Mentorship Program
With SHE CODE AFRICA
In one of my twitter messages after my first program, I wrote: “The Journey of A World-Class Android Developer Continues”.
In my quest to be a world-class developer, I found She Code Africa Mentorship Program in one of the WhatsApp group. I told myself this is exactly what I needed, someone to train me and guide me to get to the peak of my new found carrier.
I know someone is wondering, Why the Next Journey?
Yes, it is my next journey as a world-class developer. “The journey of a thousand miles starts with a step” I quote. I made the first step in 2019 with the Google Africa Developers Scholarship. In this 2020, I have taken the next step with SHE CODE AFRICA MENTORING PROGRAM towards achieving my carrier goal. Guess What? I am getting closer, don’t you think? Hahaha!!!.
It all started in the 1st week of January, after succeeding in the pre-selection
stage. Ah! I got in. I was excited. My team of 4 amazing ladies with our awesome mentor, Raymond Gitonga.
In the first week, we got our Learning Path. After going through it wow! It was mind-blowing, learning Java? I have not gone through this aspect of Java before. I learned about code wars, Hahaha!!!!, the codes were not here. I got confused at first but my mentor showed me the way out. Thanks, mentor.
Throughout the first month, it was all about learning and learning with little coding practice here and there. I learned about the bases of Java, like Variables, Data types, Array, Strings, Object-Oriented
Programming, Introduction to Git, etc
Honestly, I did not know those well before. I just learned how to build an app first.
Thanks to She Code Africa for this training, it took me down to where I supposed have started.
By the second month, we dived deeper into android and started learning and building apps. Learned about Android application component, Intent, Fragments, etc.
We lapped it up with an app I called Phone call and push to GitHub. The same month we went ahead with learning about APIs. Focused on Retrofit API. I learned how to consume an API. My first was Ricky and Morty API. I was able to display the character's name, Id and images(Ricky and Morty App).
Again with Retrofit, I was able to consume County details that display the country Name, Capital and flag(Country Details App).
Then comes the third month with the final project. Wow! Built a Game to test your knowledge about Africa (Africa kNow App). Here I learned about Firebase Authentication, worked with an endpoint, and more.
It was not easy I must confess, learning, researching, asking questions. Sometimes you get an answer as I trust you, you can do it. That means go and find the answer.
Thanks to my team, wonderful ladies like no other. We were paired at some point and we all tried to help others learn. Thanks to my pair, who will always ask me “How far?.
Thanks to my mentor who will always ask me “Did it display? and send a dancing emoji when it displays”. if it did not, he will send me to research Island. This helped me to master a lot on my own. Hahaha!!!
Wow! I never wanted this to end. You know why? I want to learn more and apply what I have learned in real-life situations. I am better today then I was last year.All thanks to She Code Africa Mentoring Program
