I always loved computers.
From childhood, computers fascinated me. When it was time to choose what to study, I wanted Computer Engineering. JAMB had other plans. My score put me in Chemistry Education instead, and that was the path I took.
So I studied chemistry. I got my degree. I got my TRCN certification. On paper, I was a chemistry teacher.
But I was never really done with computers.
2020: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
In 2020 I started teaching myself web development. HTML first, then CSS, then JavaScript. Nobody told me to. There was no job offer waiting. I just sat down and started learning, the same way I had always been drawn to understanding how things work.
What surprised me was how quickly it clicked. The logic of building something in a browser, making it respond to interaction, shaping it with code — it made sense to me immediately. I kept going.
One project led to another. One concept opened the next. I started building real things: websites, then web applications, then more complex platforms. I was not following a course curriculum. I was just building, breaking things, figuring out why they broke, and building again.
The rest of the story
From web development I moved into cloud infrastructure. Learning how the servers behind the applications work, how to deploy what I was building, how to make it scale and stay up. AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform — each one built on what came before.
I got my AWS Cloud Practitioner certification. I started taking on client projects. I became a tech instructor. I started a YouTube channel called Build With JAA to teach what I was building.
Now I also vibe code — using AI tools as part of the development workflow, not as a replacement for understanding but as an accelerator on top of it. The AI space genuinely interests me, and that interest has led to building AI-powered platforms and working with LLMs as part of real project work.
What I want you to take from this
JAMB did not give me the course I wanted. That redirection turned into a chemistry degree, a TRCN certification, and years of building technical understanding in a completely different way from what I planned.
I do not think I would have the perspective I have now without that path. The discipline of studying a hard science, the training to explain complex things clearly, the experience of teaching — all of that followed me into tech and made me a better engineer.
Your route into this field will not look like anyone else's. That is not a problem. That is the whole point.
I wrote a book about this transition. It is called From Chemistry Class to Cloud, and it is free. If you are building your way into tech from an unconventional background, it was written for you.