Cohort Stories: Meet Khalil
vol. 4, no. 40 — guest post by Khalil Kum
Growing up in a small village back home in Cameroon, there was very little exposure to technology. The only interests I had back then were school, soccer, and the toys my favorite auntie would bring me from the city every Christmas. I didn’t get to watch a TV channel until I moved to the city to start secondary school at age 10. My mom sent me to a boarding school and when I would sit around the kids there, I started to realize just how behind I was regarding technology. My classmates and teachers never noticed this gap because I have always been sharp in the classroom and my grades were always very good. But deep inside I felt insecure; like I knew nothing. This feeling gave me the drive to spend extra hours learning about computers and technology during holidays. I brought myself up-to-speed with the rest of my peers. This is how I became interested in technology. In fact, I received the prize, a flash drive, for best computer science student upon graduating high school. I still carry that flash drive with me till this day.
My journey to getting into Hack.Diversity was…interesting. During a STEM meeting in 2018, Angela Liu came to talk to us about Hack.Diversity. I remember sitting there and thinking “This is perfect for me.” I went ahead and applied but I wasn’t selected. I was told it was because I wasn’t ready knowledge-wise. This news was disappointing but understandable as I had barely taken any computer science related courses as this was my first college semester. I made this incident my stepping stone which propelled me to excel in all my classes in the computer science transfer program, a program which involves high levels of math and physics. I did all this while waiting to apply for Hack.Diversity again in 2019. I also minored in computer networking to learn extra knowledge to be better prepared for my second chance at joining the cohort. I am proud and happy that my efforts were rewarded as I was accepted to the 2020 cohort.
When I think of my journey to where I am right now, challenging is the word to describe it. Given the fact that I didn’t get to use a computer till I was 10+, the fact that I had to go through secondary school and high school with no internet connections in school, gaining knowledge required a lot of extra effort.
I remember building a web page using html from scratch in school with code I looked up online while on holidays, and not having internet connection to run them. I remember going through the CCNA program and not being able to get a certificate for it because the fee in Cameroon currency was enormous. Almost every IT field I tried to get into always had this wall that prevented me from being great, but I never gave up.
Now I am exposed to all this opportunity, especially through Hack.Diversity, and I am so excited to take full advantage of the resources that will be available to me to grow and be great.
I aspire to be a data scientist, database administrator, network engineer or web developer. I think data is the backbone to every aspect of technology and it is my dream to be able to manipulate these data to tackle and explain real-life problems, or even prevent them from happening at all. I am excited to network with people who have similar interests as myself and work with them to build new applications and technology. I plan on taking full advantage of the resources and opportunities provided by Hack to improve my skill set and industry readiness.
