Text >This little girlie has a lot of work to do.
Age: early 20’s Hi Sex: Female
Career goal: Being able to work in either science or tech. Or being able to mix both
Point in Life: Final year biological science student (ASUU oh😭😭)
INTRO
Hi. My name is Chinwendu Nnamene. My friends and acquaintances call me Wendy. My tech journey wasn’t planned, but it wasn’t really surprising either. You see, I had always had an interest in anything “techie”. I looked at developers in awe, wondering how they created code, understood it, resolved it if it doesn’t work, pushing, and deploying the code. I envied designers their ability to create art, interfaces that are really appealing, designing products, webpages, everything. I really believed I had no skill or ability to learn so I admired from afar.
THE START
I started my tech journey for lots of reasons, but I’ll give the main ones:-
• I had become increasingly worried about my future after school and needed an alternative career option in the event that I wouldn’t be able to find a good job in my field of study (biology, specifically molecular biology and genetics).
• The world is becoming increasingly advanced and new discoveries in science is increasing at a much faster rate. I did not want to be left behind
• And, the reason that became my biggest push – I was bored. Extremely bored. Joint universities strike (ASUU) and lockdowns due to the COVID-19 epidemic had left a lot of people with a lot of time on their hands, and I was no exception. I needed something to do and venturing into tech was the answer since I had a PC I only watched anime on. September was when I tentatively put my foot in. with slow and shaky starts and a lot of breakdowns I gradually left virtual noob realm and can call myself, not so proudly, an amateur. I got my push from one of my closest friends who is a frontend dev who wanted me to “stop wasting my time and potential and sit up”. He told me about design, figuring it would not present a lot of challenges to me, told me about figma and got me signed up, got me links to resources (he still sends me whatever he comes across), and is my biggest supporter (outside my family).
CHANGING POINT
I did not jump into design. I was slow to pick it up. Frustrated at my slow pace and anxious because I knew my frustration was caused by constant slacking. Electricity supply where I live is terrible. This contributed to my difficulty in picking up speed.
However, I got a big boost when I won a Figma pro account giveaway for one year on twitter given by @iamharaldur . I entered the giveaway not expecting anything, and being one of the winners was both surprising and amazing. Apart from the amazing benefits of having a pro account on figma, this was the motivational push I needed to take things seriously. I started reading more articles, watching and trying to recreate more tutorials I came across. I’m still very much a novice, but I’m not completely ignorant anymore. I do get despaired when I log into sites like Dribble and Behance and see the amazing designs by other creatives, but I get motivated by my closest friends and my twin sister to continue.
CURRENT POSITION
At the start of 2021 I joined the @SheCodeAfrica community 👩🏾🤝👩🏿. An organization dedicated to bringing more women into tech.
This is incidentally my first assignment as a level one newbie, why I started my tech journey. I’m hoping to learn a lot from these amazing women across Africa, and to share any knowledge I have, limited it may be. I’ve also started following more experienced creatives on social media, especially twitter and Instagram and I get tips and ideas from their posts. It’s been amazing. My biggest wish now is to find a mentor I can work with and learn from. Learning on my own has been hard but I’ll keep pushing on. I have a goal target for the end of January and I need to sit upright to meet it. This journey has been challenging, and wildly interesting. It is also opening my eyes up to more tech fields and I have a better idea of what my tech future will look like (fingers crossed).🤞
Cheers to everyone else on their tech journeys. You’re amazing and I hope you have fun as you learn and grow. 🥂