Cohort Stories: Meet Foday
vol. 5, no. 35 — guest post by Foday Samura
I am proud of my African heritage because it is something that will always be a part of me. My values growing up were really similar to the way my mom and dad grew up, both in African households. It has made me a very sweet and considerate person because of how my parents raised me. I grew up knowing the quality of things and of life; making sure to do things that make me feel alive more often. Even with food, I would never want to waste food because my parents made me eat everything. As I am from an Islamic background, it is unacceptable in the path of Allah (God) to waste food. I am proud to have grown up as an African, and I plan to keep my culture with me for the rest of my life.
My interest in technology started way back in my country when my brother-in-law introduced me to his internet café shop where people pay to have access to the internet. I was there to assist people in communicating with their family and creating Facebook and email accounts; which planted the first seeds of my interest in technology.
Then I started having the feeling of wanting to know just how technology worked, why it worked, and what else it could do.
As a child I always dreamed of being a medical doctor. Becoming a doctor was a very popular dream in my place for both girls and boys. That was because most of the parents, including mine, were so optimistic about this job, and they always reminded their children to prepare themselves for it. They thought this job would bring their children good salary and fame. And I thought that was true; so I had to be a doctor to bring fame to my family and to have a good living. But when I moved to the United States, I found out that technology is growing at an unrecordable rate every day. Technology is the most influential tool in our lives — it is our present and future. I decided that I wanted to pursue a degree-level course in computer technology; so I enrolled in computer science course at a state college, where I was taught Java and another computer science-related courses. Java was the first programming language that I had contact with, and in which I was able to write some simple input/output programs. This course served to deepen my interest in technology.
What excites me the most about Hack.Diversity is that it will equip me with the most valuable guidance to set myself up for successful internship opportunities within my workplace environments, and give me the opportunity to meet and connect with people in the industry in which I want to be a part of.
I am very confident that I will learn a lot from any resource that will be available to me and the de.Hackathon project that I will take part in during the program. I look forward to using my time in Hack.Diversity to strengthen my skills and learn new skills for a successful career as a software engineer.
