Amara Metu: [00:00:00] Okay. Let me go back a little bit. So I said, my topic is how to learn you and maintain a successful tech career. And I introduced myself as am net two from Nigeria Africa. So I’m here because I love to give presentations and then you can find me on Twitter at @MetuNechey. The highlights for today are talking about starting off in tech, following a creative learning part or curve, putting yourself out there and then how to maintain a successful track record.

Okay. I’ll be going over to my first highlight for the day, starting off in tech. What I wish the new five years ago. Seneca said every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end. So whatever you are doing or whatever you’re going into, someone has actually done that before. So start, I will say, starting off in technology in any technology career can seem daunting, but having direction is good, knowing where you’re going, what you want to do.

What plan to achieve what you’re [00:01:00] doing is very good. So now how to start off is what I’m gonna be talking about. And technology is actually a very vast and broad field. So use what you’re supposed to do to start off. You’re supposed to list all the possible tech carriers, both the non coding and the coding.

Then you list out all their following programming languages or tools for both the non-coding or the coding and careers, how they applied that the applications, you check out the latest technological trends in that area. And then you could look out for non-coding areas for NOCO.

Cause people like the freak when they hear coding, the whole programming writing program and all that. I listed out some of the coded areas and then the non coding tech carriers. So for the coding tech carriers, we have data science, we have data analysis, we have web development, we have software engineering, we have cyber security and then we have mobile, the app development.

And then for the non. Coding [00:02:00] tech carriers. We have technical writing graphics, design, UI UX user is user interface and slash user experience. We have the quality assurance engineer, the search engine Optim specialist. And we have the it business analyst. So some of these coding tech careers, like I earlier said, we want to look at their languages, want to look at how they applied.

For web development, look we strictly front end, we have some of the languages languages, which are HTML, CSS, JavaScript, react, view, ANR. And HDMS CSS are not programing languages, just the languages of the web. And then what do we use web development for? We use it to create fully functional and responsive web pages.

Then for mission learning, we have some of the programming languages, which are Python, R ju Joe Julia, and then some other languages too, that could be [00:03:00] used in machine learning. And what is machine learning used? Machine learning is used for developing, creating, and deploying of models. And then we have the mobile app development, which include tools for developing apps.

Kotlin Android react, native and Florida. And then mobile development is simply creations of more for creations of mobile applications. Then we have cyber security. We have quite. And then cyber security, simply protection of the web, what data, internet information, and everything that has to do with the.

What will know for after listed them out to knowing their tools and their languages and their applications. You should also look at what the latest technologies in any field. So you won’t get into the part of learning an out language or a tool, because as strengths keep changing.

You should know [00:04:00] what’s happening in that field so that you would also, you also be revolving because wanting about technology, that it is very dynamic. You can’t be rigid. You have to have, you have to also dynamic to keep moving, to keep learning and keep updating yourself. So over to the second highlight of the day, which is following a curator learning part or core, which I sub avoided the tutorial hell.

You know how to learn is very important, because I could tell you learn web development, learn mobile, learn machine learning, learn about security. And I don’t give you direction. Like I said, earlier direction is very much important. So after looking at all the specific carriers, their tools their languages and their applications for non-con and.

You should look for, look out for documentations of whatever you choose, whatever area you choose. Look out for the documentations, read, know the [00:05:00] documentations of the areas, their languages and articles, so that you can on have an understanding of a basic, you have a basic concept and then not them systematically because it’s gonna actually help you in your learning.

You don’t just jump off and then start doing your own thing. So you have to really documentations, know what you are. Know how people, how you know, because every area have their own standards of learning, have their own standards of writing, even programming language we have, what we call center. So it’s important that you don’t just choose an area and their language, how things are done.

So you could also do you, the next step is to look for a good boot camp of full curated learning parts. So we have our first beautiful front end. Our boot camp will be starting off very soon. We have code academy, we have front end masters. We have free code camp. These are actually created learning pass, which will guide [00:06:00] you and solidify your foundation because having a very proper foundation is I.

So over to getting a mentor, it’s important that you get a mentor learning on your own is good, but getting a mentor who has experienced, who has gone ahead of you seen the integratives of what you are about getting into who advise you to avoid the look goals he or she had, and would also skyrocket your journey, maybe what took the person six months, because you have a mentor, she, or she’s gonna help you.

Into that thing within three months or a shorter time. So have learning colleagues you wear is technology. We, lot of tech communities, you don’t just do things you say you wanna do on your own. No, that’s not. What technology is all about. It’s all about collaboration. It’s all about having people who challenge you.

It’s all. Going out there, I have a problem. Oh, this person’s learning [00:07:00] Python with me. Let, okay. How do we, okay. I have this challenge and what do I do? What, how do I go about it? And you learn, I find that it keeps you in your track. If you’re learning alone, if you hit something very difficult, you could actually drop out.

