The Untold Story of a 24yr Old Nigerian immigrant

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My heart is racing real fast as I type this, i’m still not sure why. Maybe its the uncertainty that lies ahead, or maybe its the fear of hearing the truth I’ve ignored for so long.

So my dad decided I go study in the States for my Bsc right, I was really excited, and also touched as he never had the opportunity to receive the standard of education I was positioned to receive.

I was 19 when I left Warri for the States. Knowing I escaped Post UME into UNILAG was a breather and relief of how I goofed the latter part of my secondary education(because of family problems).

Now I had a fresh start, to redeem myself from the shadow I was in SS2-SS3. This is where things got interesting, no annoying is the word. On my first day of resumption, after paying my tuition/room and board, my dad calls me and i quote, “this is the last money i’m sending you from Nigeria, go and figure yourself”.

To say it was devastating or heartbreaking is the least, he still managed to give me half the following semester which I’m grateful for, with no family or relative, just school friends, I struggled. The beginning and end of each semester was a nightmare and I was caught in the middle.

I finally had to drop out of school after my junior year(300L), every naija person my age had family here supporting them, the older ones I knew were getting married for their documents this was before I dropped out because of finance, I was 20, getting married at 20 was never in the plan, nobody seemed to understand why I had not yet sent a car back home like the rest of my friends(internet friends), "“guy you nor sharp” “guy you too slow” “guy come back make anoda person go”. Once again, caught in the middle of the ocean like Jack an Juliet, sorry Rose, but there was neither Rose nor Juliet anywhere

Finally, I summoned the courage to get married, as it was the only feasible option to go back to school(the laws here are complicated). I marry oh, e nor work, immigra denied me, my world collapsed, found out depression was real, even as a christain. I haven’t seen my mum in 6yrs.

Long story short, after picking myself back up mentally in late 2016, somehow started to learn how to write computer code, found out I REALLY love it, currently investing in myself by taking certified courses on Udacity/teamtreehouse. Now this is where i need your candid advise.

Whenever I do decide to relocate to Nigeria seeing I turn 25 in November, with the skills I would have acquired and portfolio, would I be able to get a job in the tech space? Please advise me, I thought I knew what life is.

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I was hoping to read a success story. Disappointed.

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Everyone thinks I’m such a bitch for saying poor people shouldn’t have children but this post is a great example of why I’m right.

I’m sorry your Dad and family tried to use you as a cash cow before you were old enough and ready enough to fend for yourself and I’m sorry they didn’t even attempt to finish raising you and make sure your education was fully seen to.

I don’t know if coding courses will be enough to land you a job to be honest but you might be able to find something not that great and then work your way up to something better as you gain experience.

Hope things work out for you.

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Sad story, especially coming from family. But you are an adult now so take hold of your life and move ahead. And if you really want to make it, you can!

NO, I don’t think you will be able to get a formal job with such skills.

Use your self-taught skills to work as a freelancer and make sure you build a personal brand - be good first of all, deliver on time, and show integrity. There are several freelance sites you can register on. And don’t just learn by yourself, collaborate with other developers where you live/online to build on your portfolio.

Use what you earn to sort out your personal expenses first and start saving! With good enough skills, you can earn more and save enough to go back to school. Then continue working part-time while you’re in school. When you graduate, you might be able to land your dream job.

It’s really up to you.

And for this:

You’re joking, right? I would have thought you learnt a lesson or two about family from what your dad did.

Stay focused and best wishes!

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Ok.
Honest questions: My guess is that you’re an employer.
Why don’t you think he’ll be able to get a formal job?
What do you look for in a potential employee, seeing as he has stated he’s building a portfolio?

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Thank you all for your honest opinions

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I’m not really understanding folks that undermine a Treehouse certificate & Udacity certificate. If you’re getting a Treehouse Front End Dev Cert and Javascript Cert alongside Udacity Back End Nanodegree Cert. My brother you’ll be technically stronger than 50% of Front & Back-End developers in Nigeria. I’m talking from experience.

I’ve met so called front end developers in Nigeria that don’t even understand how to build “Mobile First” websites, don’t use Sass or Taskrunners(gulp/grunt) and have jobs, might not be great jobs but they’re working.

Besides from what i know from Treehouse you come out with a Portfolio that you can use to start applying. On the Treehouse Slack chat someone in his 7th project, bought a domain name built a portfolio and got a job, person hasn’t even finished the Course.

