Zuri is an organization located in Nigeria that aims at equipping the youth across the continent(Africa) with the knowledge to help them scale through the tech industry. The Zuri Training is a free beginner remote training for complete tech novices or beginners powered by Ingressive For Good. It is for a period of 4 months with two phases; the training phase that lasts for 2 months and the project phase that lasts for another 2 months. We are currently over 18,000 students.
Tracks involved in the training
A track is a specific area of technology you specialize in. The training classes are divided into tracks and these are:
Front End Track. The track deals with the aspect of the application that the user interacts with. The course options involved are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The participants are later introduced to ReactJS as the framework.
Back End Track. The track deals with the aspect of the application that the user does not interact with. It is responsible for the proper functioning of the frontend. The course options involved are PHP, Python, and JavaScript(NodeJS). Participants can only enroll in one course on this track. The best part is that all backend developers are taught the basics of DevOps which is an additional skill. The participants are later introduced to Laravel, Django, and Express as backend frameworks depending on the course chosen.
Design Track. The track deals with creating designs for an application that the developers work with. The course option available is UI/UX design (User Interface and User Experience). The tool used in the training is Figma.
Mobile Track. The track deals with creating mobile applications which can either be IOS or Android. The course options available are Java, Flutter, and Kotlin.
Learners can only enroll in one track, which means they specialize in one track for the whole training period to avoid half-baked progress as a result of moving from one track to another.
My journey.
I began this year with the goal of teaching myself to code and I focussed on JavaScript as my programming language. This path has taught me quite a lot, for example, consistency, patience, and willingness to learn. However, the con to this is the lack of mentorship. I have been getting solutions to my problems through Google though mentorship was lacking in this path.
Thanks to the dev community on Twitter, I was scrolling through the streets of Twitter and I saw a post on the HNG Twitter page that talked about the Zuri Training. I immediately applied and chose the backend track with NodeJs as my course. This was exactly what I was looking for. The ability to get mentorship, learn in a community, and make connections or networking. I believe this would be an addition to my self-learning curve.
I was successfully admitted and began my class on 15th March 2021. So far we have spent a week into the program and the week was entirely dedicated to orientation introducing us to the tools and the mode of training we shall use for the next couple of months.
The lesson learned.
Paying attention to detail.
The most important lesson I have learned in this orientation week is to pay attention to details. This is one of the most important non-technical skills you can have as a designer or as a developer. We have had games with price tags on them with the aim of testing our abilities to pay attention to details. This is a skill that is being taught from the beginning of the training. Yes, the training is free but it's majorly focused on giving us good quality in the professional world.
Conclusion.
So far that has been my experience in the Zuri Training. Please check Zuri's website for more information about the training.
Until next time, thanks for reading!!