So challenge itself by joining coding challenges on good platforms, we have lot of coding challenges platforms. Hack around lead code. You test your skills because we can’t know what you can do until you’re tested. So when you do those challenges, you put yourself out there, you actually building yourself, be don’t be scared to leave your comfort zone.

And then finally have to build projects is wanting to learn. And then is another thing to build projects. Let there be evidences of what you’re doing or whatever. You’re. For example, you build websites, you show us, you put your knowledge into good use because nobody’s gonna build you. Nobody’s gonna employ you based [00:08:00] on what you know.

Yes. Is one thing. But what you have built is another thing okay. I’m gonna be moving over to the third highlight of the day, which is putting yourself out there. Putting yourself out there. How much of your digital footprint tells us about you? So when Karen first said, if you want to be seen, you have to put yourself out there is that simple.

When you put yourself out there, people are going to be able to find you and learn of your capabilities. They want to become your client or do business with you or join in on projects. You’re working. So imagine I’m building the next the next Facebook or the next Twitter, something bigger than that.

And I’m building it on my own. I don’t let people, I don’t let tech community know what I’m doing. It won’t get the recognition it needs. And because actually wherever you’re building for the general public. So it’s important [00:09:00] that whatever you’re doing, wherever you’re learning, the projects you’re building, you are putting out there, make yourself known.

So the process is easy. What you need to do first, you need to have to put yourself out there, join a community and be active. We have our front end foxes community on slack, on we have our presence on LinkedIn, slack Twitter. In fact, every platform you can take off they, so you have to join the community you’re joining for the first time we have a community.

So join. That is where you have you able to meet people from all over the world. People did amazing stuff. People working in, or fun, or man companies, you be able to meet them, ask your questions, network, collaborate, and learn. So having a strong over to the next, having a strong social media presence, some of us, our Twitter, we are not active.[00:10:00]

LinkedIn. We are not. How will people know what you’re doing? How will you put yourself out there? So it’s important if you don’t have a Twitter account, get one, be active, follow us on Twitter, follow our our founder, know what we know what she has in stock for us and be active. So that’s where putting yourself out there, then over to asking questions.

You do not know it all. It’s important. That’s why we’re a community. You ask your question. Ask your questions, whatever difficulties nobody’s gonna laugh at you. All of us had times when we wear in your shoes. So we are going to be, it is getting very comfortable with two. You’re going to love the experience.

So back to the next network, when you get into this communities, network, meet people learn to network, talk to people. You don’t know where that from, identify with them. Let’s in a talking simply identify with people so you can see front [00:11:00] end foxes is owned by, it’s not an African or Nigerian.

It’s the founder. Our founder is not a Nigerian African, but you can see now me and benefited for me. That’s the product of networking. That’s a product of networking. So network, like I say, be active. Don’t just open your social media and then you say you, oh, I’ve opened it. Be active. You. Interact. That’s what social media is all about.

So at 10 events, both on site and VI virtual. So you have to be active also in and around, the remote, the 2020 shifted a lot of things. So we have opportunities of going virtual, and then. Having an onsite program. So once you, the, once you can’t attend physically join online, hear what is happening.

That’s how you’re gonna know the trends and you know how to build yourself. You’re going to learn a lot from this. So if you want to really stand out network, I know a lot of people that are so good with their skills and everything, but because they don’t [00:12:00] have the right network, they don’t have the right network.

They. Actually are on there. People who are, who have lesser skills than they are actually doing better than them, because those people, those other set have the right network. So it is important to build your network. So another way to put yourself out there is by volunteering.

Volunteer, volunteer to speak at event volunteer, to, teach, volunteer, to mentor, volunteer for a lot of things, planning events, helping people because, we are first human. We are first human and, love is actually the basics of humanity. When for example, I’m organizing an event and you reach out to me and say, Hey, I see what you’re doing.

I want to help out. A way I can, any way I can. And then I give you some task to do it. Once an opportunity comes, it is paramount that I would reach out to you first, sit home. You need this. Oh, wow. Wow. [00:13:00] Wow. Okay. Look at this opportunity and I refer you. I recommend you. A lot of people have gotten big opportunities.

True voluntary. So volunt, remember that your first woman love is the business of human. So another thing is celebrating your small win, celebrating your small wins. Don’t look at any win you get as small, celebrate it in a large way, celebrate it in the larger, because it’s not easy. A lot of people are not putting themselves out there and therefore you to be putting yourself out there is important.

Celebrate your small wins. So be yourself and be unique. Be yourself. Don’t try to be another. Be yourself, be unique. You’re yourself. Be yourself and be unique. Okay. So over to the last highlights, of our topic is how to maintain a successful career. So we have looked at how to start off.

