I had been in the tech industry for over 15 years now,
having worked on both spectrums of it, at Fortune 500 and at startups, but my
dream has been and still is to work for an Unicorn (a unique, trail blazer
company that’s valued at $1 Billion).
I almost landed at Google during it’s formative years and recently at
Oculus (Facebook) and that’s the closest I have come to my Unicorn dream.
During a period of five years of unemployment even though I
did small contracts here and there, I went through a series of humbling
experiences on onsite interviews. Just when I felt that the interview is going
great, there comes a guy who asks me to write code on the whiteboard. I rambled along, putting together a few
initial “static void main()” type of code sentences with a few IF, THEN-ELSE
and FOR loops sprinkled in between and trying to give the veneer that I was
coding when actually I was stalling, hoping that time ran out and I would come out slightly bruised but not battered, and maybe make the excuse to myself that time ran
out. It worked at a small company
desperate for a mobile tester but then as I had more interviews, my
shortcomings were being exposed. It was always a case of “Yet So Near, Yet So
Far” and I was tired of this mediocrity and failures, and decided to do something about
it. Enough is enough. That’s when
Udemy and Udacity happened (Photo Credit: Tim Mossholder)
Initially I signed up for Udemy classes for economic
reasons. Loved those $10 courses, and who wouldn’t especially when your budget
is tight. Then one day I got an
email from the Google Developers Group (GDG) for a meetup on Android
Applications and they were offering a 4-week course on it if we showed up for
the meetup in SF. I decided to
give it a shot as I was already testing mobile applications on Blackberry OS
and had attended some iOS and Android meetups too. That’s how my journey with Udacity started when I enrolled
in the free Android Applications Development course taught at Google SF weekly.
As the course progressed, I was pleasantly surprised at the
lucid learning style of Udacity that made the material easy to understand.
Loved the schematics and diagrams that made understanding complex material fun.
Obviously, since I didn’t have a strong foundation in Java, initially it was a
challenge for me as I had to go back, google concepts in Java and checkout
tutorials. I also had to do the same with Android and slowly but surely, I was
feeling good about my new challenge. And just when I was enjoying it and
getting into my groove, the course was over. Indiscipline or lack of consistency on my part put me back
at the eight-ball, and it was showing in my next round of interviews – I
couldn’t answer confidently how the AVD was setup or what needed to be done on
a device to download the apps (USB Debugging) or how to take the logs from the
device (logcat) and simple things that I didn’t pay attention when I was doing
the course or maybe I forgot the in and outs of basic setup. Those bombed interviews clearly dented
my confidence and it was back to square one for me. But one thing was sure: I
didn’t want to learn from any other sources other than Udacity.
Finally, while browsing through Udacity, I came across the
Grow With Google Scholarship program for Android Basics in Nov. 2017 and
decided to apply for it. I gave a passionate reason why I deserved to get the
scholarship and bless my lucky stars; I was selected to receive the 3 months
scholarship starting in Jan 2018.
That was when a different phase of my career started and I plunged
headlong into it. Beat the
deadline and completed my final project just in time to qualify for the second
phase of the GWG Scholarship. It
felt good and although it was a nerve-wracking wait, lo and behold, I was lucky
to get selected for the 6 months Android Basics Nanodegree (ABND) program.
More than the program, outside forces were conspiring to put
hurdles in my path and I fell behind the soft deadlines of the projects and
eventually I have been in a catch up mode ever since June – scrambling to
finish the projects and also to finish the lectures and quizzes. My personal hurdles were the major
roadblocks and impeded in my progress because it was hard to concentrate on the
coursework. It didn’t help either that I was unemployed and working
part-time. But, everything aside, if
I were to do it all over again, I would try to complete every project by it’s
due date and not fall into the “soft deadline” trap. And last but not the least, I did quite a few interviews
based on this course when I finally updated my LinkedIn profile with this
Udacity course. My last job in a Healthcare startup was offered to me based on
the understanding that the company wanted to build an app for Android.
I am still behind the 8-ball but feeling good and confident
that I can graduate if I put in the hours. The slack community has been outstanding and the support of
fellow students, project coaches, cohorts and community managers has been
tremendously helpful. And not to mention that uplifting messages and
encouragement from my fellow Udacians, in my track and beyond, has been a boon
and helped me chug along towards the finish line like a turtle (shoutout to the
#TurtleSquad slack channel).
Finally, I am grateful for the extension Udacity gave us twice and
hope to get that Nanodegree before the end of this year. I am now applying for Jr. Android
Developer jobs despite being a QA engineer all my career, and that’s what this
course has done for me: give me the confidence that I can code now. Thank you to everyone at Udacity and on
Slack channels for all your support, encouragement and help in my quest to
redefine my career as an Android Developer.
