Picture this: Me, sitting in a cramped internet café in Lagos at 2 AM, surrounded by the blue glow of ancient monitors and the symphony of clicking keyboards, trying to convince my parents over a crackling phone line that abandoning my master's degree in International Relations to become a "computer person" wasn't the worst decision since New Coke.
"JJ!!!," my mother said in that tone that could freeze jollof rice mid simmer, "you want to leave school to play with computers? Are you having a breakdown?"
Fair question, honestly. From the outside, it probably looked like I'd lost my mind. Here I was, halfway through what was supposed to be my golden ticket to working at the UN or some fancy embassy, and I was about to throw it all away to learn something called "JavaScript" which, by the way, has nothing to do with Java and isn't really a script, making it the most confusingly named thing since "parkway" and "driveway."
The Moment Everything Changed
The turning point came during one of those particularly soul crushing International Law lectures where the professor droned on about maritime boundaries while I secretly wondered if there was a more efficient way to organize the class notes. That's when I discovered my first programming tutorial on YouTube: "Build Your First Website in 30 Minutes."
Thirty minutes turned into three hours. Three hours became three days. Before I knew it, I was that guy who showed up to constitutional law class with dark circles under his eyes, not from partying, but from staying up all night trying to center a div element. (If you know, you know. If you don't, trust me it's harder than achieving world peace.)
The funny thing about falling in love with coding is that it sneaks up on you like a Lagos traffic jam and suddenly you're stuck, but somehow you don't mind because you're exactly where you need to be.
The Family Intervention
When I finally worked up the courage to tell my family about my career pivot, the reaction was... intense. My father, bless his heart, tried to be supportive in his own way.
"So, you want to fix computers?" he asked hopefully.
"Not exactly, Dad. I want to build software applications that solve real world problems."
"Ah, so you want to work at a bank?"
"Well, maybe, but more like creating digital solutions that can transform industries and—"
"Can you fix my phone? The WhatsApp is acting funny."
And there it was – the eternal struggle of trying to explain software development to relatives who still think the cloud is just weather.
My extended family wasn't much better. At the next family gathering, I became the entertainment. Uncle Emeka kept introducing me as "the one who abandoned his education to become a Yahoo boy," which, for context, is absolutely not what software developers do, but try explaining the difference between ethical programming and internet fraud to someone who thinks WiFi is a type of greeting.
The Learning Curve From Hell
Let me tell you, teaching yourself to code while your family thinks you've joined a cult is an experience. I spent months in what I now call "tutorial hell" that beautiful, frustrating place where you watch hundreds of YouTube videos and feel like a genius until you try to build something from scratch and realize you know nothing.
My first project was supposed to be a simple to-do list app. Simple. Ha! Three weeks later, I had created what can only be described as a digital disaster, a to-do list that could add items but couldn't delete them, making it less of a productivity tool and more of a reminder of all your life failures, accumulating forever like emotional debt.
But here's the thing about coding, every bug you fix makes you a little bit stronger, like some nerdy video game where your character levels up through frustration and Stack Overflow searches at 3 AM.
The Breakthrough
Six months into my coding journey, something magical happened. I built my first real application which was a simple expense tracker for my mom's small business. Nothing fancy, just a web app that could record transactions and generate basic reports. But when my mother saw it work, her expression changed from concerned-parent-worried-about-son's-sanity to*_ proud-parent-who-might-have-raised-a-genius._*
"You made this?" she asked, clicking through the interface like she was defusing a bomb.
"Yeah, Mom. It's just basic CRUD operations with a React frontend and a Node.js backend."
She looked at me like I was speaking in tongues, but she was smiling. That smile was worth every sleepless night spent wrestling with asynchronous JavaScript.
The Plot Twist
Here's where the story gets interesting. While I was building my coding skills, that International Relations degree started looking more and more like an expensive piece of paper. The job market for fresh graduates in my field was brutal lots of applications, few responses, and most entry level positions required "5+ years of experience," which is like asking for proof of time travel.
Meanwhile, tech companies were practically throwing opportunities at anyone who could solve FizzBuzz without having an existential crisis.
The irony wasn't lost on me. I had been studying international relations while completely missing the biggest global relationship of all and that was the one between humans and technology. Every industry, every country, every aspect of modern life was being transformed by code, and I had stumbled into learning the universal language of the future.
The Family Transformation
The real turning point came when I landed my first freelance project which was building an e-commerce site for a family friend's business. The pay was decent, but more importantly, it was proof that this "computer playing" could actually put food on the table.
Suddenly, the family narrative shifted. I went from "the one who dropped out to play games" to "the smart one who saw the future coming." My father started bragging to his friends about his son "the software engineer," which technically wasn't true yet, but I wasn't about to correct him.
My younger sister called me one day: "Tunde, can you teach me to code too? I want to quit accounting."
And there it was – the ripple effect. By choosing tech, I hadn't just changed my own path; I had shown my family that there were alternatives to the traditional career tracks we'd been conditioned to follow.
The Savings Grace
Now, let's talk about how this decision literally saved my family financially. Six months after starting freelance work, I was earning more than most of my friends with their fancy degrees and corporate jobs. A year later, I was making enough to help support my parents and even contribute to my sister's education P.S: the same sister who was now learning Python on weekends.
The beauty of tech is that it's one of the few industries where skills matter more than credentials. Nobody cares if you learned to code at Stanford or from a guy named Kevin on YouTube. If you can build something that works, you're valuable.
When my father's business struggled during the pandemic, guess who was able to help keep the family afloat? The son who had "abandoned his education" to "play with computers."
The Unexpected Twist
The funniest part of this whole journey is that my International Relations background actually became an asset. Understanding different cultures and communication styles turned out to be incredibly valuable when working with international clients and distributed teams. Who knew that learning about diplomatic negotiations would help me navigate code reviews and client meetings?
I joke that I went from studying how countries talk to each other to helping computers talk to each other, and honestly, computers are often more reasonable than diplomats.
The Real Lesson
Looking back, choosing tech over traditional immigration pathways wasn't just about career prospects , it was about taking control of my own destiny. Instead of waiting for some embassy to approve my visa application, I created my own opportunities. Instead of hoping some foreign company would sponsor my work permit, I built skills that made me valuable anywhere in the world.
The internet doesn't care about your passport. Code written in Lagos works just as well as code written in London or Los Angeles. In choosing tech, I didn't just change careers – I gave myself the freedom to work from anywhere, for anyone, on projects that actually matter.
The Happy Ending
Today, as I write this from my home office (yes, I finally moved out of internet cafés), I can't help but laugh at how worried everyone was about my "risky" decision. My parents now introduce me as their son "the tech expert," my extended family calls me for help with everything from setting up email accounts to explaining cryptocurrency, and my sister just landed her first job as a data analyst.
Sometimes the best immigration story isn't about moving to a new country. It's about moving to a new possibility. And sometimes, the family you save by making unconventional choices is your own.
P.S. I still can't center a div element perfectly every time, but I'm working on it. Some battles are worth fighting forever.
JJ is a full stack developer, part time philosopher, and full time believer that the best code is the code that solves real problems for real people. He still hasn't fixed his father's WhatsApp issue, but he's built several apps that have helped thousands of users worldwide.
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