They say that "the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step"; while I've taken a few steps in this tech space, it all started somewhere, somehow.
My Altschool journey started on the 6th of December, having paid the application fee (I had help because, you see, I'm still in the trenches). Within hours, I was reached out to, on twitter and by mail; the study kit was provided and a link to the Altschool slack channel for aspirants, and so preparations for the assessment started. It was an exciting journey as all hands were on deck to ensure that we had the best experience.
Choosing a track of study
I think for a lot of us, this may be the tricky part. This wasn't lost to the altschool team as we were given time to deliberate the three options available in the school of engineering: Frontend engineering, Backend engineering, and Cloud engineering. For me, it was cloud; I knew this because I had done little study earlier on cloud engineering and wanted to deepen the knowledge I had. We got a chance to pick a track to be tested on during assessments. We would have a chance to change track in the future (after we'd been accepted) if we wanted to.
Preparations for assessment
As the pioneer set of the school, it was a bit confusing as to what we were to be tested on. The mail clearly stated that the test had three areas of focus: Basic communication Test, Aptitude Test and basic technical test. The confusion was as a result of the fact that the contents of the study kit were only the Technical bit.
We had to make do, search the internet on how to test ourselves before the test. Conversations on the slack channel were centered on these, and yes, these conversations helped a lot of us. We had a lot of luck on our side, as the preparation period was even extended and exams slated for February 2022.
Exams!!!
Everyday, a certain number of individuals are sent mail, so that traffic on the sites is minimal. The invite expires within 5 days, so we had 5 days to do the assessments. It went even better than we thought it would be. They were 100% multi-choice questions; they were a bit tricky but relatable. English, mathematics, and computer science, basically. The cut-off mark is 85% (scary, I know). I had a score of 87%, sent after a duration of about 15 minutes to my email address.
Post exams
A lot of individuals really came close to getting the 85% but didn't get in. It was surreal because, whoa! Anybody can be in those shoes. They are currently learning with us, they have access to the learning management system (lms) but aren't Altschool Africa scholars. They get this privilege until the end of the first semester.
It has been a wonderful experience so far. Yes, you can be sure there'll be a post on how far we've come.
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