Two of our Digital Her Role models from the Cooperative Bank have been using lockdown as an opportunity to pick up some new skills. And, no we don’t mean making banana bread. Naomi Mason and Sophie Palmer have been learning to code from home….
Why did you choose to do this? What was the attraction? Did you choose to do together for a reason?
We were really interested in learning to code, to add to our digital skills and had both been applying for free coding courses before lockdown.
All the courses we had applied for were put on hold so when we came across this remote course on Code First Girl’s Instagram page, it seemed like the perfect fit! Technically, this was a ‘Leeds’ course as there wasn’t one for Manchester – but with it being remote, it didn’t matter – lucky for us!
The program was set to last for 8 weeks, spending 2 hours each Thursday evening on a group Zoom call for the main lesson, plus completing weekly homework tasks as a chance to practice what we’d been taught and help solidify our knowledge.
What are you doing on the course? What kind of things are covered?
This course was for total beginners to learn basic web development skills. Beginning with HTML, moving onto CSS and finally JavaScript. To complete the course we were put into groups to create a website of our choice, showcasing the skills we have learned throughout the course. Concluding with a presentation of our website and walk though of our code to the whole group.
The main challenge we faced was due to the remote nature of the course. Finding a time throughout the week for us all to plan out and work on our website together was difficult as due to busy jobs and exams. However we managed to pull together a website we are proud of. If you want to check it out, here is a link.
What will this course do for your future? Is there a ‘next step’?
We’ve both received our certificates now – very exciting!
We definitely want to continue learning and build on the skills we’ve gained from this – but think we’ll take a couple of weeks to give our brains a little break before starting any more side projects. It’ll help in our everyday roles too – even though we’re not necessarily in the ‘technical’ roles in the department, we interact with code all the time so having a better understanding of it is definitely a plus.
We’d love to use our new skills in the work we do through Digital Bees, whether that be to inspire young girls to do something similar through Digital Her, or to create some more resources which we can share with schools across greater Manchester.
Watch this space!