Hello, world!
A cheesy title but much like the multiple programs that introduce you to coding, this post is meant to introduce you to me. My name is Camilla and I am at the very beginning of my journey into Software Engineering.
So, how did I get here and what will my journey entail?
Well, I’m coming from an industry that seems like the complete opposite of software development and that a career shift like this wouldn’t be possible.
I’ve spent the past eight years working in education starting as cover supervisor then progressing to an English teacher and Associate Middle Leader in charge of training and supporting new teachers. I’m sure a lot of people can relate to the next part of my sentence but the pandemic really made me reflect on my life, family, friendships, work and what I wanted from the future. I realised that the voice within me that had reared it’s head several times throughout my career wasn’t going to go away. A long term career in teaching is not something that I want. So when I finally accepted in year five what I secretly knew in year two it was time to look elsewhere and do some deep reflection.
What do I want to do next?
I did something that I wished I’d done when I was an undergrad and I really thought about what skills and interests I had researched what I could do with them. I found forums with advice from career changers including former teachers and took screenshots of what jobs they were in and how they got there — regardless of if it was something I thought I could do now or if it required further training. I just needed to source ideas and then break down what looked appealing and discard what didn’t.
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After much research and some advice I came across Software Engineering. It seemed to check a lot of boxes:
- It was a career that had opportunities for further development — I was unlikely to reach my ‘ceiling’ and then become stagnant and bored.
- It was the right type of challenging — I’m very self-motivating and enjoy putting my all in and feeling success in my work.
- There were lots of ways into software development. I could do a degree, coding bootcamp or self learn.
- It had what I was looking for! It’s creative, flexible and a growing sector with lots of opportunities.
So after this realisation all that was left was trying out a new skill and assessing if this was truly something I thought I could do and definitely wanted to.
Some of the resources that I came across that really helped me were Codecademy, Learn Programming by Chris Pine, Codewars and The Book of Ruby by Huw Collingbourne.
Fast forward about nine months and I am in my first week of the Makers Academy Software Engineering course! I have a great cohort and we’re all very keen to dive in and make the most of this course which is a great environment to learn in.
I’ll be using my corner of Medium to document my experience through Makers Academy bootcamp. Focusing on what I’m learning and how I’m finding each week.
If you are someone in tech or thinking about joining tech, specifically software engineering, please do join me on my journey and feel free to ask any questions.
