The Power of a Tech Community
Today it has been Four months since when I relocated to Nairobi from Eldoret. I had an internship and I was ready to start my career. But with time and adapting to Nairobi, everything never seemed all right. Something had to be fixed. It wasn’t normal to just wake up everyday and do computer support.
Back at campus, Kisii University, I was so much fascinated by the events done at Nairobi unlike in Kisii. In campus, I was a member of Kisii University Computer Science Association(KUSCA), and this is where I grew my programming skills. I learnt much by sharing and acquiring knowledge.
After Campus, May 2017, I had to move back to my town, Eldoret. I had no community. It was the beginning of my “hustle” life. I never knew way forward in my career, but i was ready to begin again. I got a job as a lecturer with a young growing college in Eldoret. Of course it wasn’t satisfying, but I had no otherwise. There were tech events at Eldoret but i was too busy and I didn’t have enough courage to attend initially.
On early 2018 I came across DEV-C Eldoret Facebook Developer circles on facebook through Gertie Sheshe timeline. I decided to take a jump. I also started to take a look at Atlassian, Eldo-hub that could host events once in a while. Unfortunately I never attended any of this since I had travel to Nairobi for a career start on early April. And this is where it all begun.
First tech event I attended was a reactJS meetup 2 at Andela, Nairobi. It was my best Saturday and I enjoyed every knowledge shared. Though I knew very little in the event. I was a beginner again and everyone seemed a star: Brian, Alfonce, Joy and many others. I was convinced of the power of JavaScript and what i could attend. Then came the Java Spring event held at Africas Talking. This guys spoke of high level language that was simplified into simplicity. I decided to also learn spring framework due to this simplicity. I was advancing. I attended several meetups on weekend as i attended to my internship career on weekdays.
During the start of my internship, I got across google africa scholarship link and ofcourse why not take a shot. It was more than I expected when it all started out. I never knew what slack was and the power behind the online tech community. I am not so active when it comes to chatting but this was only to seek assistance on where one got stuck as a developer. Through Udacity , Andela and Google I learnt what is required of us and what should be tackled much as a software developer.
Progress is more important as software developer. You must solve a problem and have a passion to keep going . Sharing of knowledge is of key important. Learning is the cycling bicycle to be on the move.
ALC 3.0 meetup was amazing for aspiring developers. Andela Learning Community gave us the platform to share our ideas on what we had been doing, Challenges, breaking points and mentorship on the learners. This showed me that i was up to date with other learners as well.
A tech community is a place to grow as a software developer. it’s where you get your courage shaken up and want to do more n more. For me I’ll always embrace a community and always be ready t share more and more.