What do you think this image is communicating?
Word of the Day: grovel
This word has appeared in 11 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
Hits and Misses in 2022 – Learning Systems Edition
Hits. These are the capabilities, ideas, components, even messaging that scored well in 2022. Some are truly the “score”, that will go forward in 2023, to I believe not just imitators, in one case, and I would be one who would follow suit, then there are “scores” which bounced off the crossbar or off another player and went in. In other words, they delivered, but they didn’t fully achieve.
Misses are just plainly missed opportunities. Missed chances. Missed capabilities, whereas they had something that is “gold” but didn’t leverage it, or in some cases, were unaware of what it was – I see this a lot – and thus, failed to capitalize on it.
And finally a hit that will come down to a party that normally doesn’t do a good job of messaging, delivering, let alone explaining. It’s success or failure will come down to that specific party, thus either game changer or game that got away.
If you love jumping and pinging here and there, you are in luck. This post will bounce from Hit to Miss to Miss and Miss, back to hit.
HIT – A perfect score
Helium from Thought Industries. I’ve written a bit about Helium, and what it can achieve, but in basic terms, it gives full power in terms of UI, and to some degree UX to the client. You may have an IT/IS person who knows how to code, combine them with a graphic person (for the design elements), and let them at it. The Learner side can look vastly different than out of the box, and to a lesser degree the admin side. Even with limited development skills, there is an area within Helium, where a template is available, and code snippets – you select say X, the code is provided, and a simple cut and paste. Big wins for me, include
- A complete tutorial available online with visual steps, i.e. you can see how it works, then play within a sandbox environment (you create it). The tutorial though is totally designed and orientated to developers.
- Everything you need is there – excluding of course, what you plan to add
- It’s 100% free. Comes with the system. So you can go full throttle and take the UI and some UX this way, or you can do a bit here or there. Be aware you are not changing the functionality angle, nor would you want do – especially around metrics, etc. But you, well, whomever is the developer now offers flexibility to add this or that – perhaps various APIs.
- They plan to add a marketplace in 2023, whereas a client, could hire “developers” for Helium. A perfect example of what this will likely look like or at least where you can get a sense is how Shopify does it, if you want to hire a dev team to create/change your web site. Some can do only off the templates you select,others can do it all. To me, this would be the best route for TI to go – template twists or dev to the hilt. There are though IMO, areas that need to be worked out, from a process to validation standpoint. Plus, there could be a separate cottage industry for Helium (more on that shortly)
Why use Helium?
Thought Industries is for customer education/partner training, associations, and other B2B/B2C, like training providers for example. Helium today, I believe is targeted towards larger entities (they define their entire platform as “Enterprise”, which only adds to some confusion). However, you could be at a small company or even a person, who sells content and knows how to code.
The Power of Helium is the client now has the control for design and experience. This has always been a challenge with various vendors, especially today, where turnkey (out of the box) is the standard, a few tweaks included, and thus implementation times are very short (a plus). The number of vendors who can do full customization is very small, and it is labor intensive (on the vendor part, which means cost), and priced high on the buyer side. Helium though, pushes out the cost – as in the cost is significantly lower to the vendor, from a labor standpoint, and for the buyer, the fee to do what you want, is zero, as in Free. The implementation/update time is all around the buyer. Thus, you could buy the system, and get it ready, then start working with Helium. Go live, and offline, work with Helium, then when ready = push it go live. So, system is up and running, say in one month, but the “new” version, your version comes out in four months. I really love that side.
What about other vendors?
They should build something like Helium, and offer it to their clients. Regardless if they are customer education focused, combo (customer/employee), employee, heck even EdTech – if they have coders – which BTW would be ideal for students who are seeking coding skills – here you go..
The Benefit?
Customization control is given to the client. The vendor, doesn’t have to do it.
Final Take?
Helium is a game changer. There is no doubt in my mind, that it could rapidly change the industry, commercial wise, and offset the usual spin I hear on folks going open source, because they want control of the code. Yet it is better, because you still get the goodies/functionalities/capabilities in the system, that you purchased, plus their – the vendor’s updates, enhancements, etc – thus you are not just getting a shell.
You just score on the UI and some UX.
Helium says you can have your cake and eat it too. Or give it to Steve who has been eyeing it for the last 20 minutes.
