Rubber ducking before I even knew what it was

Clara Fitzgerald joined our 12-week tech training course in September 2019. After graduating in Financial Mathematics, Clara went on to apply for jobs in accounting.

Written by Nology Team - 03.12.19

It wasn’t long before she realised that her dream career needed to be something more creative where she could apply all of her skills to create a tangible end product.

That’s when she thought about learning to code…

From 2016 – 2019 I studied Financial Mathematics at Cardiff University. Throughout this, I mostly assumed I’d end up in Finance, taking a particular interest in the Actuarial field. Each year, I went through several application processes for either internships or graduate schemes in Actuarial or Accounting. I took a variety of tests, completing video/telephone interviews and occasionally making it to assessment centres, but never quite getting the roles. The problem here was that my skills weren’t unique, and I was trying to enter a very saturated job market.

Finding the perfect career

In March of 2019, I realised that the reason I couldn’t present the passion I wanted to at interviews for these roles, was because I wasn’t truly excited by them. After years of thinking I wanted to be an Actuary, I realised this wasn’t actually my passion. So I picked up a pen and paper and wrote down all the things that would make up my perfect career. I was looking for a field that was exciting and continuously developing such that there was always more to learn and scope to progress. A role where I could use what I’d learnt in my degree from a Mathematical point of view, but also the skills side – to work analytically and logically, solving problems and consistently challenging my brain. As well as this, I wanted to be creative. I craved an end product to my work that I could see, rather than just being a cog in a machine.

I think I want to code

I sat down with my housemates and said this out loud (rubber ducking before I knew what rubber ducking was) and before they could get a word in, I said: “I think I want to code”.

This was a revolution. I was finally excited by my career opportunities again, which helped me knuckle down and thrive with my uni work – I had an end goal now. The obvious path into this for me was an MSc conversion course in Computer Science. This was going to be expensive and time-consuming, as well as highly theoretical and not tailored to what actual jobs want, but I didn’t think anything without those flaws existed. You can imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon _nology. A course lasting 3 months rather than 12, costing about half of what a Masters would have and teaching actual job-based skills that would genuinely help me get started in tech – wherever within it I wanted to go.

It seemed too good to be true, but it wasn’t. I’m heading into week 7 out of 12 now, and I genuinely feel I’ve learnt more in the last 7 weeks than I did in my final year of University. The course is immersive, exposing you to everything you could expect to encounter starting a role as a Junior Developer, with the freedom to make the mistakes you inevitably will in a safe and supportive environment. The content is continually updated, following industry trends so that _nologists are equipped with all the right languages and frameworks, as well as the tools to learn more in the constantly growing world of tech.

It’s great to hear how _nology has given Clara the opportunity to learn skills that will open up her future job prospects and enable her to pursue a career she is passionate about. Learn more about our 12 week Software Development course.

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