So Far So Good (My TIIDELab Experience 1.0)

Today makes it exactly one month since my induction as a TIIDELab fellow cohort 3. July 7, 2021, precisely. I wouldn’t say storytelling or article writing is my strong suit but the journey and experience so far are worth every bit of documenting. You must be wondering how I even got into the fellowship. Check out my article about TIIDELab Pre-fellowship. The top three fellows in the program got auto slots into the fellowship and were one of those. Second best fellow precisely.

The induction took place on zoom as the program was to be run 80% remotely.

On my first day at TIIDELab, I had a morning session anchored by Mr. Aderoju Shamsudeen Adedapo aka Big Brother. Where he introduced to the fellows our first instructor Miss Grace Ejegwa. She introduced us to the use of a version control system using Git and Github. It’s important and some hands-on project all the fellow contributed to. We also got introduced to a none technical aspect of being a software developer which was titled Mastering and Acing Technical Job Interviews by Mr. Saheed Adepoju. He’s a software engineer at NVIDIA California, US with special skills in CPU performance projection engineering and modeling. Where he emphasizes the essentials of Linked In optimization and having key problem-solving knowledge required to thrive. He also shared useful tips and encourage us, the fellow to show our ability to learn fast and display a can-do spirit in and out of the fellowship. That finalized the first week.

In my second week at TIIDELab, I got introduced to another intriguing topic called Data Structure and Algorithms. As a computer science graduate, I had an idea of what the topic was about and so had a lot of questions regarding the topic. This topic was treated by Mr. Farouk Alogba. The managing partner of Encentral solution limited. A technology company focused on delivering a world-class solution for products and businesses. My favorite section of the topic was “The Big I notation”. This was where I got to know that this aspect of programming will help me perform any task related to data processing, automated reasoning, and calculation easily. And so far it has helped me improve my problem-solving abilities.

In my third week, I got introduced to advanced HTML and CSS by Mr. Solomon Chokor. A senior Front-end developer. Where I began to build my portfolio layout using float positioning. After lots of hours trying to my navigation bar look like a navigation bar. By the end of the week, I had learned about flexbox, grid systems, media queries, and semantics HTML tags. I was exhausted🥴 and lost a lot of sleep on my portfolio website as I had a deadline to meet. All in all, it was challenging but I prevailed💪.

In my fourth week at TIIDELab, I learned about the concept that I most likely haven’t heard of before, and if I had, I dimmed it irrelevant and unrelated to programming🙈. I got to do this in a team of 10 now 9.

TIIDELab does evict fellows who don’t or can’t keep up with the system. What a journey to been self-reliant!

As for myself and the other fellows at TIIDELab, we got grouped into teams of 9 - 10 fellows each. Each team had fellows located both in Abuja and Lagos so we had to work hard on communicating over long distances.

FYI: This was another phase of sleepless night and endless meetings😩.

We were each given a different projects topic. Where we were each required to draw up SRS(System requirement specification) documents for our various topics and also draw up a corresponding FR (Functional Requirement) document for our topics. This process and documentation were introduced to us by Mr. Ibrahim Lukman. The chief technical officer at Ksolutions Limited.

This was the most daunting week for me as I dread documentation😢 and had never had to work in a team before, not to mention being a team leader😁

We had our weekly meetups which would be held every Friday as the program is only 80% remote.

My favorite day and part of the program. Aka no laptop day.😁

During these weekly meetups, we get to learn topics that entail how to be self-reliant as a developer. Topics such as

• Article writing
• Structured problem-solving strategies
• Decision making etc, to mention a few.

Usually taken by our prestigious Big Brother, Mr shamsudeen Adedapo. We get to work in different teams on a challenge, where we put heads together and evolve our communication skills, teamwork, and networking skills. And win challenges that come with cash prizes. This challenge we call wager task. We also play awesome games and challenges where individuals who win from both Abuja and Lagos are titled Head of House.

Note: Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

One of which I participated in was a game of luck usually called snake and leader. Where fellow highest on the board wins.

FYI: I didn’t go that far on the board.😂 oh. Did I mention we had only 80 seconds to play the game?.🤔

We’ve had guests at this meetup in the likes of Mr. Femi Omotesho. The CEO of Techspecialist Consulting Limited, talk to us about Emerging opportunities for developers. We’ve also had some of the program’s sponsors pay us a visit in the likes of NECA (Nigeria Employer’s Consultative Association). Oh!!! Have I told you the CEO and Founder of TIIDELab also visited us? My bad!

Mr. Kadir salami was their oo.! Where he shared with us “Four things he wished he knew as a young professional”. Below are some free takeaway quotes

It takes a wise man to learn from others.

Fear is your friend.

Do something worth mentioning and talk about it always. — kadir salami

Overall, I’ve learned how to listen to my instructors and teammates adequately, I’ve learned better communication skills especially when addressing an audience. I’ve also learned how to think fast to solve problems and what certain response denotes and so much more.

That’s it! My so far so good first month at TIIDELab. It has been challenging, insightful, and exciting, and so much more. I had to push myself through the course of the month. Stay tuned for more content on my journey at been self-reliant at TIIDELab. ONE Month down FOUR more to go.✌

Thanks for reading this far, I would relish connecting with you. My social media link.

LinkedIn: Abayomi Alabi

Twitter: @Abayomi.js

GitHub: Abayomi Alabi