The Cottage Industry
Depending on how many vendors see something like Helium as a must for their system, and in 2023, it should be on that roadmap, if I was exploring other LOBs, something like Envato would make sense. There you can find templates for specific solutions – WordPress Or Shopify or Magento and so on. Templates will play a role if enough vendors follow the Helium approach (creating their own), because many people will want to try, but lack the skill sets, and perhaps do not have the budget to hire someone to code. In something like Envato, which is a marketplace by independent folks, the templates can get really extensive in what you can do. I’m not saying you will see something like this in 2023, let alone 2024, if anything the vendor’s themselves would be the template drivers, nevertheless, it could lead to a niche cottage marketplace.
HIT – Cohort-Based Learning
A Topic I’ve written about here and here. There is definitely a lot of interest in 2022 around cohort-based learning, from a vendor standpoint to a buyer standpoint. If you truly want your employees, customers, partners, whomever to learn, cohort-based is the way to go. However, it requires strong metrics/data behind it, otherwise, you will lose out on its possibilities.
The Potential Miss?
People thinking cohort-based learning is the same as group/community learning. I’m not just referring to buyers here, but vendors in a big way. Group and community learning has been around for more than two decades. So it’s not a new concept, cohort-based learning as it relates to corporate is.
The challenge I see for folks, who aren’t sure, or just perceive group/community as the same, or want to provide the change to do it, but need to explain it for anyone, well here you go.
Compare
Group Learning/Community
- You have a bunch of people tied to a course/content, or the entire community, or a specific topic, albeit the course/content, learning path and entire community are the most common.
- Reactive – they have a discussion board, forum – you post, at some point, someone responds, hopefully with something more than “interesting”. Chat text is awesome, if this is 1998. Not a lot of interaction here, which is why nobody is using AOL as their “communication/browser” of choice.
- That bunch of folks tied to a course or learning path – it is assigned and they have to complete it. There is not a free flowing process here. The folks are often in the same department/or same role, with whatever other factors the administrator or the person overseeing designates. The manager might have a role in deciding who on their team goes to this group or that group. It’s all about the approval process. Dictated by someone, who may not know their own team members, skills, interests or potential – beyond the limited contact they have.
- Social engagement? Not really. Did I show you the discussion board?
- Learning Choice? We have to be in this group, with zero flexibility to switch to another if we so desire. Someone behind the curtain, controls our learning.
- All for one, and one for none.
COPs – aka communities of practice were a novel idea in the early 2000’s for online learning, first seen with WLAN or LAN networks. But they lost their fizz, and although there are vendors who have attempted a psuedo COP via their group angle, it doesn’t really deliver – because its flaws are inherent.
Cohort-Based Learning
- Think Knowledge Journey – Embed that term in your brain, and think only around “knowledge journey”
- What is a journey? A way to discover new things, ideas, interests, information, content, communication with other fellow folks along the way, interaction, experiences – Knowledge
- It is limited in scope – 10 people per cohort. No more. A group has lots of people, part of its flaw, a cohort should be limited, but here is the kicker – you have as many as you want, AND the learner can be in as many as they want.
- Proactive – because User generated content is allowed – that’s right, each learner in the cohort can create their own content and share it. I saw this on LinkedIn – a perfect example, of shared content, visual in its appearance via a screen record. The person who presented it, was talking about this nifty trick you can do in Excel. It was seen on the screen, right within their post. Whalla – and people responded, some with other tips and tricks. And I suspect, someone will add another screen recording of their tip, and now you have a discovery. Something new to nearly everyone, known to someone who wanted to share it with others. Take this approach, and the forum angle is gone – social is in play, because each person is adding their own content to the entire cohort.
- People are in the cohorts based on variety of topics – don’t limit them to a learning path, or a specific task, that is group learning. People who cohort-based, can search for other cohorts that are available – each cohort identifies minimum requirements or criteria or is available to “all”. This is done with content, why limit there? People are in multiple cohorts at any given time. Some last one week, others six months, or even a year. They control the process, not you. Cohort has a start and finish date, but it doesn’t mean, once people complete they walk away or become inactive. That’s groups.
Cohort-based is ongoing, because of the social interaction, user generated content, and duality methods of communication (video, audio, real-time, with offline too, via your mobile app would be a good idea).
