How Elisha is using her SheCodes knowledge to better support her development team and improve her communication with company stakeholders
πββοΈ Before SheCodes
Elisha is a recent graduate from down under! Sheβs originally from Perth, Western Australia and is currently living in South East Queensland. π¦πΊHer free time is often filled with her hobbies of photography, camping, going on adventures with her family, and exploring new technologies. She has a background in business and administration and has had a plethora of jobs in these areas over the years.Β
For the past 7 years, sheβs been working for the Department of Housing and Public Works for the Queensland Government. She is now working as a Senior Learning & Development Officer. Her daily tasks involve leading and supporting a team that develops an online Performance Support tool for approximately 800 front-line staff across Queensland, Australia. She documents business processes and system instructions across multiple online systems and works with business stakeholders to determine design requirements and needs to better support the front-line staff. In addition to this role, she is also an Integration Manager for a team of 22, split into 3 sub-teams. She facilitates and organizes team rituals and works through developing reporting tools so that the team understands the purpose of the work they do.Β
She decided that she wanted to learn how to code thanks to her inherent interest in technology and to improve her interdepartmental communication at work. πͺ π»
βIβve always had an interest in learning the magic behind websites and in how computers work. I've had a few 'nerdy' friends in the past that have shown me HTML/CSS and I always thought I wasn't smart enough to even go down the path of exploring it even though it interested me.βΒ
βI co-lead a tech team now that builds a performance support tool. Iβd love to be the female on the team that can actively contribute to the coding decisions and advancements as we transform our current platform for our end users to something thatβs next level.β
π©βπ» Her SheCodes Experience
Elisha began looking for an online coding course that would fit her needs but was not having much luck. Enter SheCodes. She found that SheCodes fit well into her schedule and she liked the personal touch and engaging atmosphere. π
βI have only completed online courses through LinkedIn Learning. I was looking through LinkedIn at similar opportunities, however they did not provide the flexibility required when working full-time and being a mum to a 1.5 year old too. I have found the major difference with SheCodes is that it feels more personal and definitely felt more engaged.β
When asked about her favorite parts of SheCodes, she said that she really enjoyed the Slack support, challenge set-up, and projects. And a highlight of the workshop for her was learning with other women.Β
βI absolutely loved the support from everyone using Slack. I think it's such a great atmosphere. I also loved the challenges of each of the projects. I appreciated that not all the answers were given to you and that I was required to google and try out things myself to see if they worked.β
βI think learning with other women has been one of the major highlights of this course. Women are so willing to help one another and the vibe of conversation happening in the chat room is just friendly and helpful. It's been great.β
Overall, she said that she enjoyed the SheCodes structure, rewarding assignments, and the reasonable price.Β
βI think SheCodes is well structured and meets the goals it is setting out to achieve. I think the overall price of the courses is great. The homework is challenging and yet rewarding. Being able to create your very own project at the end is fantastic.βΒ
π How SheCodes has Helped to Change Her Life
Elisha discovered a new passion for coding during her SheCodes experience. π€©π©βπ» She found that she would spend hours coding and was filled with excitement when she got her code to work.Β
βI think a spent a lot of my time just trying to explain to my husband why I was soooo excited every time I made something work. I've somehow managed to spend hours in exploring new ways of coding different things and that is so exciting. Thank you again and again to the whole team at SheCodes. Keep it up - you're friggin amazing :)β
Along with discovering a new passion, Elisha is also putting her coding knowledge to good use in her work environment.Β
βI really wanted to be able to better support my team in developing and designing a better performance support tool for our end users. I wanted to understand more of what's possible within the programs that we use so that I can be more informed when explaining options to our stakeholders."Β
"It's been great to have more involved and engaging conversations with my team. Although they now tease that they can't get away with saying something is 'a bit hard and might take time' because I know what they're talking about now ;)β
"It's been great to have more involved and engaging conversations with my team. Although they now tease that they can't get away with saying something is 'a bit hard and might take time' because I know what they're talking about now ;)β
For now, sheβs happy in her current job, but she said that she may delve deeper into the tech field in the future. She would like to expand her coding knowledge in the near future for her personal and professional development, though.
βI may explore more tech options in the future, but I think where I am at the moment what I have learnt will be used a great deal. I enjoy supporting the Learning & Development side of things by developing a performance support tool. I would like to expand on my coding learnings further - I just need to prioritise the time.β
π©βπΌ Advice to Future SheCodes Student
Check out what Elisha has to say about joining SheCodes ππΒ
βDO IT !!!!! Even if you know nothing. Who knows - this simple 3 week course that requires only 5 hours of your time (let's be real .... we can give up 5 hours of Netflix each week for 3 weeks, right?) could be the thing that changes your life forever...... what have you got to lose?β
Elishaβs Workshop Testimonial:Β
βThis course was amazing beyond words. Thank you for making something so accesible and easy to use/understand. Matt, your teaching style is great and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.β
Elishaβs Plus Testimonial:Β
βAnother great course with amazing lessons along the way. Thank you to Matt & everyone at SheCodes for putting together a fantastic online course. I can't wait to start my next one!!!β
