Brief encounter with tech
I have always liked computers. Yet going into tech never really occurred to me. Looking back, I believe the reason for this was me thinking that one had to be some kind of hacker genius in order to make it as a coder. In retrospect, it is easy to see where this idea might have come from.
Taking the Danish equivalent to A-levels, I sat next to this guy who came dangerously close to meeting all my preconceived, stereotypical ideas of a programming geek. Self-built laptop? Check! Diet Coke fanatic? Check! Impossible to converse with? Check! Make programming seem like some sort of arcane lore? Check! While I was preoccupied with trying to survive my exam in mathematics, this guy already ran his own cyber-security start-up with three employees! Yeah, pretty badass, I know. If I had ever had the slightest hope of building a career in tech, I thought them well and truly buried then and there, meeting – what seemed to me – a Mozartian tech genius.
Reconsidering my options
Put off from tech, I instead decided to dedicate myself to the humanities. After several years of diligent study in the ivory tower that is academia, my two-year Master’s program in German with philosophy was finally coming to an end, and I started to consider my next step. Fifteen years had passed since my all-so-fatal encounter with the aforementioned diet-coke addict, and it is fair to say my perspective of tech in general and programmers, in particular, had become slightly more nuanced. The reason for this mainly stemmed from meeting actual programmers, which I – oddly enough – did in the programmer-packed classical choir LilleMuko,where I spent the majority of my extracurricular life as a tenor and board member.
Talking to my co-singing programmers, I gained many an insight into life in tech. First of all, I found out a Diet-Coke-only lifestyle is not a necessary condition for becoming a good coder. On a more serious note, I also noticed although the majority of programmers in the choir had studied computer science, some of them came from other, very different educational backgrounds. Thirdly, one of the programmers in the choir sent me a Danish article in which it was argued that more philosophy graduates ought to consider going into coding because the reasoning skills gained from philosophy are put to good use in coding.
Presented with these new insights, I began thinking about what had attracted me to German and philosophy, and how I could best combine my skills from these disciplines with a future professional life. Pondering these questions, it became more and more clear to me that my interest in German, didn’t so much stem from my interest in German culture as such, but rather from a linguistic interest in languages per se. In fact, I am the kind of guy who likes terms such as ‘syntax’, ‘semantics’ and ‘inflectional morphology’, and these are features not only of German but of any language I can think of. Following these considerations, I concluded that I might as well have studied Latin, ancient Greek or – what the heck – JavaScript. Being an enthusiastic language learner, this realisation made me decide on my next challenge: it was time to learn the language of programming.
My thoughts on _nology
In deciding on how best to embark on this coding journey, I came across _nology while browsing job portals online. Reading about the course, _nology stood out for three reasons. Firstly, it is situated in the same office space as Opus Recruitment Solutions, which meant by attending the course I had the opportunity to draw on the expertise of not only the great coding trainers but also the many recruiters, who conveniently are specialised in recruiting for the tech sector. Secondly, this pairing of _nology with Opus determined a clear focus from day one of getting you job-ready, which I personally find awesome. Thirdly, _nology doesn’t just teach you to code but also helps you become a well-rounded professional by making the acquisition of soft skills an equally important part of the course.
I am four weeks into the course, and it has so far completely exceeded my expectations. There is a vibrant atmosphere at the office, the people around me are beyond friendly, their humour is as bad as mine, and the trainers go out of their way to get the best out of you. In fact, the days at _nology are so engaging I constantly forget about time and get really disappointed when I suddenly realise that the workday is over.
Yes, being a _nologist really is that awesome.