2019; A Year of Adventure
Tags: php, career, showdev
Published: 2020-01-06 21:18:20

So I have been reading some 2019 reviews from different people. After giving it a thought, I decided to put this together. 2019 was filled with lots of adventure. I literally divided my year into 2 parts (6 months each). Each part had me exploring different careers. And I must say, each career came with its ups and downs, excitement and disappointment.

2019 Highlights:
- Internship
- NYSC
- Temporary career switch
- Others…


Internship (January-July 2019):
I started the year writing code. I had learnt how to code on my own but I needed some guidance and an actual office feeling. Learning how to code on my own means that I had been working alone for a while. So I applied for an internship position at Codekago Interactive and I was accepted. Out of all the interns that were accepted, I was the only backend developer. I was required to work with PHP every day. This was fun for me because I had already learnt the basics and only had to apply it in the real world and also improve my skills.

Getting into Codekago, I thought I was only going to learn how to code but it was more than just writing code. The culture at Codekago encourages teamwork. This way, I was able to gain some knowledge about almost anything; coding, graphics design, motion graphics, frontend development and even digital marketing. This was only possible because everyone was accessible and approachable. Even the founders. Everyone was ready to help at any point in time. And I must say, I miss that space.


NYSC (March-April 2019):
NYSC (National Youth Service Corps) is a compulsory one year programme for Nigerian graduates (both locally trained and foreign trained). Although my internship was for 6 months, I had to leave for NYSC camp in March. The camp lasted for about a month. I could not do anything related to coding over there. I actually lost the vibe. That is what I got for deciding to serve my country. LOL!

Despite the fact that I lost the vibe, I still wanted to complete the internship programme. I was able to relocate back and I continued the internship while serving as a corps member.


Temporary Career Switch (July-December 2019):
After I completed my internship at the company in June 2019, I continued over there for a month while thinking of what my next step should be. This was actually the beginning of my second half of the year. So I wanted to explore while serving the country.

Aside coding, I have a strong background in audio engineering (though I am self-taught too). I decided to make the career switch to try out the real market in audio engineering. I was privileged to meet with some of the best live sound engineers and also work with them. I worked with Beloca Productions Limited as a freelance live sound engineer. I was also able to start my freelance mixing and mastering service called Pitch AudioLab which I am still actively building at the moment.

I actually don’t plan to bore you with all the details of this phase. However, this phase fetched me quite some money and lots of travels around Nigeria as compared to the internship which was unpaid.


Others:
In 2019, I also had goals which I wanted to meet by the end of year. Though I did not meet all my goals before the year ran out, I am very happy about how 2019 went. I cried, got depressed and even thought of backing out of every single thing. But the people I surrounded myself with were my greatest source of strength. It was so bad that I actually stopped attending meetups, conferences, etc. This changed in December with the Open Source Meetup that took place in Uyo towards the end of the year.


2020!!!
I am coming back to tech with all I’ve got. I will sacrifice a lot to build myself because I plan to get a full-time developer job by the time I finish my NYSC programme in March. I will be more active on social media this year sharing my experiences and accomplishments. Cheers to a new year filled with many wins.