I have been in and out of tech since I left high school over eight years ago. I have always adopted the self-taught approach in learning because programming was something I did then for fun and my field of study Physics/electronics doesn't relate to Computer Science to some extent.

I decided I wanted a career in tech around early 2020 when Nigeria just went into lockdown from the Covid pandemic at about that time I finally took my learning seriously. Since I have been part of a lot of tech communities online and a lot of help has come from these communities whenever I couldn't figure out things by myself.

However, I have found myself in situations where if I had had direct contact with people in the tech community where I can meet them physically, I would have got my answers earlier, on-time and in some few cases where I never got a solution to my problem despite reply and suggestions from the community members; I would most likely have gotten an answer.

Months later; when the lockdown was relaxed and school resume academic activities. I meet an old friend at my school from the department of computer science and ask him if there is a tech community where physical meet-ups are organized? He immediately sent me DSC WhatsApp join link and I joined immediately.

Few weeks after joining the DSC, I learned of a meetup schedule for the weekend. At the meetup, I meet like minds wonderful programmers especially Developer Student Club Lead in the person of Leom. One of the brightest tech community organizers I have been opportune to meet in person. Anything community I will give it to Loem because I know he will always deliver.

Loem is a front-end developer with years of experience. Through the community, I and others have benefited from Loem network in an indirect way. He shares a lot of proven and free learning materials, gigs, job opportunities etc. Loem is an inspiration as he usually challenges us the beginners to learn and take on projects to strengthen the knowledge of the technology we have learned.

After some meetups, my relationship with the tech lead become a kind of mentor and mentee of sought. Whenever I had difficulties Loem was always there to guide or put me through. This was the kind of help I never got from the online tech community. I am not trying to rubbish the online tech community. Just that with my experience I believe you should at least join a tech community in your area where you have direct access to people in the community.

At the end of the first semester, we had a hackathon. Through the hackathon I got introduced to a guru called Rev. Rev is an all-around guy. With knowledge of web development frontend and backend, mobile, cloud, electronic. Been an aspiring backend developer, I have always been mystified by the technology behind APIs and have been told 70% of backend work is to write APIs. Through this hackathon, I got to grab the full knowledge of APIs and I realized I had even been writing APIs code without even knowing; though in a different way.

Also through DSC, I got to know a big brother called Unclebigbay. Whose technical writing prowess inspired me to start writing technical articles and today is writing has pushed me to have published a few articles on my hashnode blog.

So hope I have convinced and not confuse you that despite being a member of an online tech community, joining a tech community in your locality will be of great help.

Thank you for your time and have a wonderful day.