When change starts to happen…
It has only been two months and being the Developer Student Clubs lead of Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology has changed me in ways I could never imagine, to tell you the truth, it scares me. Lately, I think less of myself and more of how to help my community grow, it’s like am losing my old self and gaining a totally new person altogether. If someone told me a few months ago that I could one day wake up and get to my laptop just to follow up on how my teammates are doing as far as their preparation for their different session is concerned, I wouldn’t believe it. Before DSC, there was only ME, I know it was a selfish way of living, but I was alive and that’s all that counts, at least I thought so. Of course, I had a small circle and they were the only ones I could think of apart from my family members, definitely, but otherwise, everyone else’s issues were never mine.
I have worked in teams before and to be honest, most times they didn’t work out for me. Leading an entire community can never be easy for anyone alone, and that’s why I have a team and for the very first time in a while now, they have made me feel like “home”. My weaknesses, which are many for the record, are strengthened by my teammates, words can not express how grateful I am that they have my back. For instance, android development has always been something I have been afraid to try out, and as a result, I can never facilitate any session android related. Machine learning, on the other hand, is something I have been trying out lately but I am not comfortable to lead a session on my own, someone has me covered. When it comes to web development, I have been doing it for a while now and as a result, I am part of the web development team.
I have come to realize that trust is a very important virtue for a leader, something I would never give easily in the past. Lately, I simply have to assign tasks to all my core team members and trust that everything would go well. Given that we are all volunteers, someone would think that it is hard to get things done, well, it could be, but not for my team. Thanks to Google, I got the opportunity to visit Ghana for the Developer Student Club, Sub Saharan Africa Summit, in Accra Ghana from 11th to 14th September, I got an extension though, a story for another day, but before I left my team and I had arranged for an info session and in my absence I am very proud to say that everything ran smoothly. I had to trust that they would do their part to deliver even in my absence and they did.
For those who are familiar with Beyonce Giselle Knowles, “Run the world” is probably a song you have come across. Not entirely true, but we’re getting there. Our collective voice has never been louder. We have gotten so much better at advocating for ourselves as a group and in the tech space to be specific. Though at an individual and interpersonal level, we may still have some work to do, a story for another day. While in Accra, I got the opportunity to attend the Women Techmakers dinner. It was amazing seeing beautiful ladies who could sing, dance and still be writing codes! I realized I had been hard on myself because society expects and wants me to behave in a certain way simply because am a female developer. I left Ghana knowing that it was ok for me to slay and code at the same time.
It gives me so much joy to be part of a team that gets appreciated for the little things we do. Students who have attended sessions I have facilitated, occasionally reach out to appreciate how I run the sessions. Most of them point out that I have helped them develop an interest in programming. Probably their way of saying we make coding seem easy and fun, of course with a lot of work put into it and a bit of experience, my team makes complicated tasks look achievable. I remember my first time in a software company where I was interning and my boss made everything look easy. I would struggle with a concept and google the entire day to get solutions and immediately I asked for assistance, he would do it in minutes! I can’t wait for the time when I’d have the experience to be someone’s hero!
There are many people I would thank for the baby steps I take each day to get a better version of me, maybe I’d write an article entirely for them, but today I’d like to take a moment and thank the very first company that believed in me and gave me a chance when I didn’t even believe in myself. With every new task I was assigned, I felt dead, but I kept going each day and learning every step of the way. My supervisor was and remains to be my hero. Without him realizing it, he taught me that experience is something you can never beat.
My confidence level has greatly increased since I simply have to appear to have everything figured out, yet in reality, I have no idea what I am doing and simply figuring it out one step at a time. I get to learn new skills every single day so that I am in a position to explain to my community members. Surprisingly, I realized I wasn’t celebrating myself for my “little” wins as I should have because, to me, they were small accomplishments that were not worth mentioning. I have grown to love myself more than I could ever imagine, I can’t even explain it. I know it sounds cocky, but you wouldn’t understand until the time change starts happening in your life without you realizing it and by the time you do, words can’t explain your feelings anymore!
I don’t know what the future holds, but my team and I are taking one session at a time till the journey ends. We choose to focus on the next step and not the entire path, so far so good.
I bet you’re probably wondering how I found myself in tech, stay tuned for my next blog post to find out. Believe me, you don’t want to miss it.
Happy coding everyone!
