Social Mobility In Africa And What Alx Is Doing About It.
Social mobility can be defined as the change in social status relative to one’s current location within a given society. I always imagined families gradually socially mobilize upwards but this is not usually the case. It could be viewed as another example of probability and there’s got to be an outlier for nature’s sake; or pragmatically, everyone contributes to the end- result of inter-generational social mobility by certain choices like what investing in the next generation looks like. Nonetheless, here I am with something to say about it.
I’ve always wanted to establish a meaningful career in tech and when I made that conscious life changing decision I was immediately struck by a challenge, where to start. It was a financial question as much as it was an educational one. I then decided to explore free resources online such as FreeCodeCamp, Google digital skills for Africa and Codecademy. They helped a lot in introducing new concepts. After hitting some sort of block in progress I started losing hope. I often imagined where I want to be in 4 years and where I am now and couldn’t see how I was getting there. I became desperate and discouraged. I thought of it as a planning problem so I adopted a strict routine. I really wanted to make it. It is during this time that I saw a perfectly targeted advert for alx software engineering program. I didn’t even finish reading, I just clicked it.
So the application process requires you to do some challenges and pass to get placement which I think is pretty fair. It’s all facilitated by Holberton School and is very neat. The whole process is automated which means there’s no bias. I went through the procedure not believing I just landed this chance. Fast forward to when the program actually starts and a week after I feel all my lost hope restored. I am immediately touched by what alx is trying to achieve in Africa and in the grand scheme of things, it’s facilitating social mobility, not only for aspiring software engineers but also people from other fields.
Social mobility is greatly influenced by education. Where you school, how far you go and the exact skills you gather contribute directly to your success. By default, financial constraints lock a lot of people in a certain social location longer than they imagine. It is this era of nano-degrees and organizations like alx that are changing the dynamics of social mobility. They set up ladders in Africa for people to step up and pursue their dreams given that they want to. My journey has just begun and for that I’m grateful. I’ve got a starting point and the financial obligation has been deferred which means my only focus now is to become a talented software engineer and to network with my peers.
We can all extrapolate and see that the world has everything to gain and at the same time lives are getting transformed by facilitating people to places they wish to belong, adding value wherever they go because someone gave them a chance.