Don’t be discouraged fam, you’re on the right path with the certifications, build your skills, work on a couple of projects, maybe for free at first(probably try out freecodecamp) to have stuff for your portfolio aside from the certification projects.

Moyheen the Android babe that gives talks here and there, if i’m not mistaken, She credits her technical skills to the Udacity Nanodegree.

Bottomline you will not lack a job in Nigeria if you know your stuff (Front End/Back End)

Ways to build a portfolio
Make Clones(design an already existing popular site and put it on your portfolio, host it if you can)
Work for Free (build sites for friends,family etc), put your heart in it. Put that on your portfolio.

A dev with a reasonable portfolio will not lack a job for long.

On another note you’re 25, you have more than enough time to get it right. Just keep pushing forward, don’t allow the past to affect you.

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Thank you so much @Umi, no one is pushing me to continue, I’m just trying to to make something out of what has already happened, your words of encouragement really made me look on the bright side of things, I definitely will stay focused and maybe share my progress on this new path with the house, thank you once again.

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Reading this makes me feel somehow
But those courses from teamtreehouse and utility and good enough to get you started. You just have to be good at what you’re doing, take a particular part you’re very interested in like front end and build yourself there, build a very good portfolio too.
But honestly the hustle on Nigeria gan is much o, it may be better there self, it’s different for individuals. But don’t be discouraged. Celestine omin wrote about how he just graduated from university last year or so, and he was one of the first engineers konga had in Nigeria, I’m sure that is because he was known for good stuff. So Dont be discouraged , make sure you have a good portfolio(someone already gave advice on how to build portfolio) , stay focused and do what you enjoy. I really wish you the best

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Do you have the said certification and have you applied for a formal job successfully with it? It will be more credible to talk from experience than assumption.

Don’t get me wrong, a developer that never went to college can have skills far better than a grad and can still get a job.

Emphasis here is on ‘formal’. In the organized private or public sector, one of the challenges in the HR department is with employee placement. How would you place [along the work cadre] say, an employee with masters in computer science with one who has far better coding/developer skills but does not have a degree? Are you going to place the one with better skills on a higher grade than the one with masters? No you won’t and that is where it gets tricky.

Most organizational positions are ranked according to formal academic qualifications from recognized training institutions (or from years of experience on the job). That is why sometimes, to get promoted, you might need to get further qualifications. It’s just an objective way of rating competence as it is quite difficult to do so otherwise.

However, newer organizations (startups) are screwing the rules and we can screw them further if we have a similar way to objectively rate skills not backed up with academic credentials. If you know of any such measures, maybe you can answer on this post I created sometime ago: How do you measure the performance of a developer?

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Oh I see your point now.

Since I’m not an employer I can’t really speak from experience now.

If I were an employer and my business/product is on the line, I’d ask myself if I’m really going to loose out on a great dev (assuming he’s very good of course) because he doesn’t have any formal education? Because I don’t see how this helps my company, seeing as the end user doesn’t care whether my developers have MSc or just SSCE certificate. If he was a doctor or lawyer now, that’s a different thing.

I have formal education (not in computer science btw), I know people who don’t have formal education in my field, I know a lot of them who are more driven, enthusiastic, and better than I am. If I was an employer I’d hire them over me.
I personally feel this is one of the reasons why we consistently churn out graduates that can’t really do anything bcos we focus too much on the degree

Frankly I see devs/coders/programmers as specialized tailors or shoemakers. Its all about the skill, I couldn’t care less if my tailor had an excellent command of english (Its a plus) but I don’t think it matters.

On the issue of Udacity. I can tell you right now that I place more merit on your Udacity, than any Nigerian University CSC certificate. Yh its that bad. Nigerian Universities don’t want to change or grow. They wanna keep teaching the same old thing year in year out in an ever dynamic tech world. How is that going to work?

As per this:

Well it depends? A senior dev should be able to assess junior devs, heck I can measure the performance of other devs (if what they’re developing falls in my domain) because I know what to look for. I don’t know how hiring or assessment is done, but I seriously believe this should be left for other developers to do, not HR managers. They simply don’t know what to look for.

Just look at some of the ridiculous job postings on radar.
I hope more people can shed more light on this.
Thanks for the reply.

