I arrived to MAKAIA on May 30, 2019, because I had an interview. It was the first time I heard about this company and Academia Geek. I confess that I was nervous because I wanted to win a scholarship and study what I had always wanted: Web Development.
Since I was 7 years old, I saw my mother work in systems and always I imagined myself doing the same, I even dreamed of being a Hacker, but I started with the simple thing: formatting a computer. In school I ended up falling in love with technology, so I did the technical studies in systems in 2010 and I realized that that was what I liked: sitting at a computer, being surrounded by technology and creating things with programming. Some years later I registered in ITM to study Systems Engineering. When I was in the second semester my girlfriend got pregnant and I had to get a job that allowed me to pay for the expenses, because we do not have the support of our relatives. I suspended my studies because it was very difficult for me to continue studying and working.
At the age of 25, without knowing what to do, a 5-year-old daughter and unemployed, I believed that I my destiny was to work in a call center or as a courier, because these were the things I knew how to do. One day the psychologist from Medellín Solidaria sent me the information about Academia Geek. When I saw the requirements and that in 2 months I could fulfill my dream of being a programmer I bet on everything. What was the worst thing that could happen?.
In the interview they told me that if I completed the 8 weeks training successfully, they would help me to connect with technology companies so that I could start my first job as a programmer. That was my dream, as if they had listened to me all these years!
I told my wife that, while I was studying, she could continue with our expenses and supported me so that I could achieve it. The training was not easy, I had not studied for a long time and there were things that I did not remember, so I had to stay up late and do the challenges of the course several times to be sure of everything and that I learned how it should be.
On August 21, 2019, I succeeded it, I was certified as a Junior FrontEnd Developer with an emphasis on ReactJs and that day, the directors of Academia Geek offered me a scholarship for the Junior BackEnd Development course with an emphasis on NodeJs due to my excellent performance. I said yes, without thinking twice! and always with the support of my family to achieve these goals. When I finished the second course, the Agile Innova team, also creators of this initiative, offered me my first job opportunity, thanks to them I gained experience in this field.
Today, I am a FullStack Developer with a year of experience and I work at Tech Impeller, I keep learning because in this field it never stops, but I am happy because I have been working on my dream since I was a child.
For me, being part of Academia Geek meant being able to fulfill my dream, having learned to program and have an art, give my family greater peace of mind and start in the world of programming, have friends with whom I share the same interests and meet people who reached out to me when I needed it. The most incredible thing is that I never thought that in such a short time I would be a developer and that companies would be interested in me, now I like to help others to be motivated by this field and inspire them.
This process is without a doubt the best thing that has happened to me (after my daughter), I feel that my work is not my work, because I do it with so much desire and with so much love. I could dedicate much more time to it if I could and not I would get tired, I have a job in which I work from home, I do not have a day-to-day schedule, I only work from Monday to Friday, I can have peace of mind of being at home, of sharing with my family, of helping my daughter in their tasks, to save a lot of money on transportation, to be able to continue studying and gain much more experience. In addition to having an economic stability that allows me to live in peace and get ahead with my home.