learn python, C#, dive deeper into the world of tech. I have got a lot of work to do.
I have always been my greatest critic and a perfectionist, a deadly but logical combination I dare to say. I hate to fail or loose. This has been a force that limited me from achieving so much more in life. The realization has pushed me closer to the decision to change my career. That and also a memory of my brother (a PHP programmer) coming from work just to sit at his desk at home and ferociously write more code hypnotizing the screen, praying to all the gods for the code to work. It looked like fun (really?) and a challenge too. After the Academy I haven’t stop learning and jump straight into the topic of testing and QA. Only reading about all of that and trying the basics is fun, I can imagine how much more exciting (and frustrating at times) will it can get. I guess I will find out soon enough.
“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.”
— Jordan Belfort
As the Digital Academy course is now a thing of past, there will be no more updates on this topic. However, I will keep this blog as a personal one and every once in a while, write something, which will mostly be solely for the purpose of clearing my head and sorting of thoughts. And also for making me a better writer. Before this blog came to life I haven’ written anything, besides some essays at high school, so there clearly is a big space for improvement. English is not my first language, but this also helps to improve my passive knowledge of the language.
In the future, I hope to also add some stories related to tech stuff, but there is still long journey to a time, when I would let myself write something like that.
And now… ↓
