Sheila Wangari Karuku

The kind of people that are in my community are all basic, intermediate and some few others advanced skilled programmers. Most of the qualified applicants are in the bracket of basic and intermediate. Most of us are getting familiar with the companies they are interning for, getting acquainted with the projects we are doing and also learning on new concepts. When I joined the Outreachy intern community, most of the interns are fresh from bootcamps and looking to improve on their skills. When we first encountered our project tasks most of us were having trouble understanding the respective code bases. It took more than a week and a half to get a more positive response from the interns that they were getting somewhere with their projects.

I am however glad because the project Im taking part in is a global venture that will involve people from all over the world. Im assisting in building a web app that helps patrollers determine which revisions to be reverted and which ones to leave out. When people go to edit articles on Wikipedia pages, those revisions are the ones patrolled and checked to see if they are good or bad and then rectified. I believe that people will definitely want to use my project because its globally available and anyone is permitted to fix revision errors that occur on a daily basis. Wikipedia articles are edited about one and a half million times a day so there's alot of patrolling to do to fix revision errors.

Im excited about my project because it has new concepts that I have not yet encountered. On both the backend and front end, there's a whole lot of new concepts to cover. Iv greatly learnt about APIs, Flask, Ginja templates among a few. I get to improve on my already acquired skills as I learn these new concepts. It has gotten simpler and manageable by the weeks. It wasnt so from the beginning but with the support I have acquired form the community and from my worthy mentors, it makes it all worth it.

My name is Sheila Wangari. I live in Nairobi Kenya. I'm a very fun loving person. Enthusiastic about life. I love to code and just be on my computer for the better part of day. When I'm not coding, I'm always exploring new destinations and friendships. I love to cook and trying out new recipes. My favorite meal to cook is a Swahili dish called Biryani. Rice and chicken dishes are my specialty. Back in Campus I ventured into International Relations and Diplomacy and graduated with honors. However it was very difficult to enter the job market at the time. I tarmacked a good one. I stayed jobless for a while then decided to venture into the Business sector of Herb exporting. I loved that I was finally active doing something useful with myself and at the same time acquiring the necessary skills I needed at the moment. Everything went on smoothly until we were hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. It was terrible. Everything came crushing down since the whole nation was put under lockdown and all borders closed. Having closed the business I was left devastated and had nothing to do at the time. Life couldn't have gotten worse.

We were basically indoors for the better part of the lockdown, had nothing to do but just watch movies all day long as I contemplated what to do with my life. I always liked going through online videos on YouTube as a way to just pass time. That's when I came across some coding ads that talked about technology and all the amazing things you could do with software. I got quite interested because deep down I was always curious about how particular things worked and how they were built. I began watching some YouTubers talking about their coding journeys, the challenges they faced and how they overcame them. I became so inspired. This was definitely something I'd have liked to do myself. I continued doing my research and landed across a coding bootcamp that was enrolling at the time. I applied and got selected to go through the program. I was excited to start my coding journey. The beginning was smooth and everything went great. Things started to get thick and difficult to the point I wanted to drop out and just forget about the whole thing. There moments where I was so discouraged I'd even break down. I felt like I was so alone and with no one to show support. I decided to look for some peers who would offer a helping hand and I was glad to find someone to help me walk through the journey. It's not been easy but at the end of it all it has been totally worth it.

I have learnt a lot during this entire process. I've learnt that growth is personal. I have come to value it so much. My personal growth may not be the same as someone else's. We each grow and different paces. There people that may be ahead of you and that's totally fine. I've learnt to appreciate every step I make towards achieving my goals in this career and always being true to myself. I've also learned to value friendships especially those I've made during this time. I have supportive people to help me at every step and I'm so grateful for them. There are always kind and generous people out there willing to hold your hand at every step. I'm also compassionate as I too have gone through very challenging times through out this journey. I always like to extend a helping hand to whoever who may need it. We need each other in this industry and its always the right thing to show love and kindness to everyone going through challenging times. Be there for someone as someone was there for you.

I got motivated to apply to Outreachy when I went through their core values and mission. They look to give under priviledged people a chance in the Tech industry and that gesture really moved me. Having gone through discrimination in the past, I feel so at home with Outreachy and I'm glad that we have a wide community here to share our experiences, our challenges and achievements with one another. I'm so grateful to be part of this team. I'm confident that the future is bright for me especially because I have a whole network of people who I consider family. Thank you Outreachy for giving me a chance to shine.