Timi Disu

Before my time at WAES, I wouldn’t say I was getting up to too much. From 2020 to 2024, I was studying Computer Science at King’s College London but I didn’t manage to finish my degree, so I was just working part-time in retail just trying to figure out how I could get a job in the tech industry.

I enrolled on the AWS re/Start course at WAES and my main reason for joining is that I believed that doing this course would land me a new job upon completion of the course. Prior to joining the course, I was very unsure of how to get into the tech industry without a degree, and especially no experience. I also don’t think I was able to highlight my skills effectively, I could program and code, but how would employers actually know if that was the case? With doing the course, I knew I could have something tangible and also gain new skills while also touching up on old ones I’ve learned over the years.

The majority of the content that I learned on the course was related to Amazon Web Services, learning about core services such as EC2, S3, VPC, Lambda and more. The good thing about being on this course is not only just learning about AWS in general but the theory behind cloud computing, which is important to reinforce the learning and understanding why these services exist in the first place, which I find very interesting.

The teaching at WAES was very good. I have to thank my tutors Shalini and Sathish, and particularly Sathish for helping me reach the end of the course. I think overall explanations of the concepts of the AWS course were taught in a concise way but there were also times when I did not fully understand what was being taught. The course was also very organised in terms of how the content was learned. One week would be specifically only the network services, or one week would be learning about the storage services, for example. This course also encourages independence I felt. I was able to carry out online lab exercises where I learned to use the said AWS services in practice rather than just learn them and not actually practically use them, which I think was the highlight of the course.

Personally I think just starting the course, working hard for 12 weeks, and finishing the course itself is the greatest achievement I accomplished during my time at WAES. It’s not always easy to learn once you’re past your mandatory academic years, and getting used to learning again 5 days a week and spending 8 hours a day is daunting, but I managed to push through where some might have given up.

Completing my studies at WAES was integral for me landing my new position as a cloud engineer. Without doing the course, I don’t believe that I would’ve had enough confidence to apply for roles and I would have stagnated. I now have the confidence to do well at my new role and I give my thanks for WAES for helping me throughout my journey.

I don’t think I had any specific challenges other than lacking the confidence to apply for roles I knew I was probably qualified for. Clara’s career sessions every Thursday and also our 1-to-1 sessions on Microsoft Teams helped me have a better CV highlighting my technical skills and once that was sorted out, I knew I could start applying for jobs and fortunately, it managed to work out in the end.

My friends and family are all very excited that I have landed a new job thanks to me doing the course. At first, my family wanted me to go back to university again to actually get a degree, which I didn’t want to do, and my friends’ general thoughts about the course were that it sounds “too good to be true”, especially since I didn’t have to pay to study at WAES. I could understand their concerns, but I didn’t really see any other options open for me so I decided to study at WAES and everything has worked out in the end. I think my journey has also inspired certain family members and friends to keep working at getting the careers that they want, and not to give up.

One message I would like to share with anyone wanting to do the AWS re/Start course at WAES would be to persevere. You already have the will to do a full-time course because you want to change your life and start your career in tech, you might be thinking 2 or 3 weeks in that it might be too much for you, but you have to keep pushing on, you want to make yourself proud the most, but also the people that are supporting you. At least, that’s what kept me going while studying at WAES.