Introduction
My name is Ogoh Blessing Onyowoicho. I am a self-taught Frontend Developer based in Nigeria who enjoys sculpting miniature art pieces with Polymer clay during her free time. Medical Physiology is my first degree but thanks to Google, Youtube, Freecodecamp and Pluralsight among others, I have transitioned to Tech. I coded my first "Hello World" in February 2021. Programming for me then was a means of escape because months prior to when I started, COVID hit us and I experienced a trauma that left me feeling I had lost every opportunity to make any meaning out of my life.
From what seemed like just a means of escape from my reality then, I am building a career for myself and am achieving my goals.
Core Values
My core values are:
Faith:
God has proved how intentional He is about me times without number. There were times I was down and out but He picked me up. I am forever grateful for how present in my life He is.
Grit:
This is part of what brought me where I am today. I have coded on my phone for months, gone to barbershops in my neighbourhood for my job interviews because of how terrible the power supply here is etc. For me, being tired once in a while is okay but giving up is NOT an option.
Discipline:
Anything worth doing is worth doing well.
Outreachy
Introduction
Outreachy is a program that organizes three-month paid internships with free and open-source software projects for people who are typically underrepresented. Internships can focus on programming, design, documentation, marketing, or other kinds of contributions.
The program has two internship cohorts each year. With the first running from May to August and the second from December to March.
Applicants for Outreachy internships come from around the world, and from a wide variety of backgrounds. They include but aren't limited to university students, bootcamp graduates, people who are self-taught, or people switching careers. If you are considering applying, you can get more details on Outreachy's official site or reach out to me. I would love to help.
What motivated me to apply for Outreachy
REJECTION.
Lol. Don't get me wrong I will explain. After studying and studying resources for Web development I could find online and building a couple of projects, I started applying for jobs but I kept getting a series of rejection emails as I was stuck in a loop. I NEEDED EXPERIENCE TO GET JOBS AND TO GET SAID EXPERIENCE I NEEDED A JOB. Contributing to open-source and in turn, applying for Outreachy was my attempt at improving my skills by looking for opportunities to learn from and interact with people that have gone before me while building experience for myself.
Why JupyterHub?
The very first thing I did after I got the mail saying my Initial application had been approved and I could start contributing was to go through the list of organisations and the projects they had for this cohort. Jupyterhub's project got my attention because of its goal - Improving the accessibility of JupyterHub. It was offering me the opportunity to use my technical skills to proffer solutions to accessibility issues and ultimately improve the user experience of people with varying needs so I chose to contribute to this. I believe everyone(people with special needs, people at various locations, people using different devices etc) should be able to navigate and use the features of a digital product seamlessly.
Another factor that has helped me greatly is how present my mentors are and how welcoming the community has been. I can ask questions about things that aren't clear and I get answers which have been helping me improve my skills(both technical and interpersonal) and grow.
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