A while back I used to run a wordpress blog, I actually started with blogger, then moved to joomla then wordpress, but decided to go medium for various reasons. So back in those days I typically liked to do interviews of people I came across because I always find you learn a lot in that particular setting. Read some really ancient interviews here.
This brings me to this particular interview/post I asked my best friend Gabriel to do. This is story, him basically sharing some pointers on his journey into wethinkcode. Amazing story.
My name Gabriel and I have been coding since 2013. I started to learn about coding when I did a BSc degree in computer science at Uni. At first I loved coding and felt in-powered with what I could do with coding. I have honestly never felt more in control. I got the concepts quickly and I worked hard but enjoyed everything about it. I got 97% for my first semester and 98% in my exam. We are lead to believe that you need a degree to get a job in this field but honestly you do not.
The world out there realizes that we need to train people to help the world grow more. If you are still not convinced about this there are YouTube videos out there where programmers who are working for big companies feel the same way. You might think “but this is only overseas” and that is where you are wrong. This year a new NGO, WeThinkCode was formed. The test was really hard and if you got high enough on both tests they would invite you to attend their month long boot-camp. You don’t need any qualification to join nor a matric. You just need to be in the age range of 17–35 years old. This year they have 120 students and I am proud to say that I am one of those 120.
The boot-camp selection process was intense and there were over 30 000 who took the on-line test. 10 000 were able to complete both tests but only 600 passed. 300 did the boot-camp and only 120 from those 300 were selected. with in that boot-camp I did more work in those 26 days than I did in the first year of university. We dove straight into the work and had no teachers but the students studying with us. We learned from day one that team work was key to success in this course. We put our efforts together to succeed in the boot-camp. Having passed the boot-camp and been in the course since 9th May. We have covered so much work that it is scary. I have now officially covered the 2 of the 3 years of my BSc computer science degree.
We have participated in a Geekulcha Hackathon and all the groups who had WeThinkCode students in them had their projects finished by the end of the 48 hours and it was working. There were university students in there too and they were shocked by how much practical experience we had. We could code both front-end and back-end side of things. The huge advantage to our course is the diversity that we share and the vastness of the knowledge base we have access too. The course is filled with people who has experience in different fields of programming. Having spoken to fellow students in the course. They have said that even the workers who work for our corporate sponsors are worried about what we know as we can go straight into our internship and work. We do not need to be thought the practical side of things as we work in it each day. Any theory that we lack, we research ourselves and learn in our own time. We are around like minded people who have all taken the decision to study these 2 years and chase what they want. This whole course is free as it is sponsored by corporate. We study for 8 months, do a 4 month internship and the same is for the 2nd year but you study and work in the field in which you chose to specialize in.
I honestly felt that I have wasted my time at university as I never liked any of the other modules but for programming. Courses like WeThinkCode teach you what you need to know for programming in the real world and much more. Speak to any university graduate and they will say that the first year of working, you learn far more than they did in those 3 years in completing their university degree. The real world is where you learn much more then any university can teach you. They are not able to change their course on the spot to suit the demands of the corporate world. Where as short courses and courses like WeThinkCode can do that at any moment. This means that you do not learn any outdated things that university may teach. As it takes a year or two for universities to change the course as their lectures must first learn the new work. Where as we do not, we learn everything by ourselves and having an 80% pass mark is what makes sure that you know the work, even if you are unable to attain the 80% you are still learning and will be able to improve on your mistakes as we mark each other. That way we are exposed to the many different ways of doing a project and can help correct our project.
The world we live in today is a fast growing world with new technological advances each day. To be the best in what we do we work at it each day. It doesn’t feel like work to us as we can not see ourselves doing anything else. We love our field of work with all its bugs, bus errors and segfaults. Do not let the norm of people thinking make you think that for a second you need a degree to work in the technological field. To all the fellow coders out there keep coding and for those wishing to pressure the wonderful field of programming never lose your passion for it and always keep working at it. Never give up no matter what.
