Different people have different circumstances, and as thus, have different journeys into tech. Some had it rosy with all the support and tools, while for others, it was kinda tough because they had to figure out on their own. Well, mine wasn't exactly straightforward... so sit back, chill, and hear me out.
There's a 95% chance we haven't met before, so quick intro. I'm Treasure Ajefu, a creative teenage frontend developer from Lagos, Nigeria. People say that I convert designs to code pixel-perfectly, and I don't argue :-)
Okay, back to the narration. I feel this should be more timeline-ish, so here goes:
2015, age 10: The Spark
Around this time, I loved breaking stuffs. Anytime one of our torches had faults and were about to be thrown out, I remember begging for it just so I could take out the battery, or the bulbs, and keep them for my next project. I came up with creative ideas for my school's JETS club (even though most of them didn't actually get built by seniors then). That time, I wanted to get into robotics, but no one around was into it. I also couldn't get some of the tools I needed, because my parents thought I was just 'playing'. Slowly, the zeal for robotics died.
2017, age 12: The Scratch Phase
I was in my second year of Junior High. There came this organization called CodeLagos, and they were supposed to teach us basics of Scratch. But we never saw them, and the teacher put in charge of training us barely knew how to use the software. Other students didn't have interest in it too. So I sneaked into the computer lab one day. In my spirit of cracking things open, I was able to get access to the school's computer (no doors were harmed in this process, neither were any rules broken, hehe) and opened the software.
Curiousity killed the cat, but I'm no cat, so I digged in. I saw an in-built tutorial, which I quickly followed. In about 45minutes of learning on my own, I was able to create a conversation-like animation... those kind with speech boxes. I brought my parent's flash drive the next day so I could run the software on their laptop back at home. As time went on, I got really good with it, creating animations and mini games. But then, the laptop started having issues, so I got restricted from using it. I was also restricted from using the one in school, because the teacher in charge then was transferred. I couldn't continue.
2018, age 13: The Pythonista
A CodeLagos representative came again. This time, the teacher in charge had knowledge in Python, so he began teaching a few of us who were interested. I'd use Pydroid3 for Android to run my code during classes. I picked it up pretty fast, because I had come across it during my Scratch days and took a sneak peek of what it was. Didn't know jack about what coding was then so I just breezed past it.
After learning the basics like data types and conditional statements, we had to stop classes to prepare for upcoming exams. And we never resumed them. There I was, back to learning on my own. I used Sololearn and Mimo, because they had really gamifying looks. Then Youtube playlists for tougher topics. I never used PDFs, books bored me.
2019, age 14: The mPulse Hackathon fiasco
Late December, 2019. I came across this competition, and the prizes caught my eyes. They were giving laptops to the winners. This was my chance to get one for myself to aid my coding. Not knowing what I was getting into, I signed up. Then I found out, the submission was to be a website. Didn't know anything at all about creating websites, so googled and found Adobe Dreamweaver. Installed the software, and found templates I could use. Did something very mediocre, and submitted. Of course, I didn't win, I didn't know what th I was doing. Anyways, I went back to Python I could code 'comfortably' on my 1GB Ram phone.
2020, still 14: The Lockdown
Lockdown started in Nigeria around March-April. I stumbled over the website I created back in December, and I thought... I'd rather have something I could show my friends, something more visual (as opposed to python in the terminal). So started teaching myself frontend development properly. I used TrebEdit and Acode at the time.
2021, age 16: The Year of Breaks
I took many long breaks, as the heading said. I had my final year exams coming up, I barely had access to a laptop and my phone... let's just say it wasn't cooperating as usual.
On finishing my exams on 28th September, I had forgotten almost everything I knew in python, because I left it for frontend development. So I decided to stick to frontend and learn more technologies it requires e.g I started learning Vue.js in October, 2021. I was now consistent, and I have my currently 108 day GitHub streak to show for it :-)
fastforwarding to March 2022, still 16
Challenges so far?
I'd name a few
- Always been mistaken as a male in group chats is a very common one. Sometimes, I might happen to be the only female amongst >50 males in a tech group... and honestly, it's all fun and games until one of them refers to me as 'bro'. I've gotten used to it though.
- Still don't have a laptop, but it doesn't stop me from aiming to be world-class everyday.
- Peer pressure. Sometimes adults get intimidated by teens who are already 'making it' in tech. Funny enough, we teens also get intimidated too. Sometimes it makes us question the choices we've made, and what we've been doing all this while. But more often than not, I see it as a motivation, that if they can do it, so can I.
I think I'd end this chronicle by saying:
Being a part of #WomenWhoTech is kinda hard. But that doesn't mean it's not possible. Show the world the skills you've got up your sleeves. Let your works speak for you.
Remember, it's always a new day to become world-class ✊🏾✊🏾