Community Spotlight: Alice Oyekale
For our first community member spotlight, I spoke to Alice Oluwatosin Oyekale, whose user name @Alicia you might recognize from the #introduction channel welcoming new members. My chat with the computer science graduate revealed what kept her in the community despite being inactivity in her first 3months.
For an interview such as this, I love to open the conversation by asking how the person got into tech. The answer is usually one of these two: a computer science student who had to unlearn and relearn most of what was taught in school or a non-computer science student that made a switch from another field. Whichever it is, both parties share one thing in common and that is relying on independent online learning platforms to learn the craft. Here is Alicia’s story.
Hi Alicia. Walk me through studying computer science in a Nigerian University.
I applied for Food Science and Technology but the Nigerian University system has a mind of its own and I was admitted as a Computer Science. As a result of this, my first two years were spent trying to accept my new course of study. I finally came to appreciate CS when I was nearing year three. Despite my slow acceptance, it didn’t take too long to see that computer science in the four walls of the university is quite different from the real world.
What was your formal introduction to tech?
My exposure to computer science besides the theory taught in the classroom started when I approached a friend whose face was constantly buried in his laptop. Upon enquiry, he revealed that NodeJs was the reason his face was literarily glued to his laptop. I indicated interest to learn and he showed me basics CRUD in NodeJs then left me unguarded. Self-learning a new skill can be tough without a mentor and I had my fair share. Of course, it was near impossible to advance beyond the basics, majorly because I had no prior understanding of JavaScript. After a while, I dropped NodeJs and ventured into UI/UX.
I learnt UI/UX for a couple of months but I soon found a reason to discontinue because of my determination to code. Looking back now, I couldn’t settle into design because I unknowingly digested a biased school of thought that perceived coding as more challenging than other fields in tech. From UI/UX, I dashed into frontend web development this time starting with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Thankfully, through research and interaction, I saw the fault in that school of thought.
Alicia tells me she is determined to grasp a framework sufficiently before moving to another one. Currently, she is unraveling ReactJs one line of code at a time. Although she enjoys her work, it does come with sleepless nights.
How did DevCareer come into the picture?
When I joined the community, I was happy to find a place where I can learn and grow. I was happy to discover a platform where I can interact with experienced developers. On why she welcomes new members, she said: when I joined the community newly, I couldn’t make sense of the workspace and that caused me to recoil into a shell until I decided to change that. I figured the best way to maximize my time in the community is to engage other people. I started by showing people around in the community then I took that energy to the FE channel by asking questions during our learning sessions. So, my experience when I joined spurred my action to help new entrants who might share a similar experience.
Shout out to the entire DevCareer community for providing an inclusive platform free of discrimination. She applauds Chris, the FE channel lead who diligently answers questions during the peer-peer learning section.
Alicia said she stumbled on DevCareer on Twitter at a time when she would reach out to classmates to show her a thing or two and was met with zero attention. Alicia has been a member of the community for nearly a year.
How do you stay motivated?
Knowing the reason you are doing something is the best way to stay motivated, I will share an encounter I had a while back. I was out interviewing for a code camp when I met an interviewer who condescendingly asked why I, a female wanted to code. Could it possibly be coding is no place for a lady? It came as no surprise when I was not admitted into the program but the exchange, however brief helped me solidify my purpose. Alicia remains hopeful and looks forward to a time when she will achieve her goal of working at Microsoft or Google as a Software Engineer.
What resources do you learn with?
I leverage the endless resources on YouTube and freeCodeCamp coupled with working on a real-time project. I volunteer my time at a startup, I love it because it is an avenue to get my hands dirty, I have access to a mentor and an in-house learning session. Honourable mention is Chris, he has also been amaaazing!
What does a day at work look like?.
On days I have to go to the office, it starts with learning sessions, then I work on assigned tasks. On other days, I engage my hobby of fashion designing but most of my time is spent working on my PC.
Say hello to Alicia in the community, on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Thank you Alicia for your time, we are happy to have you in our community!
DevCareer is a non-profit organization that provides relevant support to aspiring tech talents through the following programs:
- #Laptops4Developers: A yearly 3-month long program to support aspiring developers and designers on their journey to become word-class with laptops, courses, and mentorships.
- A DevCareer community on Slack. Use this link to join over 13000 tech enthusiasts where bonds are formed, knowledge exchanged and stories shared.
- A DevCareerXProgate scholarship that gives 5000 community members access to pro-plan on Progate to learn any course of choice, exclusive to community members. Application is open all through the year use this link to apply.
