Half A Decade Of TechWithLulu🥂

Today marks 5 years since I uploaded my very first article on techwithlulu.

All there was, was a title, and my first attempt at documenting my journey in software engineering for people other than myself. That 19 year old in her room on campus with her 13″ red hp pavilion had no idea what she was doing, or if it all she was going to continue doing it. But something about having my own space with my words on my stories made it all the more worthy of putting aside some money to pay for a domain name and hosting. And to take the time to research on hosting services that are cheap but reliable. The hosting services I used would go down for a few hours, so frustrating, but I learnt to time publishing my articles when my site was up.

 

This past half a decade has seen my wins, failures, beginnings and ends to a lot. More than 19 year old me would have ever imagined.  I never really saw my life past being an undergraduate. Everything seemed to revolve around that time. 3 years seemed like a lifetime. People say that time is supposed to be the best time of one’s life, and to some extent it’s true. I got to experience things I wouldn’t have otherwise especially in the safety of being a student.

 

Proud Moments

TechWithLulu

I would be lying if I didn’t mention how proud I was when I started this blog. Its simple style from a free template that I customised myself made me the proudest second year student on campus 5 years ago. And the cherry on top was that the blog went up with its own domain name that I had saved up for and bought. I did not own a debit or credit card at the time and GoDaddy did not accept Mpesa. So as soon as I had enough money to get my domain name, first thing I did was go to a bank, open an account and have it activated for online shopping, which by the way is something I didn’t know needed to be done. I loaded the money onto my new account that my parents had no idea about and made my first ever online purchase. techwithlulu.com. Then my balance went down to Ksh.5 but that was the proudest moment of my life.

I googled “simple chic blogs” to get a vision of my blog’s design and as much as I went down a rabbit hole of professional blogs with templates that all cost $50 at least, I was still determined mine would look like something designed by a vogue magazine designer. I got a free template, customised it to pink and white, and voila! I had my simple, chic blog with its own domain name; techwithlulu was up and running with its first-ever article.

For all OG readers, I’m sure you can attest to how far the design has come.

 

Graduating

Graduating from university is one of the many proud moments in one’s life. Finishing my undergraduate degree was a big moment for me. Bigger for my parents than it was for me, but big still. Africa Nazarene was the beginning of all this. The choice to do and stay in computer science, the birth of techwithlulu, life-long friendships and so many other experiences. My first project, my first techie club, my first hackathon, my first tech event… It was scary, leaving the safety and comfort of being a student. Getting access to opportunities that were set up by the school.  Heading out into the “real world” as people say. Software Engineering was all I knew how to do so I looked for internships in that particular field. Believe it or not, it was not as easy because most ads and suggestions that were thrown my way were not software engineering related, yet I still applied for those positions. I realised there’s a mentality that exists in many establishments that interns can and should do anything. It doesn’t matter if it’s in their field or not, or if it’s what they want to do.

 

Masters

No, I was not planning on doing my masters. Not until a year after I graduated. Truthfully, part of the reason I did it was from being convinced by my family, and most times there’s truth to what they say, especially my grandmother. I began my search finding a good university. I knew I didn’t want to move to a different country; first because it was very expensive; second, I wanted to continue working. So I sought after universities that offered an online masters program in computer science. Long story short, I got into Georgia Institute of Technology. When I had applied I couldn’t afford it, but as I was waiting for a response from them, I got a job at ShopSoko. Then I got the response from Georgia Tech that my application had been accepted. My chips had fallen into place. I take one class per semester to be able to balance between full-time work and school, and also, one class is comfortably affordable.

 

Internship and Junior Engineering roles

I was lucky enough to land a software engineering internship position just a few months before graduating from undergrad which I was in for a year before going to ShopSoko for a little over a year and a half. My internship at SDL put my foot through the door into the professional world of software engineering. Having mentors who played a big part in my professional growth and also picking up lessons that have benefited me personally.

 

Microsoft

I started as a software engineer at Microsoft a week ago and I truly am excited. A year ago I would not have imagined being good enough for a role like that. Going through a severe case of imposter syndrome and all. I applied more than once in case you’re wondering and did not get in on my first try. The journey to my current position is definitely one for the books. A lot of sleepless nights, fatigue, despair, and happy moments. All wrapped up into one, but worth it all the same. Again, a lot of lessons and character development came from applying and getting ready for Microsoft interviews, and as much as I would not wish to experience that again, I think I am well equipped now than I was earlier this year and the years before. However, this has truly been one of my highlights in my career.

 

Low Moments

I wouldn’t say I have had moments I am not proud of over the last years, but I have definitely had moments that have been my lowest.

 

Imposter Syndrome

This is when you don’t feel good enough or deserving of your role in a given responsibility. It could be at work or even at home. And the funny thing is, it doesn’t always go but you do learn how to silence the negative and doubting thoughts. Here is my story on having and dealing with imposter syndrome. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always go away completely.

 

Burnout

For the last few months of last year and earlier this year, I had the worst burnout I have ever experienced. With school, work and my personal life. There were days I wished would go for longer than 24hours, because I’d be awake the entire time and still feel behind schedule. There were nights of insomnia, and barely any when I’d have a good night’s sleep. At some point, I decided to take a break from school because I was headed down a crash and burn path. For someone who has had burnout before and dealt with it, you’d think I’d be careful not to go down that road again. Well, this one was the worst. Not all circumstances are the same. The circumstances that led to the first burnout were not the ones that led to this second one. And unfortunately, I was not able to deal with it the same way I did the first. The difference with this time is that I had to wait it out, and put in more effort to make myself feel better. “More like fake it till you make it” despite not having the will and or energy. It lasted for months but like everything, it finally came to an end and I feel like that was a big win for me. There are definitely new lessons I took with me from this experience and will definitely share.

 

You may be thinking to yourself, “two isn’t much” well those two were enough to bring me to zero and keep me down there. I was not as efficient as I normally am, my work was just the bare minimum if any, my curtains were always drawn, I’d cry almost every day, and wouldn’t get a wink of sleep. But there could not be any more truth to the saying, “When you’re down, there’s no other way to go but up.”

 

All the black, white and grey moments that have made up these five years have made them wonderful and I’m very glad to have kept this blog up since then. My walk down memory lane in my own words.

Thank you for dear readers for always tuning in and keeping me motivated to keep publishing. To the next five years🥂