So it’s been a while, nearly 6 months to be exact. That’s actually wild because it feels like I wrote my last blog yesterday, but alas ya girl is back on the blog!
You may have been wondering where I have been…or not, we are deep in a global pandemic so you may have also had much bigger things to worry about. Either way let me give you a brief update…
So rewind to May 2020, I am happily coding away, practicing on CodeWars, pair programming with the bestie Margo and generally feeling pretty accomplished. Coding life was going great, I was studying daily, learning a lot and completing some awesome code challenges.
But blogging life, not so much, nada, nilch, zero!
Imagine, I have 12 draft blogs sat here, I had thought of TWELVE different things to write about but I could barely get a few sentences on a page.
Writers block was seriously real. So I thought, not a problem, keep pushing on your coding and the blog will come back in time! It must be the pressure…
By the end of May, more global tragedy had struck the world. The murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police force re- ignighted many world wide protests fighting racism and police brutality. We, well I don’t know about you, but I protested! Black voices needed to be elevated and heard and I, amongst many others felt it important to be an ally.
Looking back now, this consumed all of my mental capacity while fully distracting me from coding, blogging and anything else outside of the social media news cycle.
By mid to late June now, my mind is elsewhere but work is also picking up again — awesome for my bank balance, not so good for my full time coding study. I had made a goal of becoming debt free by the end of 2020 and I really wanted to make some progress but my study was getting some serious neglect.
Whew, July, August and September! Summer in London — a rare one for me- passed so fast with lockdown being eased — living my best life was on the agenda but coding was the last thing on my mind! I took every opportunity available, Zoom parties (big up the FIYH family), picnics in the park, online rum tasting — even a couple of attempts at some socially distanced birthday parties too!
September and October some exciting emails appeared in my inbox — “New Apprenticeship Opportunities”! Bingo, or so I thought. I had started getting back into my practice and was more sure than ever that my future was in software.
Unfortunately these opportunities due to the current pandemic were few and far between. I needed a new plan. I was bored of waiting, we may have been in lockdown for most of 2020 but I had goals I wanted to hit and becoming a developer was rising to the top of the list!
In a backwards turn of events, lockdown had given me a lot more disposable income and far few places to dispose of it. I was now debt free and without large monthly outgoings I was able to take a route, that I was unable to afford before.
Makers Academy, from its origin has had a privately paid for course, costing £8000, with cohorts starting monthly. The course takes four months but they recommend having the capacity to not work for 6 months, incase it takes you a little while to get a job!
I can’t say I was balling to just drop £8k but I could make the 6 months without work happen — just about. To my rescue were an awesome private education loan company called StepEx, who within the space of two weeks approved my full course loan to cover my tuition fees.
With some swift paperwork and a fresh interview with Makers, I was accepted onto their December 2020 programme — WTF!
This journey (albeit on and off) has been on the cards for 5 whole years, it doesn’t quite feel real! Sometimes, the universe just brings all those puzzle pieces together and timing is everything!
Due to Christmas, the December cohort actually started yesterday — more about how it’s going in another blog. But I am so ready for this journey, to test myself to grow and become a Junior Software Developer by March 2021.
If you would like to support me through this process, please keep reading and sharing the blogs — you never know who could hire me thanks to the blog! And if you want to show your support financially, i’ve set up a cool little place where you can “buy me a coffee” and support my journey!
Software and Soca!
My fave section is back with a new name. This song speaks for itself!
