Sara

Sara always had an interest in learning how to code while growing up but she never had quite enough motivation or inspiration to sign up for a coding class. When she went away to university, she still had that interest in development in the back of her mind. When it came the time to choose a major, she was torn between studying Biology and Computer Science.

“But being 18, I followed my parents advice and got into Biology instead of Computer Science. They were scared I would feel out of place in a degree with so many men and so little women. I ended up switching majors to Translation, but the interest and curiosity for coding was always there…”

After university, she worked in a call center for a while, providing customer support for enterprise customers. She also worked as a freelance translator. Feeling somewhat unfulfilled in these positions, she decided to finally see what coding was all about. She took a few basic online courses in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to see if she had any interest at all. After recognizing that her interest in coding was genuine, she decided to pursue it further. She came across an ad on Facebook for SheCodes, went to the website, read about the workshop, and decided to sign up.

Sara graduated from SheCodes Porto in December 2018. Her main motivation for taking the course was that she wanted to make a career change and become a developer, but didn’t know enough about coding to fully make this decision. She saw SheCodes as the perfect opportunity to figure out what she really wanted to do career-wise. She thought the weekend workshop was a great mix of hands-on skills, activities to practice, and relevant overviews of the industry overall.

“I enjoyed SheCodes as a whole, but it was also nice to have the historical overview and the final overview of where the market is today.”

She felt that the course was a great introduction to the world of coding. She especially enjoyed the helpful recommendations for future learning (like CodeNewbie) and the final project.

“I really enjoyed the final project, where you can use everything you learned and put it to good use.”

Learning solely with other women was also a plus for her. The workshop offered her a comfortable, friendly environment in which she felt at ease to practice her skills in this new subject and supplement the coding knowledge she already had.

“Learning with other women was interesting, much easier than learning with men to be honest. Sure I didn’t talk to every girl in the class, but the ones I talked to were genuinely interested in learning, not in showing off what they knew as I found to occur in other learning environments.”

SheCodes helped Sara realize that she has a true passion for coding - she loved the coding skills she gained in the workshop and decided that she wanted to make a career out of it. The workshop gave her the push she needed to begin her journey of becoming a developer. Thanks to the industry information provided in the SheCodes workshop, Sara decided that she wanted to pursue the path of Full Stack Development because she saw this as the best fit for her. Since SheCodes had already helped supplement her knowledge of Front End Development, her next step was to take some courses in Back End Development. She is now a certified Junior Full Stack Developer.

“I am about to start my job as a developer for a local company. Almost 6 months to the day after SheCodes.”

Sara thinks that SheCodes is a great opportunity for people of all technological skill levels - whether you already have some coding knowledge or you know nothing at all in the subject matter.

“Well, I would say “go for it”. It doesn’t matter if you know nothing about coding, or if you know a lot. If you know nothing, you’ll get a first glimpse into the fascinating world of coding. And if you know a bit more, you’ll be reminded of how you got into coding, and for me, that’s always a good thing.”

For Sara, SheCodes was a great decision and truly helped alter her career path, and her life.

“👩‍💻SheCodes was a way to test myself on whether or not I could code. I already knew some HTML, and had some very basic knowledge of CSS and Javascript. Attending the workshop cemented my decision to take on the challenge to learn programming languages and keep moving forward towards my goal to build a career in tech. It showed me that I can do it, and have fun doing it too! It was a great experience, and one I highly recommend.”