Coaching is not in cohort-based, and coaching is not the same thing as mentoring. You want mentoring, because that will bring folks back into the cohort, as new ideas, are brought up, new methods and approaches to acquire knowledge, that goes beyond the start and stop of a topic.
The people are anyone. From C-Level folks to newbies. You want on-boarding? If a senior exec or C-Suite person is new, and Michalea is an exec assistant, and is new, they go into the same cohort.
The Holy Grail
When authoring tools came into play, the item you would hear over and over again, was the idea that the learner while taking the course, behind the scenes, the course would recognize what the learner is doing, successes and challenges and then based on this, you would end up on a different pathway within the course. Thus 10 people taking the same course, could end up on 10 different paths. The authoring tools couldn’t accomplish that, an algorithm wasn’t in play then, but behind the scenes of creating the course, you could create these steps to go this way or that way. Still, it wasn’t the holy grail.
Adaptive Learning makes a spin around the adaptive learning experience, but I have yet to see it, achieve the HG status. Cohort-based learning, those cohorts could achieve it, with the right algorithms in place.
Could cohort-based learning change the way you train, and your employees learn? Absolutely. Adaptable. Ever-changing. Ever-engaging. Social. Empowered.
The Miss?
The Loop.
We, are in an endless cycle of the learning loop. It started probably a few hundred years back, and as technology has evolved, the loop hasn’t. It shows up early in school, then college/university, and right into the corporate landscape. Some associations go loop too, but interestingly enough for obvious reasons, they have broken free to a point.
The Loop is Assigned Learning. Everything is assigned. You are in this “course”, with this group or nobody – usually it’s a group, just not always visible, and you must complete. Once completed, you have acquired the knowledge, so the Loop says. You were assigned tasks. Each task completed. Knowledge acquired. Retention has to exist, because the loop says, you completed it. You, as the admin or the person overseeing the whole training or L&D or Education department, looks at the percentage data, sees high completions, and says, “see, ROI!” Completion is the driver here. Not Learning. Synthesis? No. Comprehension? Dependent on many variables. Retention? Perhaps, depending how often they return. But people eye that “completion” as though that is the only data point of value.
Assigned learning is often pushed for compliance and regulatory, because everyone knows this isn’t a proactive approach, rather, a protect thyself and company approach. Nobody is going, “I can’t wait to take Age Discrimination”. Should they know it? Absolutely. But reality is that many people, including HR execs, I know, will wait to the last minute to take and complete the course. They pass the test – which they can take as much as they want – and see?
It’s just completion.
That’s the loop. Assigned to Completion Data. Engagement? No. Social? No. Mentoring? No. Various ways to learn with others? No. Metrics that can truly ascertain engagement with content among everyone tied around other variables associated with the loop? No.
The Loop is Broken
Folks realize this, and yet, continue on the loop. Steve D (from Fuse) wrote a wonderful piece of LinkedIn, around content with an example of a topic his son was trying to learn. Social played a major role and the way of bouncing back and forth to retain. The post covers the flaws of SCORM, and I concur. What though got my eye, was the content sharing and approach – it isn’t this way or the highway, rather, it is any way, whatever works. Free flowing.
The Double Miss
Vendors who jump into cohort-based, I believe are going to be the ones who have to know what cohort-based learning actually is (hint, read my post on it) and then make sure, their salespeople can explain it, with right to the point pluses – you want ROI? Here is how it will deliver (the key will be the metrics).
Vendors have to be the knowledge keepers here, since many people do not know, and thus won’t ask for it, or think that because they use the loop, let’s just keep the loop going.
The miss will be, many won’t know. They will hem and haw about it, or espouse information that is over here, when it needs to be there. The trickle down theory of knowledge IMO with many salespeople is all over the map, on other capabilities, even e-learning itself. I blame the vendor, because they are not providing this information to their salespeople. I recommend some cohorts ASAP.
Other Misses in 2022
- If you purchase Cornerstone and decide to buy some content via Content Anytime (it’s an aggregator from Cornerstone, with multiple publishers), where you aware that the Grovo content (owned by Cornerstone) allows you the ability to edit it and tailor the content to your business, etc? My guess, is not. Why? It’s never messaged.
