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Oyinlola Lawal’s account of an AltSchool year describes more than learning to code: it combines live classes and project work with self-directed study, peer support, writing, collaboration, and leadership. 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 leads to a tech-lead role or a description of outcomes for every AltSchool student.
How Lawal’s year unfolded
Lawal says a friend told them about AltSchool while they were finishing national service. They registered on October 27, 2022, took an entrance exam, were admitted, and joined the Slack community. Sessions reportedly began in March 2023.
Before classes started, Lawal began preparing independently, including through an HTML and CSS course by Jonas Schmedtmann on Udemy. During the program, they recall a mix of live classes, outside learning materials, and practical assessments. Tutors encouraged students to read ahead, consult documentation, and learn independently.
Lawal describes the experience as “52 weeks” of learning and reports attending “over 120 live sessions.” Those numbers refer to their own account and cohort experience; they are not published here as AltSchool-wide program statistics.
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What the assessment setback taught them
One early assessment became a lesson in starting before a deadline. Lawal recalls procrastinating, then losing the local project files shortly before submission. They say they rebuilt about 70% of the project in an hour and asked facilitators for an extension.
Their takeaway was practical: begin building early, expect that mistakes can happen, and keep working through them. The episode illustrates Lawal’s experience; it does not establish how often other students lose work or need extensions.
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Learning beyond the code
Lawal credits the surrounding community as a meaningful part of the year, naming peers, tutors, mentors, guest speakers, and facilitators. They say they developed writing, content creation, collaboration, and leadership alongside coding. The account’s broader point is that technical learning also depended on habits: asking questions, reading documentation, and taking responsibility for learning outside scheduled sessions.
A mentor recommended the Coursera course “Learning How to Learn” from Deep Teaching Solutions, which Lawal says changed their approach to studying. They also mention courses by Jonas Schmedtmann in HTML and CSS, JavaScript, and React. These are resources Lawal says they used, rather than independently evaluated recommendations.
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Projects and the next steps Lawal reports
ScissorsWeb capstone
Lawal describes ScissorsWeb as a URL-shortening web app built with React and TypeScript. The listed features include custom text or emoji aliases, QR-code generation, authentication, Supabase database storage, analytics, error handling, themes, and GSAP animations. This is the author’s description; the account does not independently verify the implementation or the app’s current availability.
Work after the year
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 statements from Lawal’s account, not independently verified employment or product details.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What this retrospective can—and cannot—show
Lawal’s experience offers a concrete example of how instruction, independent practice, deadlines, community, and project work can fit together over a year. The author’s reported graduation email gave a score of “95 points out of 100” across progress-tracking categories; the account does not establish how that score was calculated. Neither this score nor the reported sessions and project outcomes should be treated as a measure of what every student will achieve.
Lawal’s remembered advice from tutors was: “Things will not always be this slow; the real work is coming.” Their own closing lesson was, “do not wait for the perfect moment, start now.” In context, both are reflections on persistence and getting started, not guarantees about a course’s pace or career results.
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