As I close out my 18th year, I want to take a moment to reflect on all the progress and growth I've experienced in various areas of my life. In this super personal article, I'll share my thoughts on my work and career, academics, finance, health, relationships, and the things I've learned over the past year. Come along with me as I look back on my journey and set some new goals for the future.

This year has been pretty amazing, and I'm grateful for all the great experiences I've had. This is my first time doing an end-of-year review, and it's been cool to see how much more intentional I've become about my growth. There have been a lot of ups and downs this year, and while I'd love to focus just on the ups, that wouldn't give the full picture.

I officially became an adult this year when I turned 18 in April, but I still have a long way to go before I feel like one. There are still lots of areas where I have room to grow, like my finances, health, relationships, and career, so I feel like I'm just getting started on this whole adult thing.

What went well — The Good, Wins, and Successes

Here are some of my biggest wins this year:

• I started learning UI/UX design at the start of the year (actually back in December 2021, but I started taking it more seriously this year).

• I got my first actual job ever as a Product designer at an early-stage branding agency called Crown Branding Agency.

• At Crown, I worked on 3 real-life projects for clients. These projects have gone on to be built and deployed.👑

• I took time to work on my resume and started applying for internships at international companies and I got OAs (Online Assessments) at Google, JPMorgan, and Optiver.

• I started taking LeetCoding seriously, and I solved about 55 easy questions and 4 medium questions. I was also able to maintain a 25-day streak.

• I got accepted into the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador program.🤩

• I came 3rd at the Microsoft Cloud Skills Challenge that was held in September.

• I was able to advance from a New milestone to Alpha and then to Beta Milestone after holding my first workshop.🚀

• I started the first Microsoft Student Community at Covenant University and we're now at about 60 members.

• I hosted 3 technical workshops for members of the community.

• I was appointed as the lead for the vanilla Javascript team in my 200-level omega semester at our university's Google developer Student Club. Our team was able to build a seafood restaurant website by the end of the semester which was pretty cool.✨

• I later got appointed as a member of the core team for the 2022/2023 session. I also offered to serve as the cohort lead for Reactjs. I got to work with these amazing people: James, Israel, Busola, Tobi, Awe, and Jesse.

• I started earning corporate money this year. I also learned a lot about investing and personal finance. I started investing and saving more money too.

• I got serious about coding again and started learning Javascript from scratch.

• I actually built a couple of cool things this year. I built :

  • A website that helps you shorten long URLs 🔗

  • An image generator website that allows users to generate, combine, and download images of an Alpaca 🦙

  • A web app that lets you check the current weather and forecast for the next 2 days in any city 🌦️

• I spent Christmas with my family all safe and sound.💕

• I ended the year with a First Class CGPA.

• I started getting a bit more serious with schoolwork.

• I attended DevFest Lagos.

• I learned a couple of new technologies like React, Next.js, and MaterialUI.

• I started learning more about myself and started reading more personal growth books.

What didn't go well — The Bad, Losses, and Imperfections

Here are some of my biggest losses this year:

• I lost my scholarship due to the carelessness of a lecturer. By the time I revalidated my result and got it remarked, it was already too late.

• I got rejected by all the companies I applied to. Most companies didn't even send OAs because my graduation date was too far (2025), and some because they weren't offering sponsorships to international students. I also failed my OAs with Google, JPMorgan, and Optiver, majorly due to my incompetence.

• Felt like a failure at some point for not getting invited to interviews.🫠

• I tried to read many "non-school" books this year but I never had the time to finish most of them. It's either I get distracted by work or something else while trying to read.

• I didn't get accepted into the GitHub Campus Expert program, even after putting so much effort into my application.

• I maintained a lot of my bad eating and posture habits for most of the year.

• After almost 2 months of grinding LeetCode, I started getting burnt out because I couldn't balance it with everything I was doing. I decided to "pause", but I found it hard to get back ever since.

• I didn't reach my savings goals because of my poor spending habits.

• The stock market showed me crazy shege.😭

• I didn't invest enough energy into my social life, and I kept on beating myself up so much about it.

• My CGPA dropped so badly, mainly because I fell ill during exams.

• I started lapsing a lot in school work because I was focusing most of my energy on my career and extracurriculars.

• Spent way too much time on social media, and it really affected my mental well-being.

• There were quite a couple of things I wanted to be and achieve this year, but I didn't.🫠

What did I learn — Moving Forward, Plans for 2023

Here are some things I learned:

I feel the most important thing I learned this year was that I always have to be intentional about my personal growth. The sad reality of life is that nobody is ever going to be able to do these things for you, most especially as an adult. The choices I make every day are always going to impact the person I become. I also learned that one of the most important skills I need to learn as an individual is self-discipline and the courage to do the things I have set to do.

Something I also realized this year is that there's more to me as a person than just "Tech and Programming". I've always been passionate about Fashion and Music and I want to put more effort into exploring my creative side.

Here are some of my plans for next year:

My utmost goal for 2023 is to be better than 2022

• Get beastly at UI design🧑🏿‍🎨

• Read at least 1 book every month (non-school books)

• Do my IT at a reputable tech company in Nigeria

• Bag an internship at an International company for my 400-level IT

• Grind more LeetCode and get pretty good at medium questions

• Invest in building more meaningful and genuine relationships

• Learn Typescript, NodeJS, TailwindCSS, Express.js, MongoDB, Framer motion, WebGL, and three.js.

• Build something cool with AI or Blockchain

• Recruit more people into the Ambassadors program

• Earn my first million💸💸

• Improve my social life, maybe even commit👀

• Increase my network and get to know more people

• Continue to impact the entire developers' community at Covenant University🦅

• Get into technical writing and release at least 10 articles before the end of the year

• Earn in dollars🤑

• Become a GitHub Campus Expert

• Receive an academic scholarship

• End the year with a First Class CGPA

• Take my health more seriously

• Save up to a million naira

• Start therapy🫂

• Spend more time with family and friends🧑🏿‍🧑🏿‍🧒🏿💕

  ---

I'm honestly grateful for all that was, and I can't wait for the amazing things that are to be.

Thanks for reading💕