My first encounter with web design was in 2015 at a tech program. It was a self-paced course. We were given course materials and were expected to study on our own. However, because of my school activities, I could not keep up with the curriculum. Fast forward to 2020, after my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) year and considerable graphic design skills, I decided to try learning web design again.

I saw the eHA Academy flyer on a friend’s Whatsapp status and it seemed perfect for me to apply. At first, I thought it would be fully offline and that we would need to meet, learn, and have our progress tracked. I was pleased with this structure because I learn better when I am part of a community, rather than by myself. It turned out that the program was partially offline but we were assigned mentors, had deadlines, and overall, we had a means of being held accountable, which I really liked.

The eLearning platform was a good one. I could track my progress and there were challenges to test my understanding of the concepts I had learned. I was determined to see it through to the end even if it meant using up large amounts of data, subscribing on a weekly basis, or saving my laptop battery to meet up with deadlines for projects and challenges. Learning HTML & CSS was easy. I found it easier to complete the challenges and did the assigned projects. However, the Javascript track was very challenging and long. I would get headaches often. I remember reaching out to my mentor about deadlines and how challenging I thought Javascript was.

Despite all these, my determination not to stop halfway helped me pull through. It was indeed an amazing learning experience for me and once more, it helped to reinforce my belief in the limitless things I can achieve. After our final projects, I decided to better my understanding of web design by choosing to be a front-end developer. I enrolled for the Ire Aderinokun Udacity Scholarship so that I could gain even more knowledge and skills. Unfortunately, I was not awarded the Udacity scholarship. I, however, was awarded three-month access to educative.io by the scholarship founder and I have been on the track since.

It meant a lot to me to receive the email saying that project was one of the best. It was a reward for my hard work and it further encouraged me to take my current front-end development track courses more seriously irrespective of the challenges I may face. I look forward to becoming a “full-blown” front-end designer by the end of the year. I hope to design amazing products and solve problems with this skill. My profound gratitude goes to the organizers of eHA Academy as they helped set me on this path. I hope that my story encourages people to put in their best and strive to finish whatever they start.

Thank you.

Busari Azeezat