Non-sensible Ramblings

I am Kriyen. I have always been an academic that excelled at school and completed Matric with 6 distinctions and 1 B (damn maths) in 2011. You’d assume I’d qualified with a good degree and have a great job now right? Well you’d be partly right.

I am Kriyen, a college dropout with no qualifications beyond that insignificant piece of paper that says you finished secondary school. So what am I doing now? Am I bumming off my parents or working through simple jobs that just make ends meet? Not quite.

I’m now a Software Developer at one of South Africa’s biggest tech companies, working in the Research & Development department (R&D). How’d I get here? I ask myself the same question regularly…But here’s my story.

So while I was still a ‘Computer Engineering’ student I spent time doing some learning beyond my degree. I experimented with electronics beyond my curriculum and taught myself web development, upon other odds and ends. I started an online forum for students to share information and ask for help. I had a friend or two assist with this, but due to time it didn’t kick off too hard. (I just recently brought it down, and might revamp and start again with more content and people to help.) Along with this, I had my original blog, and an online portfolio that I share my learning and coding abilities on. While these were not heavily populated with content, they weren’t empty either and had an idea behind each thing.

On the electronics side, I tinkered with arduino’s (microcontroller boards) and raspberry pi’s (credit-card sized computers) and a few other pieces of electronics and learnt how they work and how to create small projects with them. The first thing I recall building was ‘Park distance control’ (PDC) or a parking assist gadget to attach to my car. Then it was a little car PC that I could play crash bandicoot on and stream traffic stats, and after that it was remotely controlled wall sockets, and even a smart-watch controlled mask. I slowly got better and better at doing small things like this. Some of you might have scoffed at this point. “Small things” he says. But in all honesty, it’s a lot easier than you think. There are plenty of online resources and tutorials at your disposal. You just need to get better at finding them!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjQEA19jQza/

On the programming and web side, I learnt how to use CMS’s (content management systems) like WordPress and Joomla, and taught myself a little bit of PHP and JavaScript. I made the portfolio website from scratch and used CMS’s to create the blog and forum. And even beyond these, I still learnt a bit of Photoshop.

While looking for a holiday job, I pretty much prostituted myself on Gumtree, listing all my abilities and skills. My first job was with a car dealership, and I was asked to design a gallery for his website and handle his I.T. needs. I took it and worked there for 4 months till campus started up again.

When I was excluded from the university a while after, I started looking for work to wait out my exclusion duration, and gain some experience. I used the same Gumtree tactic and got a few calls back but took the job that offered me a decent amount of money for a kid straight out of …dropping out. So I jumped at the offer and worked there for several months. I jumped jobs after there to a few places including THE UNIVERSITY THAT KICKED ME OUT, until after my year of exclusion was up. I went back to the university and requested to reapply and they told me :

“You were supposed to study at another university and show evidence of rehabilitation. You have not done so, so we cannot accept you”.

Note that NOBODY TOLD ME THIS BEFOREHAND. Thanks UKZN. You beaut. Oh and they told me this after UNISA and everyone else had closed their doors. So guess who was unemployed AND unable to study.

After this I managed to call in a favour and got some freelance development work. Take note that all of these happened in the span of a year and some. While doing the freelance work I sent out my c.v to every one who asked and everyone who didn’t. I drove to companies, emailed them, and went through their application portals. I even phoned and nagged recruiting companies. All the while, still teaching myself what I could.

I got 3 job offers at this time. Each new offer, dwarfing the previous on salary. But just before I was about to accept the final offer from a company in Ballito, Derivco offered me an interview.

The interview was scheduled for the Monday after a competition I had entered. A 24 hour coding challenge that was hosted by Innovate Durban, the municipality, and Oracle. So I’d be programming the whole weekend, in a language I’ve never done before and then going in for an interview with minimal sleep. And guess what?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEisxOttlkR/

and guess who got the job?

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFLcKbcNllr/

I’m still the college dropout with no degree. But I kept trying to better myself in my spare time. I kept learning. I kept looking forward. So if you’re finding yourself constantly hitting walls. Don’t stop. Keep at it and you’ll get there someday. Fail forward and fast.