Student Spotlight: Get the inside scoop with Kari Ann

Let’s check in with Kari Ann Yoshida who is a student at LEARN. She has just recently finished her fifth week of class. LEARN why she made the decision to switch careers to web development and how LEARN is helping her gain the necessary skills.

1.What made you decide to choose a career in web development?

I decided to choose a career in web development because I have many friends who are developers or have jobs in the tech industry, and they recommended that I at least tried it out to see if I liked it or not. When thinking about alternative career paths, I really liked how flexible tech jobs can be in terms of location and working hours, and I was looking for something that would also be more mentally challenging and use my brain more than my previous job.

2.Do you have any past educational or work experience in web development?

Actually, before starting LEARN, I had zero previous experience with web development. For a few months prior to starting the bootcamp, I was doing free online tutorials like Code Academy and Code School to see if I even liked programming, but I never took any formal classes on anything code related.

3. Were you nervous about switching careers?

I was nervous, but I was already in the position where I knew that I didn’t want to continue in the career path that I was in (I was doing biotech research), and so I knew that at some point I would have to switch. I think I was the most nervous about making the commitment to sign up for a bootcamp because of the big financial investment I would be making, but when I thought about how I was already planning on drastically switching careers from biology it made the most sense to just go for it.

4.Why did you choose LEARN Academy?

What drew me to LEARN specifically was definitely the guaranteed internship. The fact that we would get real-life experience working in an actual company was really cool. I like that LEARN gears our experience in bootcamp to set us up for the best possible transition into the real working field.

5.What week are you in? How are you liking your experience so far?

We just finished off week 5 of the course, finally starting to learn Ruby on Rails. I have really enjoyed my time at LEARN so far, the staff and my fellow students are so supportive of one another, that it has been a really good time getting to work with everyone. It is amazing to have those moments where I realize that I am actually learning so much, even though it feels like not very much time has actually passed. It’s crazy that we are going to be going into our sixth week pretty soon, and are already pretty much past the basics and into Ruby on Rails, which is the main focus of the camp.

6.What advice would you give students choosing to enroll in LEARN?

I think I would say to first take some time to test the waters with code (if you haven’t already) just to make sure that you like it and that you think this is something that you could invest in as a career path. If you are already thinking about finding a bootcamp then I think LEARN is definitely a great option! The LEARN staff are all awesome and willing to help you with whatever your question or situation is. I would say, give it a try!