Providing an alternative pathway for women to enter, upskill or change tech careers, our Plus Program runs on a part-time basis, outside of business hours for 25 women across Perth. Structured around four projects, applicants are now in week eight of the program and have already worked with HTML and CSS to develop their own personal portfolio pages to host their work.
Thanks to our amazing mentors, especially lead mentor Hayley Van Waas, the cohort has been able to soar through the first project, creating a diverse range of results you can see below.
Eleanor, Mechanical Engineer at BHP and participant of the Plus Program, shared with us her expectations she had in the lead up to joining, and how so far, hasn’t disappointed. “Python and OOP have been my favourite, and something that surprised me is how supportive and creative the classes have been.”
She continues, “The mentors are extremely generous with their time and I’ve particularly appreciated their stories from industry, which helped me realise that slow debugging processes are part of the norm, so there’s no need to be discouraged and think coding isn’t for you. The coding community seems to be full of generous and resilient people, and it’s a group I hope to become more like.”
Now working through Python programming, participants are diving into the fundamentals of programming learning about functions, dictionaries, operators and of course, off-by-1 errors and infinite loops!
With projects based on Django, Cloud Deployment and React still to go during the program, the cohort have made the first steps into their new and improved tech skills. For some of the participants, being a part of the cohort is about upskilling in their current roles, with 40% of the cohort currently working at BHP.
LJ Kenward, the She Codes Program Coordinator shares her insights into how the program is currently progressing. “The participants are doing amazing, all 25 are going strong. There are challenges of course, with many working full time and maintaining other responsibilities on top of the program, and learning to code can stretch the brain in unknown ways, but the excitement that they bring, the resilience and the enthusiasm to learn is inspiring!”
During one of our recent weekend sessions, the cohort were joined by Jodie Gillespie from Robert Walters, a long time sponsor of She Codes 1 Day Workshops, to chat with the participants about future career opportunities. Check out the video below with some highlights from the women!
Stay up to date with the Plus cohort by following us on Facebook, or reach to kate@spacecubed.com to be involved in the 2020 program.