My Quest of becoming a certified Associate Android Developer by Google via Andela ALC Scholarship.
My story
I had always had a dream of becoming a programmer but i never knew where to start from even if i did , the resources wasn’t available.
“In life dream don’t come to reality when all we do is sit and doing nothing.”
As at Oct. 2015, i had the opportunity to practice my industrial attachment at Start Innovation Hub where i was introduced to Android development for the first time. On my first day, i met the CEO Hanson Johnson Country mentor Google Developer Group Nigeria. He asked me two powerful questions
- Are you ready for this?
Ans: (i looked at him with fear and said) Yes i am
2. Do you have a laptop?
Ans : No i don’t.
3. He followed by saying “ You cannot do this without a laptop”.
This question really got me to a fixed because i never had a laptop non had money to get one . Because of the passion i had, i decided to borrow from a friend since i couldn’t wait to start building something. with all the resources i got from Start Innovation Hub i took the Android for Beginners course at Udacity.com which gave me the skills i need to get started in Android Development .
Beginner Level opportunities
At 20th Nov same year, as a beginner in Android, i demo an Android application during the GDG DevFest 2015 in Uyo. This was a great and difficult task for me but i did my best. I got so many feedback's from the audience and my Start Innovation Hub team. From the impact created that year , i was given the opportunity to facilitate Android Study Jam the next year. I felt very excited introducing Android to other newbies though i was still learning.
“Passion and time drives all dreams in life, just be focus”.
The journey keep going because of my passion of becoming world class and readiness to learn more. I desired to create more impact in the technology sphere as an Android developer.
Intermediate Level opportunities
- Andela ALC 17 Facilitator
This year i got an opportunity to facilitate Andela Android Learning Community (ALC)2017 program beginners track for Calabar (South South Region of Nigeria) . The program was aimed at helping anyone who was interested in becoming an Android developer by providing training. In order to achieve this, Andela has partnered with companies like Udacity and Google to make Android development courses available.
The program was awesome, the learners were very excited learning something new and most of them showed serious interest in going further in Android Development career . The learning session were divided into 5 MeetUps which our goal was to cover the Android for Beginners course from Udacity and submit a project at the end of the program for grading and certification.
2. Associate Android Nanodegree Scholarship from Andela Nigeria
Feb 2017, i applied for the Andela ALC program Intermediate track scholarship in partnership with Google and Udacity. After then i was given a challenge to develop an Android App using GitHub API to get users speaking Java in Lagos. Here is the Project.
I waited for their feedback for weeks , afterwards i got an email invite from Udacity.

Waooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow!!!!!!!!
I was super excited and i did prepare my mine for it. To meet other team mate i was invited to the Andela Slack team where we worked together with the program managers Chimdindu Aneke and Solomon O. Awosupin and other successful learners.
We were divided into groups for better collaboration and team work to aid speedy completion of weekly task. I was in Team 19 by name IllegalSkillsException with the slogan “ Talk is cheap, show me the code”. The task were shared weekly based on the Associate Android Developer Fast Track Nanodegree Program course curriculum with timelines. We had many engagement sessions like HangOut on Air with Andela and Google experts. This was an amazing experience.

The Associate Android Developer Fast Track Nanodegree Program covered many core aspects in Android which included : Connecting to the Internet, intents, RecyclerView , Activity lifecycle , FCM, handling background task, using libraries, Places API, persisting data with SQLite, Content provider, SharedPreference , saveInstance state and UI testing with Espresso etc. This were very interesting topics to me though it wasn’t my first time with some of them but i got more resources and detailed explanations from my Instructors. My best Instructor was Dan Galpin . Hi Dan!
Projects


The project were divided into 3 phases after completion of each stage of the course. Stage 1 & 2 project was popularmovie and Stage 3 BakingApp. This project covered the entire course scope , which was then submitted to the Udacity team for review.
Exams
When starting the course we were all informed of the certification examination . So my mine was geared towards doing my best to get certified by passing the exams. The ALC program manager scheduled a week for all the learners to attempt the exams.
Awesome!
Exams Scope:
- Android UI
- Services
- Data storage
- UI Testing
Yea.. i attempted the exams which was to be submitted within 48hrs. I finished before submission timeline because the time given was enough to implement all my task.
hmmm, after submission i was to verify my ID but all the ID’s i had was declined and i was very worried. Many thanks to the ALC program manager Solomon O. Awosupin who help me out when i ran to him. They after i got an email asking me to schedule time for me exit interview. I was so happiiiiiii. The interview went was successful .

Certification
A week After my exit interview I got this email acknowledging my certifications as an Associate Android developer(ADD).

I thank the Almighty God for his grace and faithfulness , it wasn’t really easy but He saw me through.
Many Thanks to Start Innovation Hub especially the CEO Hanson Johnson for his support , encouragement and resources. Thanks for believing in me.
Above all Sincere gratitude to the Andela and Google for giving me this great opportunity worth $750.