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From my comment you can tell, you can’t have access to the Treehouse Slack chat if you haven’t done the course. Concerning jobs i’ll say i have turned down some and i’m happy where i am. Show me someone with a Treehouse Front End Dev Certificate, Javascript Certificate & Udacity Certificate that is looking for a job. I guarantee you they are better than the Master’s in Computer Science you speak of. I’m a Computer Science graduate, Computer Science is broad, this is why lots of Computer Scientists struggle with coding cos coding is just 1 small part of Computer Science.

I did some work under a Vendor at a bank last year, mainly the .Net stack. I have a Computer Science degree, 2 other devs also had comp science degrees. Amongst about 5 of us, the best coder was a young guy from Ladoke Akintola or whatever the school is called(wasn’t even studying Computer Science). He was just about finishing his n.y.s.c, Senior Devs came to this guy for answers. This guy runs away from jobs now, folks are looking for him.
Like i said if you’re excellent you can’t lack a job there’s a lot of mediocrity in Nigeria. Udacity and Treehouse train you to be able to compete on a World standard. Don’t belittle the certificate fam.

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This is exactly what i wanted to find out, if knowing your job and what to do can give you a niche to operate/work in Nigeria without a traditional degree, @Umi @utee by all means once i get the opportunity to go complete my studies I will, but before that time comes instead of just sitting around all sad I decided to kickoff my career this way

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A degree is good and lots of jobs require it. I would encourage you to eventually find a way to finish. That said if it’s to find a coding job in Nigeria. Most employers these days want to see what you’ve done. Recent Interviews i went for there was little emphasis on my degree but what have you done. What project have you worked on etc etc along those lines. Practical experience brov. I can tell you why its like that is some of these folks have hired programmers based on paper and been very dissapointed. When it comes to coding practical experience is worth everything.

Was it not on here that someone said there were about 100 devs in Lag that are good enough to work on gigster/get a remote job. that stat is dead accurate. are those 100 devs looking for jobs?? are they computer science grads??

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Sorry to hear about your story. Like someone already mentioned, get the skills and the certificates, use it to do freelance first, earn from it. You can also apply for real job there first. BTW, why do you want to relocate to Nigeria? Is your visa expired and you are having difficulty renewing?

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Keep learning, STAY THERE, work on different projects (paid and free), join tech coys (internship or as junior dev). After like a few years, you can decide to come back (temporarily or permanently).

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yes, its conplicated @Havilah

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Thanks @Dotcom sounds like a plan

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No one should deny a group of people their fundamental human rights because of a social classification, i.e. poor.

It started like this for Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia, and then ended in concentration camps and then the holocausts.

Thinking like this is dangerous because when you start it becomes difficult to stop, everybody starts to have their own idea of what human rights certain groups deserve or not. There is no red line

Back to the matter.

Your story is really sad and I really hope you can find the way to turn it around for the best. Don’t give up, there’s always a way.

Having said that, you have to find the clarity of mind to reflect on lessons even in this predicament so as not to repeat them. I’m going to list one or two that is discernable from the information you provided.

1. Don’t Live Beyond Your Means
I don’t believe your dad could afford your education and living in the US, based on the information here. You might know differently but you seem to have felt the same way too, hence why you didn’t push it.
There is no problem being aspirational or ambitious but keep your feet on the ground even though you have your head in the skies. Grow sustainably!

2. It’s only up from here for you
You’re down now, but look at the brighter side: It’s only up from here. You’re best coming back to Nigeria, and going back legally when you can manage that. There’s no use moving forward while constantly looking behind your back. If you have a good portfolio you can easily get a good job in the tech scene here with the current scarcity of good designers and developers.
If you’re in the UI space, a fun way to grow yourself is is the daily UI challenge (https://dailyui.co) and the one website a day challenge.

And you can send me that portfolio fran @ mobnia .com

Good luck!

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True. Yet his poor parents (and millions others) exercising their human right to reproduce even though THEY KNEW they didn’t have the resources to care for a child properly deprived HIM of his own fundamental human right to be properly educated.

Your rights stop where another person’s rights begin. ESPECIALLY when you decide to become a parent and your child is the other party in question.

Look at how many street.beggars we have in Nigeria. Clearly their parents felt they had a right to reproduce rampantly without caring about the quality of life their children were going to have.

Same thing with OP’s parents. Their whole plan was to use their child / children as a money making venture they could suck money and resources out of and this is WHY it is highly in advisable for anyone to have children before they are in a financial position to fully care for them.

It’s not “oh because you’re poor don’t have kids”, it’s “What quality of life are you bringing this child into the world to live?”

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