The next day she's announcing me that she applied too, and that it will help to do the course together so we can motivate each other to continue.
Keep learningAfter like 2 months of interviews and online quizzes the class was created and the course started.
We were 16 people in the class, with very diverse backgrounds: music teacher, game tester, mechanical technician, accountant, cashier, stay at home mom and so on.
Different people with same goal: graduate the course in 4 months and get a real job as a software tester.
The classes were scheduled every Saturday for 6 hours.
The course was covering only manual testing, we had many practical exercises, also a teacher in front of us that could answer any of our questions.
I enjoyed being there, but I was really tired that summer, I was working all week days, going to course Saturday, and Sunday was dedicated to preparing my homework and trying to catch up with sleep.
I was not the best in the class, my homework was incomplete sometime, but that was only because I was too tired to put more effort in making them great.
Those 4 months were the hardest in my life, but I had my dear colleague to make me continue and not abort the classes.
When the course graduation period was approaching I started to send my newly done CV to all companies that had a Quality Assurance position open.
In the case of no answer I was planning to send it to all IT companies in my area even if they do not have any position open.
Well my phone rang and I was invited to my first interview.
All I can say is that it was awkward, I made a mess trying to solve the logical problem they gave me.
I started blushing and the control over my voice was lost.
The interviewer did not like my answers at all, I could read that in his face, but it was too late to change anything.
After a week I got an email that they found someone more suited for the job.
I was disappointed, I already graduated the course and no other company contacted me.
After a few days my phone rang again.
It was a friend of a friend, he was already in a programming internship at a company and they were looking for interns for testing too.
I was a little bit skeptical, I wanted a job, not an internship but I was not in the position to be pretentious.
I went to the interview, everything went surprisingly well, I knew the answer to almost all the technical questions as it was stuff learned at the course.
Next day they called me to tell me I got accepted.
I quit my finance job, even though the pay for the internship was really low, only the minimum salary, all the money went to food and rent, also I did not had a guarantee that I will be hired after those 3 months.
But I assumed that risk, because I wanted to be brave and make a long term plan.
All I can say is that it was the best decision of my life.
During those 3 months I learned HTML, CSS, Javascript, how to create automation tests and how to work in an agile team.
These skills seem more harder to understand when I was learning alone.
I was hired after the internship and since then I keep learning everyday.
During the years I got amazing feedback from clients, managers and team members.
It was a slow start and it is surprising how easy and naturally is learning now.
“That is a great an inspiring story!.So are you recommending me to forget about online resources and to enroll in a offline class?”Not at all.
Nowadays you can find precious information online, and I think we all should be grateful for all the free resources and use them as much as possible.
An offline class is not necessary, choosing that depends of many factors, there are people who learn better by themselves, and there are people who need to enroll in a course to remain motivated to their goal.
Final notesAs a conclusion I strongly want you to not be disappointed if the learning is not as fast as you expected.
Also I know that we, as humans, are focusing on the present, but please just think about all the benefits that your decision will add to the rest of your life.
I truly believe that we can become anything we want if we dedicate enough time and effort to our end goal.
Please don’t forget to clap if you liked this article or if you found it to be inspiring.
Thank you!.