If you’re interested in how a woman can go from being a total newbie in the very first cohort of the HerTechTrail Academy to being a tech sis who now earns in hard currency—the USD type specifically—you want to read this conversation to the last sentence. Source: Zikoko Memes Disclaimer: She did not take part in a get-rich-quick scheme, she put in hard work smartly! Big Woman! Let’s jump right in. You were in cohort 3, right? Hahaha! Cohort One. ARE YOU SERIOUS?! Yeah, I’m serious. You’re the proper definition of “day one”! In fact, before Cohort 1, before HerTechTrail had Cohort 1 proper, we had this very short boot camp. It lasted 2 weeks or so, during which Alex taught UI design. That was my first introduction to product design. In fact, before I saw that ad, because it was on Twitter I saw it- “Come and learn product design for free.” Before I saw that ad, I honestly didn’t know the meaning of product design. I decided to give it a try because I was already learning HTML and CSS, and with how it was presented, I felt like it was related, so I decided to give it a try. I went for the boot camp. It was pretty interesting; it was my first introduction to anything related to product building and design, so to speak. I decided I was going to move forward with it, but the cohort hadn’t started properly, so I had to find other ways to learn. After the two-week boot camp, there were about 3 or 4 people who finished and were serious about it. We were still having meetings with Alex; he was giving us small projects and all of that. I wanted to learn more, so I started attending other boot camps. When I saw that HerTechTrail was going to do a proper cohort kind of boot camp, I decided to jump in, and we were very few during that cohort; a lot of people didn’t take it seriously, to be honest, and it wasn’t as organised as it is now. At the time, only Alex and one other person taught, and we only had a product design track; we didn’t have a UI/UX track. I was in another boot camp then, but I still wanted to do this one. I followed through. Source: Pexels One thing about me is that when I’m doing something, I actually take it seriously, no matter what it is. Once I put my mind to it, I take it seriously and will see it to the end; unless there’s something big or serious enough to cut short my progress, that’s the only way I’d stop it. They gave us a project—you know, the capstone project. The way we did it then was that we had an idea, and different groups would do it. We were only three then, and one person said her laptop was faulty, the other person wasn’t even around, so I ended up being the only one doing the whole thing, and afterwards, I graduated as the best student overall. Source: Pexels AHAHN from cohort one? First ever!  Hahaha! From there, Gloria asked if I could help with the designs—the day-to-day designs and all that. I said I could do it. I’d already done a few projects on Fiverr, so I was a bit more confident in myself. I started doing that, and from there she said, “You’re going to be coaching next,” and in my mind I’m thinking, “Eh! I’m going to be doing what?” I love it! Ei God! I was so scared. Like, my first class, eh? Omo! It was scary, but at this point, I’m so glad that she put me in that position where I had to start teaching people because you never know how much you know until you start trying to tell people about it. You begin to think, “Oh! So I know all this stuff? You become more confident in your skills and in speaking to people. Do you get it? Yeahhh You become more confident in speaking to people, and that helped me a lot. Then I started coaching, and the next cohort will be my third bootcamp with HerTechTrail as a coach. Wow! That’s profound. I didn’t know you were with HerTechTrail even before cohort 1. Yes, lol. Me and HerTechTrail have been together for a long time. How far back was this? How long ago was it when you started with HerTechTrail? The first short bootcamp I told you about was in November 2020, which I remember vividly. The first proper bootcamp was, I think, around April 2021. Okay! So you’ve had this very interesting journey with HerTechTrail so far, and one of the strong points for us is that we’re helping women build not just tech careers but proper, sustainable tech careers. Yeah… I know your story is very sweet in this aspect because you’ve had freelance experience. You’ve left Naira for people who have Naira and are now earning in dollars, in hard currency. Please give us that part of the gist. Source: Zikoko Memes Okay. As I said, my first ever paid job was in December 2021, and it was a job I did on Fiverr. You know freelance jobs can be tricky; they don’t come all the time. I was looking for something more stable. HerTechTrail referred me to a company looking for a product designer, and I was going to be their first and only product designer. Omo! It was scary because, in my mind, I still felt like I was a learner. How could I be their first and only product designer? I had the interview, and it went well. To be honest, with UI/UX my first salary was less than #150k. It was a remote role, and that’s what made it better for me because, you see, waking up every morning to an office, omo! I don’t think I can do that in […]