We have looked at [00:14:00] how to learn and. Taught we at taught slide. We looked at how to put yourself out there. And then now we are going to be looking at how to maintain a successful career because you can choose a career. You can choose to learn. You can start off, but we find that the percentage at the end of the day is that we, there actually few, especially for the ladies, there are actually few people that actually reach the end of what they’re doing.

You can say, okay, I want to be. Successful front end developer. I want to build a website for, and so purpose, but at the end of the day, within three months, six months you are down, nobody sees you. Nobody has a few, so it’s important to know how to maintain that record, how to maintain it, how to maintain it over time, because what space is consistency and persistence and being grit.

Nobody’s gonna reward you, you okay. Nobody’s [00:15:00] gonna reward you or know you, if you start something and leave it, they’ll say you as a co, but how to maintain this is what we’re gonna be looking at now. So like I say, I’ll just judge us, all of them actually intertwined, networking, learning, and giving back, when you network.

What’s about putting yourself out there is, people know you, people are now watching you to see what you can do and that fear of, making, at some point you become people are laughing at oh, that you gave up is actually a push. It’s actually something that’s gonna drive you.

So it’s important when you network, you say, people know you, you sometimes you want to give up on yourself. You remember, the people. Message. I told you. Oh, it’s because of you. I’m learning front end development. Oh, it’s because of you. I’m learning mobile app. Oh, it’s because of you. I’m learning cyber security.

You you just hold on. So you learn, you keep learning technology, like I [00:16:00] said is dynamic it’s dynamic. It’s not rigid. Rigid sometimes. Good. So learning is very important. Learning is very important. You keep learning, you keep knowing the latest strength. You keep learning, knowing the latest technologies.

You keep knowing people who are making groundbreaking things in that sector and following them, knowing how they did their. Irrespective of background because here in Africa we have lots of challenges. I’m gonna tell you, we have the electricity challenge. We have a mobile data, touch a lot of challenges, but it’s left to you to say, I’m not going to give up.

Never give up because you’re gonna look at yourself in five, 10 years from now and discover. See people whom you are much better than doing things that you should have done and [00:17:00] gone far from. So never give up. Sometimes I can tell you as a female, the only ment I sometimes have is just her.

I made some vows to myself. I’ve made some promises to myself because nobody is going support you, give you the support, except those who understand what you’re doing. They’re not gonna give you the support. So it’s left for you to say, I’m not gonna give up. I’m not gonna give in. Nobody’s gonna intimidate me.

Nobody’s gonna oppress me. So like in these two or three columns, I’ll be talking on the ways to men to remain great to, to stay, to maintain that track record. So be persistent, be. Focus on your outcome. Get clear on what you’re working on, working towards and why is what’s pursuing? If something is important enough to you, then you will surely find a way, focus on the outcome.

One day, that one day you’re gonna be earning. [00:18:00] Fat salaries or whatever, you’re going to be so comfortable. Your family’s going to be comfortable. Your society is going. So it’s important for you to focus on the outcome. Know what you want. If, for example, if I’m hungry now I know I can go to any length to ensure that I eat.

So that’s the same approach towards learning towards technology. You have to pursue, know what you want, and it’s important to find a way, always find a. When this way is not working, look out the other way. Then enlist support doing it alone is the hard way reach out. Like I said, collaborate, ask for support.

We have a community. We have the front end foxes community, very vibrant and good community. So come and join us, come and will give you the necessity of whoever you’re building. You want to push yourself out. Our founder will support you. We will also support you. So be gritty, the power of passion and [00:19:00] perseverance for long term goals.

While focusing on making smaller ones daily to hit the big goal, you have a big goal maybe to see yourself in a, a 15 billion mention. How do you achieve that goal? Make sure you have the passion. You’re passionate, the perseverance about it. And then taking daily steps. What do I do every day?

What do I do every day to hate that? Let’s say in five years time, what do I do? So this is very important. Make sure that you are taking those steps daily. Don’t just say, oh, I’ll be, I’ll do this in 10 years time. And then you’re not working. You’re not walking towards it. So be gritty about it, own it.

You own it. Where we’re all created to be great. Don’t have a fixed mindset. Don’t have a small mindset and then finally never give up who want to do visions and dreams because all your visions and dreams are very valid and must be fulfilled by you. Nobody else is [00:20:00] gonna fulfill your vision and.

And even if you hand over to somebody, the person is not gonna be so passionate. They’re gonna be so gritty about it. Like you so passionate about what you want, go for your visions and dreams, because they’re valued very valid. They can turn out to be the nice victim we are waiting for. The world is waiting for because technology, like I said is dynamic.