- Speaking of Cornerstone, they have a DAP – Digital Adoption Platform – called MyGuide. It’s an add-on. I say, include it in the LMS, at no charge, and ditto for EdCast (where it initially sat, and was still an add-on). I like MyGuide, but with the recession afoot, having to pay extra isn’t what I would do.
- Degreed has this wonderful gem called “Guidebooks”. I continue to see it as GOLD, and yet it is part of an add-on – Degreed Intelligence, and it is never pushed strongly about its benefits. I say include it with the Degreed system – at no additional charge. I am telling everyone – this thing rocks – Guidebooks. It enables anyone to create an executive summary, dashboards, and other items, without having to figure out what should I add or not – because of how and what you can do – easily. and quickly. I’m still shocked that no other vendor has thought about this, replicated it with tweaks, and offered it.
- Ignoring the recession. Departments are getting gutted. Yet what I hear and surprised is how many vendors are either ignorant that it is here, or coming depending on your take, and thus have no game plan for how it will impact their business nor how to help their current clients or future clients. There will be verticals/industries who will take a bigger impact than others. And I know vendors who will feel that, because they play heavy in those industries.
- Missing the Message. If you are targeting customer education/partner training/B2B and so on – say it. Clearly. I should see that on your home page. I should see that at your booth. I should see it in your system (which is a mixed bag). If you are targeting training, say it. Bridge, as noted at DevLearn, wants this market, they talk about it, and yet, their messaging? Workforce development. They are not the only ones. Go to any vendor’s web site, and if you can’t figure out in the first three minutes who their system is focused on, then that tells me, they either don’t know themselves or that marketing missed.
- Add-ons. More and more folks are starting to seek out systems that have it all. Look, you do not have to use it, you can turn it off, but you aren’t paying more down the road.
Huge Miss – Actually mistake
Way too many vendors think that everyone has a BI tool, or everyone that is a large enterprise (which is defined in numerous ways by vendors), and thus, why include one or some level of advanced metrics in their system? That’s a bad approach.
Ditto on the premise that more employees or customers, means that the client has a higher budget. Sure, 100,000 users or 25,000 users is one thing, but there are vendors whose cutoff begins at 5,000. If you are less than that, not interested.
Here’s the problem. In that range 5,000 to 10,000, the budgets can be all over the map. I’ve had clients in that range whose budget was a maximum of 40K. And I’ve had clients, with 1,500 users whose budget exceeded 750K.
Each of these have something in common, which anyone who has provided training or learning, knows – never assume. Right? Those who oversee these areas – training, L&D, Education – association wise, and has done any training, even teaching, knows the rule – never assume.
Vendors that do this though? Assumption.
Final Hits
- Vendors who offer to white-label their mobile app, so it doesn’t have their name on it, when the employee or customer goes and seeks it. This is fee-based. Typical PP is 10K. If your vendor does it, I recommend it, especially for customer education (aka training), especially if you are selling content. I know of one company who did this, for their employees.
- Biz Skills – All the content is already mapped. Genius. And yet, another surprise that no one else is pre-doing this, which could be done with the 3rd party content in the vendor’s marketplace. Mapping content to job role/skill is time consuming, and in some cases handled by aother stakeholder. If the vendor does it ahead of time, that’s a huge win IMO. With Biz Skills, they will add/remove, if you desire – and it is included. Time consumption goes bye-bye. And that other stakeholder? They can stay on the sidelines.
- Thinking out of the box. There are always early adopters in this industry, and those who take a risk, and see what happens – sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t. But for far too long, it has been the same ol same. Over and over and over again. I’m seeing finally, a change. It is more of a ripple, then fledged wave, but more vendors are trying to think of new ways – beyond the “learning experience”. A few are well-known, many should be known, but are not – due to marketing- and yes, those that are on the horizon.
Bottom Line
The hits and misses for 2022.
One final miss, though is that way too many people continue to blast out RFPs, without first looking at the system (schedule the demo), and on the other side, way too many vnedors want to do a setup call, before you can see the demo. Here’s a thought. Schedule the demo, and discuss the needs/etc. during the demo. A setup call is a waste of time. If that is your angle, then have the buyer send over their use cases. Review, and follow-up, prior to the demo.
It can be an informal demo, just here is the highlights, we can do a more formal demo, after this or this or this.
