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Oyinlola Lawal’s account of an AltSchool year describes more than learning to code: it traces a mix of live instruction, independent study, peer support, practical assignments and a capstone. Lawal says they entered with no tech background and later worked as a software developer and team lead. That is one person’s retrospective, not evidence that a year of study alone produces a tech-lead role or a measure of outcomes across AltSchool.
How Lawal’s year unfolded
Lawal says a friend mentioned AltSchool while they were finishing national service. They registered on 27 October 2022, took an entrance exam, were admitted and joined the Slack community. Before formal sessions began, Lawal used online resources, including Jonas Schmedtmann’s HTML and CSS course on Udemy.
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Lawal recalls sessions beginning in March 2023. The account describes live classes alongside outside materials and tutors who encouraged students to read ahead, consult documentation and learn independently. The author characterizes the learning period as “52 weeks” and says it included “over 120 live sessions.” Those figures describe Lawal’s own experience, not a published statistic for every AltSchool student or cohort.
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Self-directed learning
A recurring lesson in Lawal’s account is that instruction was only part of the work. Tutors encouraged looking things up, reading documentation and exploring topics beyond the immediate class. Lawal also credits a mentor’s recommendation of Learning How to Learn, a Coursera course from Deep Teaching Solutions, with changing their approach to learning. The course and other classes named here are resources Lawal says they used, not independently evaluated recommendations.
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Community and collaboration
Lawal names peers, tutors, mentors, guest speakers and facilitators as important parts of the year. The point is not that community replaces practice, but that asking questions, sharing work and learning alongside others contributed to the experience. The author also says writing, content creation, collaboration and leadership developed alongside coding.
Starting before you feel ready
One early assessment became a lesson in practical work and recovery. Lawal recalls procrastinating, losing local project files shortly before the deadline and rebuilding much of the work after asking facilitators for an extension. They estimate that they recreated “about 70%” of the project in an hour. Their takeaway was to start building earlier and keep going after mistakes; the anecdote does not establish how common such setbacks are among students.
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From coursework to a capstone
Lawal says they studied JavaScript, Vue and React. Their capstone, ScissorsWeb, is described as a URL-shortening web app built with React and TypeScript. The author lists custom text or emoji aliases, QR-code generation, authentication, Supabase database storage, analytics, error handling, themes and GSAP animations as features.
This is Lawal’s description of the project; the account does not independently verify its implementation or current availability. Still, the project illustrates the kind of practical work the author associates with the year: combining programming with user-facing features and supporting systems, rather than stopping at isolated exercises.
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What Lawal says came next
Lawal reports later working as a software developer and team lead at Tech N’ Goodwill Limited, contributing to SafulPay across a mobile app, agent and merchant dashboards, and a corporate site. They also describe building Trakkam, a self-hosted GPS and IoT fleet-monitoring platform with live tracking, alerts, a web dashboard and a WhatsApp bot. These are claims in the author’s account, not independently verified employment or product details.
The account connects the year to later work, but does not show that the program by itself caused a leadership appointment. The title’s “from zero to tech lead” is best read as a personal arc: Lawal describes starting without a tech background, developing skills and later taking on software and team responsibilities.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to read the reported scores and numbers
Lawal says a graduation email gave them “95 points out of 100” across progress-tracking categories. The account does not establish how those categories were scored, so the figure should be understood as the score Lawal reports receiving—not a standardized measure of technical ability or an AltSchool-wide result.
Likewise, “52 weeks,” “over 120 live sessions” and the estimate of rebuilding about 70% of an assessment project are personal-account details. They help convey what Lawal remembers about the experience, but should not be generalized to another student’s schedule, workload or progress.
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The practical lesson in the retrospective
Lawal’s remembered advice from tutors was, “Things will not always be this slow; the real work is coming.” Their own closing lesson is: “do not wait for the perfect moment, start now.” Taken together, the account suggests a useful way to think about learning software: scheduled teaching can provide structure, but progress also depends on practice, independent investigation, collaboration and beginning projects before every detail feels settled.
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