Jana

Jana has been interested in creating things from a young age. She took art classes throughout high school but then she felt the pressure of pursuing subjects seen as more serious than art, so she studied politics in university. Years later, she realized that she wanted to pursue a more creative subject. She applied and got accepted to a Masters Degree Program for Media Studies in Prague. At the same time, she started a Marketing internship at a PR agency.

“Working in marketing, I always needed to work with something related to coding. For example there was the Search Engine Optimization, fixing links, working on our company newsletter, making changes on the company’s website… this all required the knowledge of coding and I hated that I had no idea how to do it. I needed to hire others to do it for me and it was impossible to control what they were doing if I had no idea what coding was all about.”

She got the internship after taking some courses on Digital and Social Media Marketing. Taking courses online introduced her to the possibility that you can learn (and work) from anywhere. She started considering job options that would give her the freedom she desired - jobs that would allow her to work and travel. That’s when she began to consider pursuing a career in development.

“I fell in love with the idea of being a digital nomad.”

After finishing her Masters, she went to Lisbon to follow her passions. She became a licensed Surf Instructor and started learning more about coding. She completed some free, online beginner courses in UI/UX design, HTML, CSS, Ruby, and JavaScript. Her genuine interest in coding, along with a desire to pursue a career in it, led her to look for paid coding workshops to truly deepen and strengthen her coding skills.

“Once I created something by coding for the first time I had this feeling of OMG this is so cool! Because it felt like doing something out of nothing.”

“I was working the whole next summer as a surfing instructor in Peniche. After that summer, when I wasn’t using as much brain power as I wanted, a post advertising SheCodes Plus hit my Facebook newsfeed.”

Jana successfully graduated from a SheCodes Workshop in April 2018 and went on to graduate from SheCodes Plus in December 2018. SheCodes Plus came at an opportune moment for Jana. She had some money saved and talked her parents into giving her an early Christmas present to pay for the rest.

“I think it’s a great concept! It empowers women to do something they were usually discouraged to try, by either professors or society as a whole… so they could never really see what coding was about.”

She thought that the opportunity of learning with other women was unique and extremely helpful in this field. She found it encouraging to learn with other women in a comfortable environment and liked that they could easily bounce ideas off of one another.

“We were lost in similar ways so we were able to help each other out.”

She really enjoyed the course material and felt that it was extremely relevant in the job market today. When she was taking SheCodes Plus, she felt confident enough to search for a job in tech at the same time.

After SheCodes Plus, Jana began doing some freelance work for designing and developing.

“SheCodes Plus actually opened some doors for me. It helped me to start my own freelance projects of creating landing pages, websites in web builders like Wordpress and Squarespace, and some UI Designs. So I’ve already managed to make some money by coding and designing websites on my own even though I just started. And also, it helped me to get a new job recently.”

Jana recently got a job as a content producer for InfoPortugal. Even though her job is not directly related to coding, it is helpful for her to have some coding knowledge. Now, she can more easily fix technical problems on her own and communicate with developers at the company. Her current job and her freelance work offer her flexible working hours, the possibility to work remotely, higher pay, and enjoyable work in an interesting department of a big media company. Plus, she still has time for surfing, doing other little projects, and improving her coding skills.

In Jana’s opinion, SheCodes Plus was an awesome experience and a great investment.

“I think the price is very good if you consider the price-performance ratio. It is cheaper than other bootcamps and you learn really useful things. I mean mainly the languages and tools you actually need and not tons of unnecessary theory.”

“First, try to find out if coding is for you, maybe by trying a SheCodes workshop (I don’t really recommend online courses and videos as a start, use those more to fill in the gaps of what you don’t understand) and if you like it and still feel interested, then go on and sign up for SheCodes Plus. Stay focused and be patient because it is not all easy. Also be sure to make something cool and worthwhile as the final project.”

Jana is extremely happy that she got into coding and is working towards her dream of being a digital nomad.

“👩🏽‍💻 SheCodes is an awesome way for all women who want to learn to code. Really enjoyed my time there and learned a lot. I had no idea coding can be so fun! Definitely want to continue learning. Thank you very much Matt and the whole team! 🚀”