Aspiring Software Engineer, Freelancer or Entrepreneur?
Let your curiosity inform your story and your story inform your goals
Join us for tomorrow’s Seeda School workshop: Discovery Your Coding Origin Story at 6pm EST led by me on Zoom. <3
The Seed Shapes The Story
My curiosity in code was seeded in the soil of creative expression and the social. My curiosity in code was seeded on MySpace. Fast forward to a few years post-undergrad, when I first started my coding journey, my goal was tech entrepreneurship — more specifically, building a platform cooperative. Forever inspired by the seed of my curiosity I wanted to build a web platform that empowered artists through the social possibility of the internet. I had a few big ideas: a dating app for artists (LOL), a LinkedIn for artists (LOL x’s 2) and an educational marketplace for artists. I’m abundantly grateful that my winding path through community organizing, art practice, software engineering, teaching and permaculture brought me to the porch of Seeda School.
What porches of possibility might we arrive at if we let our curiosity inform our story and our story inform our goals?
In the upcoming Seeda School discovery workshop we will collectively begin to get clarity on all 3:
Your curiosity
Your story
Your goals
What are your goals?
What I’ve noticed is many Seeda School learners arrive at the Discovery Workshop or a consultation call with 3 loosely categorized goals: to make a career transition, to become a freelance designer/developer, or to create a web app for their community. At Seeda School we teach aspiring software engineers, freelancers & entrepreneurs how to build a black feminist coding portfolio in less than 6 months. With the help of The Classroom and freeCodeCamp Seeda School learners become full-stack engineers with a coding portfolio illustrating their skills in building frontend interfaces and backend databases/APIs for websites using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
How could building a coding portfolio satisfy your coding goals?
Seeda School’s portfolio program is broken into 5 modules, each designed to be completed in one month:
MODULE 1: Learn HTML/CSS to Build a Research Form
MODULE 2: Learn JavaScript to Build an Interactive Web Zine
MODULE 3: Learn Back End Development and APIs using Node, Express, MongoDB, and Mongoose to Build an Archive Altar
MODULE 4: Learn Front End Development Libraries using Bootstrap and React to Build a Speculative Sales Page
MODULE 5: Learn how to synthesize your skills learned over the last 4 projects into a final capstone project.
For example, if your goal is to make a career transition into software engineering, I would recommend your capstone portfolio project should be related to your area of interest or industry. If your goal is to become a freelancer and establish a web design/development practice, I would recommend your capstone portfolio project should be a web development portfolio you will show potential clients. If your coding goal is to become an entrepreneur or start a platform coop, I would recommend your capstone portfolio project should be the MVP or “proof of concept” for your web app idea.
So again, what are your goals?
Join us for tomorrow’s discovery workshop at 6pm EST on Zoom and let’s find out together. We will explore the seed of our curiosity in code, name the stories informing our path, and point to the goal destination in the landscape of possibility on the web.
Questions We’ll Cover in the Workshop
The worksheet below will be shared in the workshop and inside we’ll collectively reflect on the following questions:
When was your curiosity in coding first seeded? How would you describe the soil?
What stories have stopped you from tending to that curiosity?
What are your coding goals?
How are these goals informed by the seed of your curiosity?
What’s the new story you want to write?
