Cover image from article: Success is not an accident, It's a choice by Steve Tobak.
This article was supposed to drop before May 24th 2021. I started the process of writing it then, but never knew what title to give it or how to finish the article up until now. So what's this post about? I may just have given myself too much credit for things that I have happened to me on this tech journey, that I didn't even have control over. I've always appreciated and celebrated those who have helped me on this journey one way or the other in my posts. This particular post talks about the help I got from a very special personality - God.
I got rejected a lot when I applied for either internships or even full time jobs. Those of you that are able to count the number of rejections, I wonder, how are you able to do it? I won't be sane if I keep the tab, lol. Like anyone in this situation I was bound to worry. Sometimes I manage to shake it off and pray. One of those days I was studying about King Solomon from the Bible, and the wisdom God gave to him. I prayed that I will get an internship or full time job (even as I worked hard), and also for wisdom.
Coming in contact with Outreachy and getting selected as an Outreachy intern for the May - August 2021 cohort, was answer to both prayers. Ask me how? Not getting selected the first time I applied in October 2020 was a blessing to me (well, it didn't look like a blessing at that time 😂, you know what I mean). My participation in their open source activities and especially in production code really opened my head up. Later in February 2021 when I founded Code Collabo Free and Open Source community, I shared the goal and project details with some group of people who showed interest at the time. I also shared with a friend (Akpan), who asked me: "For how long have you been planning this, years?". I replied that I just only started thinking and planning it 2 days ago.
Back to Outreachy internship, like I said I didn't get selected the first time I applied. I still found time to drop some contributions to the Organisation I applied to, Ushahidi, even after the contribution period. I applied to Ushahidi again the second time and got selected as Intern this time. I talked about my experiences, awesome mentor and members of the Ushahidi team in my Outreachy blog posts. Beyond writing code, these experiences have helped shaped me. My mentees at the Google Africa Developer Scholarship 2021 say I'm a good mentor. I wonder how this would have been possible if I didn't receive trainings from a good mentor.
I got the internship I asked for from God. And he didn't just give me wisdom, he sent me to place(s) and people where I can tap such wisdom and experience from. This wisdom which also transformed into the Open Source community I created, which I mentioned briefly earlier. I'm grateful for a successful internship with Ushahidi as an Outreachy Intern.
The "I did it" thought crossed my mind. But this one prevailed: Did I really "did" it? God did!