Week 11 on the BT Digital Intensive!

Nearly finished!

The week started with end of module 2 celebration drinks followed by a number of talks throughout the week with speakers from BT Tower, Adastral Park and an SEO consultant.

We also continued with our phonebook project, working on attaching the backend python functions to the front-end using Flask.

Amina: “After doing my A levels, I made the decision to take a ‘gap year’ to decide what career path I wanted to take. I did a Digital marketing apprenticeship in a communications agency working on marketing campaigns for different organisations and coming up with brand concepts for clients. After a year, I interned as a marketing assistant at film and production company ‘The Ink Factory’ before working with BAFTA nominated producer of ‘God’s Own Country’ Manon Ardisson on a number of projects including a promotional video for the UN and a short film featuring a Paralympic athlete.I was looking for a career change and got curious about coding especially after I found out that I’m the same age as Google. I was encouraged to apply for the BT FurtHER programme which came at the right time and I’m excited for my journey in Tech.”

Maggie: “I have a degree in Psychology and had been working in IT Service Management for 8 years before I decided to quit my job to explore and experiment with the new field — programming. I chose to trade seniority for acquiring new skills, I sought to challenge myself and most of all, wanted to sate my curiosity about coding. Over the course of several months prior to starting this programme, I was learning front-end development. I enjoyed it a lot, however I didn’t have enough confidence in my skills to look for a job. Moreover, someone advised me to take up an additional (back-end) language, which made me feel a bit overwhelmed to be honest. A week later I came across this course online and here I am — learning full-stack, problem solved :-)”

Kate: “Before joining the program, I had taken some time out from working in mental health in order to travel and pursue a small business; making and selling clothes. Knowing I wanted a change in career, a number of people had mentioned the idea of coding to me. After completing a few online courses on codeacademy I came across the FurtHER program and was absolutely delighted when I got a place. The timing of the course came perfectly for me and I’m now really looking forward to my future career in Tech.”

The first speakers of the week were Rob and Sharmin from Adastral Park, who gave us an insight into test driven development at BT with a live demo using a simple Python application. Through this, they opened up about some of the benefits, challenges and drawbacks that come with it. Furthermore, they encouraged us to be open to learning new things and gave us some self learning tips and resources to get started.

We were then visited by James Mellor, who shared his unconventional journey and how that led him to managing and working with people across different teams. It was really encouraging to hear from someone who has had doubts about his career path but still managed to persevere and value the position he’s in now.

The third and final visit of the week was from David James Ross — SEO and e-commerce consultant. David has worked with a wide range of clients and organisations and has run a number of training workshops to help people optimise their websites for target search. He spoke about the ways we could make Google search work for us with live demonstrations on the different ways users search online.

Final question: If you ran BT, what would you do?

Amina: “If I ran BT I would get rid of open plan work spaces as i don’t feel it’s efficient or productive. I would also make it a requirement for everyone to mentor someone who’s looking to get into tech as I believe that there’s a skill in being able to simplify and explain what you do for a living to people who aren’t in the same field.”

Maggie: “I would introduce a 4-day work week or run such an experiment for 8–12 weeks where researchers would be hired to report back on the findings. Companies that put this idea into motion increased in greater productivity per hour and their employees saw a better work-life balance. If not a 4-day work week, how about providing rooms for naps or practising meditation? A short twenty-minute nap can boost alertness and improve performance while mediation enhances ability to sustain attention and decrease distractions, reduces stress-related symptoms, boosts creativity in solving problems & has a beneficial impact on our mood!”

Kate: “If I ran BT, I would make an effort to ensure that there were more vegetarian and in particular vegan food options on offer in all offices. The reason for this being, what you eat can actually affect your productivity in different ways. For instance, those who eat less high-fat meals and more fruits and vegetables have increased energy, improved mental functioning and subsequently better work performance as opposed to those who do not. Therefore, these changes may in fact help employees thrive throughout the day.”

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