DevCareers Africa UkNgTechHub DCTP Graduation Event 2024
We had the DevCareers Africa. DCTP — graduation event.
The Entire Program was a collaboration between a couple of organizations and individuals, among the organizations is ALtschool Africa, with the UK government represented by UKNGTechHub.
Our host for the event was the program manager at DevCareers , Joyce Nwanochi.
But let me digress a little and give a brief history of my experience during the program.
We had two sets of assessments, the first was graded and we were shown our grades, apology emails were sent out to calm applicants , the second was graded but grades were not revealed.
I got the congratulatory message after the second assessment .
From the first meeting which was the onboarding to the first lecture by Philip Omowole and later Ango Mustapha, DevCareer and AltSchool Africawere on top of the situation always.
There were a few glitches along the program but all were resolved by the support teams. I had my first Figjam experience with my facilatator Ango Mustapha.
We had a couple of Apps ideas, we went over in different teams and finally we had the capstone project which used the Agile methodology to meet the deadline set for submission.
After I completed the LMS course work on ALTSchool platform, on topics related to soft skills and job search, I was awarded my certificate.
We had Hack Sultan give the opening speech on the background of the program and the end goal of the program which wasn’t just a certificate.
The keynote speech was given by Jerry Uke.
He started by asking the graduates WHAT NEXT?
He took us down memory lane of his own experiences, and he spoke on the amazing experiences of other tech graduates in similar programs.
Here are highlights from his speech:
- What next
1. Head back to the drawing board, old course work, new networks, skills practical knowledge, access your abilities, know your strong points and build on them, and know your weak points. Plan for yourself, what you are going to do, ( the goal for the program varied for everyone — from job upskilling to career upgrade).
2. Build capacity. — you know your skills, you know what you know either as backend, frontend, Work on projects( not projects that can get you paid ), and get as many hands-on projects as you can showcase.
Have them ready, and get help from anyone to build your portfolio.
Your LinkedIn needs to be optimized as much as possible, you need to be able to say it. Your visibility needs to be talked about. take interviews and analyse to look at where you are.
Can you go for an interview without shaking, you can try AI interviews, go into interviews and speak about your work, don’t give a BS answer, try to show that you are teachable, avoid Applying for Tech programs like DCTP again, you are to build yourself and your portfolio.
3. Never Stop Learning (or Teaching)
Be the kind of person who applies enthusiasm to teaching or learning new things.
4. Play the Long Game :
You are not the same person you were last year, you have to get better at everything, interviewing, portfolio, the results might not show even for six months but remind yourself you are in a long game, you are building yourself, your capacity, it’s going to work out.
My takeaway from this event is first of all heading back to the drawing board and putting together. a roadmap for the coming weeks and months, I am definitely going to build capacity and keep learning, surely I will play the long game and I know the world is going to know me as that Product Manager who loves Data.
Useful links for Product Managers preparing for job roles:
https://gopractice.io/sat/
https://www.testgorilla.com/test-library/job-role/product-manager-tests/
https://www.adaface.com/assessment-test/product-manager-assessment-test
https://www.producthood.com/pat/