Otherwise, I’m getting tired of the the normal the system now. And so there’s a shift like web two. There’s a shift now to web 3.0 is a transition to you. Don’t have to give up on your dreams and your vision because you’re and you, so that’s, we are humans. We are unique. And then I want to, okay, I’m rounding up here.

I want to thank all our amazing sponsors. And then I also want to thank and celebrate our founder. Our founder, Jen, she has been awesome. She has been amazing. She has been there for us asking, questions and questions. She has been really good. [00:21:00] I would also say thank you every single lady or who or anybody at all who took out time to join us today?

So when I’ll be trained the floor open for questions, questions now.

Jen Looper: Awesome. Oh my goodness. Amara the chat is going crazy. We’re so galvanized and we’re I’m very emotional actually. So I, I was really happy to hear such a wonderful talk to kick off our front end Fox’s day.

Wonderful presentation. I think everyone is. Everyone is very happy to hear you come and speak. So yes, we have a couple of minutes for questions from the audience and we had one. Let’s see if I can find it. It was about how to find the best way to search for jobs after finishing a tech bootcamp.

This is actually a good question. And it’s a challenge. This is from Ji. Any idea?

Amara Metu: Okay. Okay. Once you finish learning you should already be active in a community. You should [00:22:00] also already be, like I said, you have to be in a community. So at site learning, you should also have a portfolio, your where your portfolio is simply your, what you do, who you are, like, what it speaks volume of fuel.

Okay. There are a lot of platforms. There are. There are lots of platforms you could start applying for jobs. There’s indeed. There is a, there are lots of them. There’s clever jobs. There are lots of them where you could start putting your CV there to companies. But what is very important is to network.

Why I talked about networking is. When, people who are already in those companies, they give you recommendation, which plays a vital role. People are applying and then your portfolio or your resume is already up is already number one. So they’re actually going to give you that, special treatment, which is the truth, which is the truth.

We are humans. We are emotional. Nobody can, we can’t deny. So be good apply to applying for jobs and then make sure you write your your portfolio,[00:23:00] matches the job description. For example, they’re looking for somebody with test JML CSS, JavaScript. You don’t use a portfolio showing Python or some that programming languages.

So it’s important to also know how to structure your portfolio, not structure your resume, in our community. Such happens. We train people to know how to do this. In fact, after our bootcamp, you have a portfolio. So it’s important to join us and know what we are doing and be part of. Yeah,

Jen Looper: it’s funny because the next talk is gonna be about building your portfolio.

So it’s really perfect. Perfect. Yeah. Product placement. So that’s excitement. Yeah. And I’m a hiring manager, so I hire a lot of folks and I want to see those amazing resumes as well. So it’s always a pleasure when I see something come across my desk that fits

Amara Metu: that build

Jen Looper: perfectly. It’s beautiful. Let’s see.

Here’s another very interesting question. And. It’s a big challenge. This is from Claudia, among some students of mine. I see the desperation to learn everything at the same time. And in these cases, I see [00:24:00] poor resumes and poor showable skills. How can I deal with that? Because the tech, the whole tech Vista is so wide, how this is a question about how to find focus.

Amara Metu: Okay. Yes. Like I said, it’s it boils them to you didn’t do your proper, your due diligence, or I say your proper research before starting off, tech is a very beautiful interest. Why do I say so? When you go for an event, you see somebody working in Microsoft Facebook, and you’ll be like wow, I wanna get there.

I wanna do this. I’m gonna do this, if you go through all the tech careers, you find that they are so interesting and lovely, and you feel like doing everything, but it can, you can’t do everything. So that’s why you have to do your research. Once you do your research for mobile app development for front end, Each area entails and focus, no need of jumping from here to here, you find out that you become a Jack of all trades and master of known.

You understand, so you have [00:25:00] to choose one. For example, you choose, you chose front end development. You look at the, the skills required, serious CSS, Java, and all that react angular view, and then you focus there. You see a friend doing back end. Don’t just jump there. Don’t jump there.

It’s going to confuse, you’re solid once you have learned, be project over time, and you’re sure you are very solid. You cannot move back to the back end. You understand? Or look for another career because sometimes you could actually be different. And I find that is not your thing.

So you have to go back to your. Okay, look at the careers. Look at what they’re doing. Look at what each of them entails. Then pick one, but don’t jump. Don’t be excited. Tech, even though technology is interesting and exciting, it doesn’t, it’s basically, it’s not about excite it’s about you being consistent and building things that will actually matter.

Yes,

Jen Looper: absolutely. And I have to say that Amara is one of our mentors in our boot camp. [00:26:00] And for any student who is working with her is a lucky person. I’m so grateful that you were able to come and speak to us and give us a little taste of your passion for these topics. And I think the chat has been reflecting the excitement that we’re all feeling.

So thank you so much. Thank you so much for this is wonderful.