Hello World😃!

I was having a conversation with a long time friend who happens to be an android developer and during our moments of trying to catch up she asked me a question that totally caught me off guard. She said...

...you're are now a tech-bro, Why did you get into tech? Aren't you a Civil Engineering student?

Hearing those words, I really did not have a defininte answer to give. Why couldn't I come up with one? Well there were a couple of reasons but first let's take a peep into my world, shall we?

So how would I describe myself?

To keep things short, I'm currently a student at the The University of Ibadan, Nigeria. I'm currently studying Civil engineering and also a huge music fan.

...why civil engineering though?

Well, growing up, I kinda always had a curious mind, always wanted to fully understand how things in general worked from trying to understand how there were people in my television to how people were able to build structures over water. So for a Nigerian secondary school student in high school who loved Mathematics and didn't really like biology for so many reasons, I fell in love with Technical Drawing(Engineering Drawing), Just the idea of drawing the Assembling and Architecting process of structures really sparked my interest. So if it was not Civil Engineering it probably would have been Architecture(Now, maybe Solutions Architecting🙃).

So how did I go from drawing and designing structures to writing code?

Just like everybody else in Nigeria, my 2020 witnessed an unprecedented closure of most sectors of the economy; education being the worst hit with the prolonged strike by the academic staff union of public universities and delayed reopening of schools after the COVID-19 lockdown. In other words I was out of school for about 10 months.

So there it was, my golden opportunity to do something else with my life that was not Civil engineering or music related. So i decided to at least learn a programming language.

Why programming?

To be honest, I really didn't really have a plan in mind. It honestly just sounded cool to be able to code and build stuff. So after a long research i finally decided to learn python. So i got a couple of courses but i ended up sticking with Angela Yu's 100 Days Of Code Python Pro Bootcamp on Udemy. From writing my first "hello world" program to building one of my favourite Python projects "The Music Time Machine"

The Music Time Machine is basically a bot that creates a spotify playlist for you from songs that trended during a particular year. So it's like taking you back in time with music. I'll attach the link at the end of this post as my gift to you.

Learning to write code reminded me of how good it felt to be engaged in the building process of something. This was where i fell in love with it, from the frustrating moments of trying to find software insects to the fufilling moments of seeing my code actually do something, It really was all worth it.

Fast forward to 2022, there was another break to my schooling as ASUU( the academic staff union of public universities in nigeria) went on another strike which lasted another 8 months. This was the moment I fully branched into the Tech Space. I told myself that I was not going to let the Nigerian government and ASUU waste my time. So I applied to as many Tech related Scholarships i could find, from Future Academy Africa's Data Science Program to GADS2022. I got a few and they really helped shape my learning. My 2022 learning path looked something like this;

• I started by finishing my 100 Days of Code Course. Here I learnt to work with a lot of cool python libraries and also built a lot of fun projects. This phase sparked an interest in working with data( Extraction, Machine learning model training and visualizaion)

• After which I got a DataCamp Scholarship through the Fred Brandon Flames Foundation where I'm focusing on Learning SQL and Data Engineering Related Concepts alongside GCP through the Google African Developer Asssociate Cloud Engineer Scholarship(GADS2022) on Pluralsight which i applied for in June 2022.

• The GADS2022 has really been the biggest highlight of my tech journey so far. It's given me a proper learning structure in the past 4 months by focusing on a lot of fundamental concepts to building skills relating to Linux, Networking, Security, Big Data and Managing Infrastructure on Google Cloud through Courses and Labs. It's been a very enlightening process as it's really helped to see the Big Picture in the Tech Space and really understand how a lot of things work. I recently just qualified for the project phase. Yay!🥳 plus I'm really excited for what the future brings.

MY GADS 2022 CONGRATULAORY MAIL FOR THE PROJECT PHASE

MY PLURALSIGHT LEARNING PROGRESS DASHBOARD

Now you see why that question was hard to answer yeah?

My Journey into tech has been driven and inspired by unexpected crisis, circumstances and the opportunites at hand. Looking back 5 years ago, I never imagined i would be working with super computers scattered all over the world through cables laid at the bottom of the ocean floor.(it's a Cloud Reference.🙃).

In the words of one of my Pluralsight Tutors, Dan Appleman. "Looking back at how I've gotten to where I am, I'm astonished by how most of my choices have been more like a drunkard's walk, bouncing randomly among opportunites that presented themselves, With hope and faith that I'll like the outcome"

Civil or Cloud Engineering?.

It's really not a choice to make at the moment. The future of both Industries booms with opportunities. and hopefully I'll one day be able to work in a space that's an intersection of both worlds or not. Time will tell. At the moment, I'm a Python Developer and aspiring Cloud Data Engineer, who's currently studying Civil Engineering in School. What a mix yeah? I know.

So what should you expect from this space?

I'll be using this blog as a medium to document my adventures into the constantly evolving world of tech. From building fun python projects to managing projects and infrastructure on the Google Cloud Platform and everything Data in GCP. Hence, sharing what i learn as I progress and try to balance this with my schooling.(Wish me luck.)

If you made it this far thank you 🤗. Just as promised, you get a free Spotify playlist courtesy of my music time machine.

Click Here to Claim your prize. To operate click on the green run button and wait for the script to run. Fill in the required details and once the script is completed, it should display a link to your spotify playlist, Click on it and enjoy!

Please make my day by liking and dropping a comment, i'll love to answer any questions you have or just general comments. Thank you once again for reading.😊

Code for Projects can be found on my Github Page