(twitter.com/hackSultan/status/1254392348894..)

This right above is where it all started from. Stay with me while take you on my amazing and equally beautiful DevCareer x Progate journey.

My name is Folahanmi Kolawole and i'm one of the 100 developers that participated and benefited from the DevCareer x Progate program. We were provided with resources like free courses on Progate, monthly internet subscription, mentor-ship and amazing guest speakers in the tech industry that i for one look up to. I had never ventured into doing anything related to the backend part of web technology or even frameworks in the frontend and so when asked to choose a path, i went with Web Development with React and NodeJS.

I started to learn and while i did, i was able to build amazing projects. The project manager Chidi Bartholomew Okoye gave us really intense and quite rigorous training and projects with really early delivery dates, but these really helped learn things like speed, how to research on my own and how to ask for help when stuck and overall help me become a better developer. Don't even let me get started on everything i learnt when it was time to be separated into teams to deliver projects. I understood what it meant to collaborate and work with a team and also to carry everyone along.

Oh it wasn't all just work, work and work. We had the games session from time to time with Chidi Bartholomew Okoye giving us questions that had us thinking our feet and outside the box because there were lots of goodies to be won. There were also sessions with seasoned engineers in the community that helped us as juniors answer mind boggling questions based on their own experiences, alleviate fears(of being a fraud), and also advice on things they didn't couldn't have when they started out; but we can have now.

In the space of the 3 months, i didn't just stop at node and react, i have also learnt to pick up new things in this field and that's actually what being a software engineer is all about. I tested new waters, for example i finished the Web Development with Ruby on Progate, went through C# and the .NET framework and tried out iOS development with Swift and i can say for sure that it has been a wonderful experience so far and it has me so thrilled.

I know the next thing for me right now is to start to build on all I've learned, get my hands dirty and also contribute to OSS(open source) because the only way to get better at this is by continuing to do it.

I want to use this opportunity to appreciate Akintunde Sultan, Chidi Bartholomew Okoye, Samson Goddy and the many more sponsors that made this sprint learning program a resounding success. I want to shout out to my colleagues in this also; its being an honor doing this with y'all and it's been an amazing ride. Thank you!