A Passion, A Dream made True …

Elie WANKO
Sep 8, 2018 · 6 min read

I am Elie WANKO, student actuary an AI and Finance enthusiast, and also passionate by the newest technologies. Few years back, studying at the Silicon Mountain in Buea, Cameroon, I loved computer programming and started giving a big interest to android programming. Unfortunately, at the time I couldn't afford courses on-line and the few I could lay my hands on where not well tailored for complete course. So, I got discouraged and turned to data science and actuarial science.

My Udacity journey all started with an AD on Facebook. When I saw it, I told myself “What kind of silly scam again is this?”, like since when are there scholarships for Android development. In addition, it said financed by Google. Anyways, I had some time to spare and I thought let met me check this out and make some fun out of it. Few clicks later, I was instead reading articles about the scholarship and that instance, my passion for Android development started kicking in. Immediately, I took the free courses that where part of the Android basics nanodegree to brush up on my knowledge and experience in Android programming. Along the way, I decided to fill in the application form and apply for the advanced nanodegree in Android development. Days went by and on October 23rd, I received the 1st email, and that was it, the beginning of the scholarship journey at Udacity, I was in for the first phase, the challenge course, starting November 8th. Out of more than 200,000 applicants, I was lucky enough to be among a chosen 60,000 for the challenge course.

Over three months, we had to complete an intermediary course to stand a chance to be selected for the second phase of Android development. Well, for a challenge guess what, it was challenging… (hahaa…). Throughout the challenge, I kept on pushing myself, pretty sure that was mainly my passion for Android development that kept me going forward. There were a lot of concepts I didn’t quite get but dropping out wasn’t an option for me. At the end of the challenge course, I told myself I did my best and whatever the outcome, my passion for Android development remains unchanged. I was back at home when it ended, spending some quality time in my home country and having some family time, which was awesome 😉. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help it, but I was a little stressed as I really wanted to get the full scholarship. In the afternoon of February 14th, the emails dropped in our mailboxes and I earned a full 6-month Google Developer Nanodegree Scholarship! Talking about a Valentine’s day, with 6000 scholarships awarded, I made the math and that was a 3% chance of being selected for the final round. It was UNBELIEVABLE! Nonetheless, after all the efforts given to go through, I could at least tap myself on the back. 😊

Here we go for the second phase. As a full-time student, I knew it was going to be difficult to cope with the nanodegree and my masters studies, but I had to stay focused, organized and starve from my distractions. In between sessions and exams, I can’t remember the number of times I rescheduled my timetable. Two months to the end of the nanodegree, I still had five projects out of eight to complete to graduate. Needless to say that I just had to give everything before the deadline (August 15th, 2018). Steadily and surely, I was tackling one project after the other, and then the drama about two weeks to the finish line, the mentor chat went broken. I still had to complete my final capstone project and I couldn’t get help from my mentor.

“No question about it, he was of great help. Kept me posted on the latest trend in the Android Dev world, had me going through stressed moments with his great sense of humor and professionalism, and made sure he always available to promptly respond to my questions.”

However, all I had to do was to find some motivation and kick back in, some of the past reviews gave me just what I needed …

One of my favorites …

As the mentor chat got broken, we were lucky enough to have the scholarship course extended by two weeks for this same reason, talking about a unique opportunity here. Ironically, at that moment with all the stress, I took a day off to relax.

“It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

After that, with a little more than two weeks left and half-way through my capstone project, I was able to get back on the train and head over the finish line successfully.

After 6 months of tremendous efforts, I finally made it and graduated as an Android Developer from Google and Udacity. 😊😊 I enjoyed every bit of the journey to the fullest, made friends and discovered potentials of the Android development world. It’s amazing to see the opportunities out there available to everyone, and these are endless as it’s constantly evolving. Today, with my app Udacity Discipulus (… soon to be published on the play store …), my wish is for every student, current and graduate to contribute to the Udacity community by building an app for us by us. What Udacity has created through scholarships with partners like Google and Bertelsmann is awesome and undeniably unique. Through this platform every student can contribute to the development of an app that suits our needs, meet other students from different nanodegrees to enrich our knowledge and all together with our diverse experience and skills build great things and make the Udacity community even better.

Don’t hesitate to become a Udacian too. With a diverse set of nanodegree programs in various fields created with industry leaders like Google, Bertelsmann, Kaggle, Mode, Mercedes, … just to name a few, you are definitely on the right path to unleash the professional hidden in you. Also, don’t miss the next opportunity, register and be notified for upcoming scholarships.

#UdacityImpact #GrowWithGoogle #GoogleUdacityScholar

May the code be with you.

My Journey as a scholar at Udacity.

An experience you wouldn’t get in a typical university course or even with most online courses.

Elie WANKO

Written by

#ProgrammingIsAnArt #ActuarialScience #PassionDriven

My Journey as a scholar at Udacity.

An experience you wouldn’t get in a typical university course or even with most online courses.

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