The School of Code programme has already inspired The Sunday Times to write about the “start-up revolution” in Birmingham, and this month the first Bootcamp recruits of the programme made an appearance at a Demo Day to show off their projects. Catalina George spoke to members of one of the five teams about diversity, adapting to new challenges, and what happens next.
Out of the five teams at School of Code’s Demo Day, one team stood out both for the diversity of its members and the practicality of their product: a visual, digitized CV.
The members of the MapMyCV team came from very different backgrounds: Clare Streets is a full time mum; Hamza Ibrahim, a warehouse worker. Chris Miller is a programmer who took time off the industry due to ill health, and Sina Dorostkar is a refugee from Iran — but all had one thing in common: they found out about School of Code on Facebook.
What led them to dedicate four months of their lives to such intensive training? I spoke to three members of the team:
A woman on a quest for a coding career while being a mother
Clare Streets dedicated seven years to being a full time mum. When she decided to go back into work and researched for training, the advert for Code Bootcamp popped up on her Facebook feed.
She took the decision to apply without hesitation.
Clare confesses how challenging it was for her to divide her time between family, part time work and full time studying. But the coding itself did not scare her away. Having studied Modern Languages made it easier for her, she says:
“It inspired me to think that is something I could do. I saw learning code is learning a new language. A lot of the processes of learning a language are quite similar.
“I also read about people who likened the two, and I thought: yeah, I can do that!“
Watch Clare tell us about her adventure with programming.
With the confidence gained from learning something new and challenging, Clare wants to find flexible work which allows her balance her family life with a fresh career.
Read more about her story on the blog entry she wrote on the School of Code webpage.
From building a computer at 3, to School of Code graduate
One of the very few recruits with coding experience, Chris Miller has had a passion for computers and IT throughout his life.
He recalls the time when he was 3 and his parents bought him a ZX Spectrum 48k computer. With his father’s help, he had to put the computer together — it came as a kit. This fuelled his fascination for how the different parts worked.
In the video below Chris talks about how he has overcome health difficulties, enhanced his knowledge and skills — and is now looking for new opportunities.
The warehouse worker who wanted to learn advanced tech skills
Hamza Ibrahim was happy with the pay he received for his work in a warehouse. However, he says he did not want to be stuck doing the same repetitive thing for the rest of his life: he wanted to progress and learn something new. When a friend showed him the advert for the School of Code Bootcamp on Facebook he knew he wanted to apply.
In the video below Hamza talks about his ambition to learn more and progress further.
A version of this story first appeared on Land Inside.
