Leaving Everything for Tech: Orisakwe Nwokocha’s Semicolon Story

I’ve always been a fast learner — the kind of kid people call a genius. I started university at 13 and finished with a master’s degree. My parents wanted me to go straight into a PhD program, but I wasn’t ready for that. I decided to take a gap year to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. That’s when I stumbled into tech.

I started with frontend development — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — and it came naturally to me. It felt good to build things, but I realized quickly that learning online by myself wasn’t enough. I needed structure, a proper environment where I could grow. While researching schools, I kept myself busy with courses on freeCodeCamp. Then, I discovered Semicolon. What stood out to me was that it wasn’t just about tech — it had an entrepreneurship module, which was exciting because of my MBA background.

When classes started, I was eager to get into the core programming courses, but at the same time, I was nervous. What if I didn’t get it? What if I hit a wall again, like I had before? That’s when Design Thinking came into play. At first, I didn’t understand why we were spending so much time on it. But then it clicked — it wasn’t just about learning; it was about connecting with each other and setting a foundation.

The facilitators were incredible. They broke things down step by step, starting with the basics — what a computer is — and building up from there. I came in with some frontend experience, which helped, but backend was a completely different battle.

One of my toughest moments was learning for loops. I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. Everyone else seemed to get it, and I felt like I was falling behind. It was frustrating, but I stuck with it, and eventually, something just clicked. That moment gave me a sense of relief and confidence I hadn’t felt before.

The program was intense, but that pressure was a good thing. One of my favorite memories was our first code war. The task was on arrays, and we hadn’t even covered them in class yet. Somehow, I managed to figure it out, and that win felt amazing. Later, we were given a task on object-oriented programming (OOP) — something way ahead of our level. Solving it felt like proof that I was growing and that I could do this.

I didn’t expect to make friends, but I ended up finding a family. Working together on projects and even teaching my classmates what I had learned helped me as much as it helped them. Those moments made everything I learned stick.

Now, I’m finally living my dream. Tech is the future — there’s no doubt about that. Even bankers, which is what I once thought I’d be, rely on tech now. I want to build platforms, create things, and turn my passion into a career that matters.

At the same time, I feel a restless energy to keep going, to reach even higher. But I also feel calm because I know I have the foundation I need to succeed. This is just the beginning, and I’m ready for whatever comes next.