In late November, I got a chance to attend an alumni event hosted by NPower. NPower is a Non-Profit organization that provides free tech classes for individuals who otherwise wouldn’t have had a traditional shot (or network) to get into the space through up-skilling. There are similar programs that have been noted for its success in the media (PerScolas & YearUp comes to mind), but I believe that this organization has been a diamond in the rough for quite some time and it deserves some shine.
I came across this program after googling a bunch of tech bootcamps and at the time, I wasn’t too sure of what would be my focus within the space. Sure, college was the necessary evil of most people my age and it definitely helped to get my “career” started, but after a few years of working and going through a number of positions, I realized that there wasn’t going to be an opportunity for me to scale my time relative to what I was making. And when you’re living in a dynamic city such as New York, you come to quickly realize that time IS money - your skills in the marketplace are going to determine what sort of roles you can get (& how much you can command).
Working in hospitality for years allowed me to meet so many different individuals from so many different parts of the world (which I genuinely enjoyed), but I did notice that there was a financial ceiling. Those jobs require your FULL attention, so you’re limited to the amount of opportunity based upon your free time that’s outside of work. You may need to work more than 40 hours a week to deal with a dynamic city, but just know that you’re going to have to burn the midnight oil in order to get to a position that would compensate you in an equitable way. For me, I saw the writing on the wall - I needed an exit strategy, or I was going to burn out very quickly.
Riding on a train one afternoon, I was sitting next to someone who was reading a tech article on his phone. As he glanced away from his device and looked at me, I’m assuming he felt compelled to let me know his thoughts on what he just read. He explained that the world was changing - the very cell phone that could help pull up any service you wanted was going to be the same cell phone that was going to create a mass transfer of wealth for a lot of people in the next 5-10 years. He mentioned that I should consider investing my time into new companies that younger people use everyday - the Ubers, Googles, Facebooks, exc. - and that the smartest play was to have a sense of ownership about your interactions. Less consuming, more producing.
It took me a few months to really understand the weight of what he was saying to me. And in that time, I did research on those and many other companies and I came to the conclusion that tech was going to be an incredible equalizer - but only to those who actually decide to learn how to be an effective instrument using it.
I then gave myself 6-9 months to look at joining a program that could help me learn how to create an app or learn how to code - paid or free - as long as I could gain the skills to be competitive, I was open to anything. Through my process, there were only a few that actually asked me to do an interview based upon my background, but the one that I felt was the best fit was NPower.
Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect from the program. What started out as a conversational interview about the timeline expectations and my career aspirations with the Program Manager Helen Kogan (who is now Executive Director - congrats to her!), it became more clear to me that this organization was designed to help usher in individuals who genuinely wanted to be apart of a movement that was bigger than just learning new skills - it was about mentorship, entrepreneurship and giving back to the community in a major way. From that conversation, I felt that I had made the right decision joining and told them that if I was accepted, then I would definitely commit to being an incredible part of what they were building.
A few weeks later, I was then offered an acceptance and a start date for the co-hort that was scheduled soon after. The Tech Fundamentals program was about a 5-month commitment, complete with an internship component (which depending on your success could mean an extension or a full-time offer). I can tell you that for the first few weeks, it felt just like school - the excitement was there and it was great to share space with like-minded young people who were eager to learn. But after the first month, the constant repetition of going into a class and listening to a lecture started to weigh down on me haha.
I had every intention of finishing what I started, but I also realized that I didn’t enjoy sitting at a desk for hours at a time, no matter what the topic was. I’ll give it to the organization and its instructors for dealing with this head-on and providing an open-door policy when it came time to receive feedback on what they could do to switch up the monotony. Eventually, we were given opportunities to have certain companies come in and speak to us about tech-related career paths that we could pursue (Ernst & Young and Accenture were a few) and we even had the chance to have field days to visit some of these companies’ headquarters as well, which helped us with networking.
We learned a number of skills about computer repair, software development, server networking/troubleshooting, critical thinking exercises, even some soft skills such as taking care of your professional appearance and positioning yourself within an interview that I still use till this day. It was a whole experience that I honored, but there were some challenges that I do believe were birthed due to the program’s truncated timeline.
Basically, If you thought that you were going to be this grand tech wizard in 5 months, you’d be kidding yourself. Some of us even thought that we would be creating our own app from scratch in that window of time, which was fair to understand. Thing is, the tech industry encompasses so many nuances that it would be really, really difficult for someone to have ALL the knowledge to do that one thing well within the timeframe. Even the Program Directors were clear to let us know that a lot of the success is based upon our own individual aptitude and hunger to learn outside of the required school hours, which some people were able to maximize on (and some were not).
Nevertheless, If you were one to apply yourself during the program, there were many opportunities that came your way. Some of us found success immediately after, netting full time roles with companies like Bank of America or Citibank, while some of us needed more time to figure out where we stood in our new careers. All in all, it was great to see people who looked like me make an incredible bet on themselves to change their future trajectory with skills that would pay dividends 10x over.
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If you read all of that and you’re still with me - thank you in advance :). I’ll get to the more fun parts of the story now that you know a bit about what the organization does.
During the pandemic, it seemed like NPower made an incredible resurgence and opened itself to new partnerships as well as funding - receiving new grants from Google and a few other organizations, which helped to expand its reach outside of NYC. I also noticed that there was a new focus on supporting US Military Veterans as well as an expansion from the original Tech Fundamentals program to offering a few new course paths - Path2Tech (App Development), Cybersecurity & Cloud Computing - which I can only believe was the result of listening to its core attendees in an attempt to adapt to an ever-evolving employment landscape. As a graduate of the original program, I was given an invitation to an Alumni event that met at the Accenture HQ in Manhattan.
As I entered the building and was guided to one of the office floors that housed the event, I was greeted by Emily (Alumni Manager) who informed me that the event was starting but that we should be open to meeting some other alumni’s from different years within the program. I introduced myself to a few people and as I was talking to someone, I realized a familiar face that was actually in my class - Ramin. He went on to tell me that life was good, he’s currently working in a Managerial role for Boar’s Head and that he’s constantly sharpening his skills to keep himself competitive.
As we caught up a little bit, the room started to settle down as there were guest alumni speakers that were invited to come in and talk about their own individual experiences with the new careers that they’ve received in part due to NPower’s training. They gave us honest feedback about how difficult the job market is now but also actionable advice about what they did in order to stand out and grab the attention of their employers. We also got to hear the personal wins a few of them have outside of their job, as one of the Alumni speakers explained that she leveraged her connections that she built within the program to not only obtain a job at Google but to also learn how to put her earnings into revenue-generating vehicles, such as real estate & stocks.
It was really good to know that some of us took the opportunities that the program gave us and did amazing things with them - building from the stepping stones to make the best versions of ourselves daily. As I sat there listening to the wisdom, It brought me back to the conversation I had on the train with that stranger about why I should be apart of this tech revolution. Knowing now that my skills in the marketplace would compensate me to the point where it would not only change my trajectory but my family’s as well.
To be apart of a tech program is one thing - to participate in something that has true community built into it, whose focus is to uplift those who walk and talk like you - that’s a whole different thing altogether. I wasn’t getting that level of care or nurturing in college and younger me didn’t even know that was what I was missing out on. All in all, i’m glad I chose NPower as my initial foray into tech and if I could go back in time, I’d do it all over again the same way.