I had a bit of a hassle figuring out whether to name this article the current title or something more like Getting into frontend, but I did win a MacBook this year through my front-end dev path, so yeah!

... A quick rewind back to 2021, I had been diving through programming, or tech in general for a few years before that. Then, I decided to switch track from mobile development with flutter to front-end web development in February.

I started with the SideHustle Training for 6 weeks and I took a few courses on both YouTube and OpenClassrooms to get started with responsive design using HTML and CSS.

In March, I registered for the six-month Zuri Training program. I honed my HTML and CSS skills and added JavaScript to my skillset. My tasks were done in between my full-time schooling schedule. By July, I had gotten to the project phase, during which I was exposed to the ReactJS framework. The project was hosted via GitHub and Netlify.

I enrolled in a rigorous virtual training internship in Nigeria, HNG i8 (Cohort 8), which kicked off in September. Here's an article I wrote at the beginning of the internship.

On the other hand, I was also engaged in my Industrial placement training which I had started around mid-July, on the mobile electronics path. It is part of the undergraduate studies requirement at the university. In short, you could say, I was an engineer by day and a coder by night. I had to sacrifice my sleep hours and spring up from bed early in the morning.

During this time, I made sure to give the internship my all. I collaborated with developers of different wealth of experiences on the core project. I delivered my tasks via commits to GitHub and PR submissions while seeking help from teammates when I hit a block. We had several meetings to go over the project and deliverables.

One major obstacle I faced towards the end of the internship was my laptop. The project was converted to a SIngle-Page Application(SPA). It did not handle working on a large-scale SPA so well and had severe lag issues, not to talk of battery life. I had to restart my laptop for every change I made to the codebase despite being locally on the computer. Testing became so difficult and I hit low points a lot during this period.

I pushed through the stumbling blocks that I faced even though it was a tough time for me. I eventually emerged as a finalist after 10 stages of evaluation. HNG Internship really prepared me for the tech industry and I had an amazing experience.

By November, I volunteered for a tier 1 level team-based project at Chingu. This lasted for about 7 weeks.

• On December 6, 2021 - I applied for the Enyata Build Up 2.0 Initiative Engineering track, which was an opportunity to be awarded a brand new Macbook for demonstrated commitment to tech.

A friend had posted the link on my class WhatsApp group, although I had heard about Build Up earlier as another friend had won in the first batch, last year. I had made up my mind to apply for the next one.

My team and I concluded the Chingu project on my last birthday (plus a birthday song from my teammates, which I loved btw).

• January 15, 2022 - I took the Build Up 2.0 Aptitude Test.

The first test was taken while I was on a journey back to school with my parents, through a quite bumpy ride in the back of my dad's car. I had to use my mum's phone as a calculator. At some point, the network disappeared for a few minutes but luckily the page was still open and I was able to submit barely just in time.

• January 21, 2022 - I received a congratulatory email that I had passed the first stage and would proceed to take the skill-based test.

• February 5, 2022 - I took the Build Up 2.0 Skill-Based Test

Note: The tests were multi-choice based.

• February 7, 2022 - I received an email highlighting my score in the skill-based test and that there would be a portfolio review stage before the announcement.

• February 2022 - I got a call from an Enyata representative for verification purposes.

• March 11, 2022 - I got the announcement. A close friend had seen the article where the list of winners was announced. The joy I felt that day was exhilarating.

• April 2, 2022 - I received my MacBook

I'm very grateful to the Enyata Community for affording me this opportunity.

The selection criteria required about 6 months of GitHub activities, for the engineering track I applied for, and hence, why my story would not be complete if I did not add how I was able to secure the opportunity.

Thanks for reading this piece I had to share. Till my next article. peace ✌︎☆