A picture tells a 1,000 words as they say. Not you talking about something I can’t see.
Final Note – This post is dedicated to my late friend, Todd Lindeman, who passed away, right before his 56th birthday. I was there in those final minutes. I won’t forget that.
Nor him.
E-Learning 24/7
West Virginia University announces affordable, top-ranked Master of Science in Software Engineering on Coursera
By Betty Vandenbosch, Chief Content Officer at Coursera
Today, I am delighted to announce a Master of Science in Software Engineering from West Virginia University (WVU). This affordable degree is $20,940* and ranks in the top 30 online master’s in computer information technology programs in the U.S.
WVU designed this program to transform software and IT professionals into subject matter experts by teaching them how to design, develop, and manage software applications and systems. Graduates will have the skills and credentials needed for the 625,000+ open software engineering jobs that require a master’s degree in the U.S., according to Lightcast data**.
To master the software development life cycle, students will define software requirements, archetype programs using object-oriented design, validate software, and evolve programs using the Capability Maturity Model.
Students can tailor the curriculum to their career goals through advanced elective courses, ranging from agile software development and mobile apps to security management and cloud computing classes. Courses are taught by tenured faculty at one of the nation’s leading research institutions, as well as industry experts, including NASA software engineers and prominent software executives.
“Our expanded partnership with Coursera is an exciting venture for WVU faculty and students,” said WVU Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Maryanne Reed. “We have been focusing on efforts to create innovative programs that provide in-demand skills and meet students where they are. Working with Coursera to expand our Software Engineering graduate program will provide an even wider audience for this excellent program. We are excited to welcome students from around the globe into the Mountaineer family.”
To help students balance full-time work and family life, they can complete coursework on their own schedule. Faculty members are on-deck to support students in live office hours, and to maximize engagement, peers will collaborate on complex, real-world group projects throughout the program.
Most students begin the program while in senior technical roles, but after graduation, the majority advance to leadership positions, according to a 2021 West Virginia University Alumni Survey of 29 students. Sixty-two percent of the on-campus graduates surveyed increased their salary or got a promotion. For example, one student, Joe Oliverio, got promoted at a Fortune 500 company after graduation and said, “This degree has opened doors I never would have imagined for myself.”
We are honored to expand our partnership with West Virginia University to provide learners around the world with an affordable degree that can help them unlock the next stage of their careers.
Applications are now open for the first cohort, beginning in the summer of 2023. To learn more and apply, please visit https://www.coursera.org/degrees/ms-software-engineering-wvu.
*Tuition as of November 29, 2022; Tuition is subject to change. If students without a bachelor’s in computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, or a closely related field apply and are accepted to the program, they must complete SENG 505, which brings the full degree cost for these students to $23,034. More information here.
**Source: Occupation Summary for Computer Science and Computer Software Engineering; Open jobs denote open positions from Oct 2021 to September 2022; Accessed October 26, 2022.
Film Club: ‘Empty Classrooms, Abandoned Kids: Inside America’s Great Teacher Resignation’
Why are so many teachers leaving the profession now?
Fifth Graders Give Monologues About a Person Whose Life Has Been ‘Overlooked’
This teaching idea was submitted by Michael Salmon, who taught fifth-grade English, social studies and math at Sidwell Friends Middle School in Washington, D.C.
Do you teach with The New York Times? Tell us about it here, or browse our full collection of Reader Ideas.
Lesson Overview
The New York Times is one of the most respected and well-known newspapers on the plant, but many people who contributed important work to the world were ignored by the paper for a long time because of their gender, race or identity. There were no death notices — or obituaries — written about them, and their accomplishments were never recognized.
In 2018, The Times started “Overlooked,” a series of obituaries about those remarkable people whose deaths had gone unreported since 1851.
This series became the center of my class’s own “Overlooked” project. I invited students to choose one “overlooked” person from The Times’s series to explore, and then share what they found out with the class via an essay or a spoken monologue. The goal, as a part of our Equity, Justice and Community series, was to learn about someone whose light made a difference in the world, but who had until recently been unknown.
Warm-Up: What Is an Obituary?
First, we began with a discussion about what it means to be “overlooked.” Then I explained that this project was designed to expose us to people we had never heard about and to learn of their remarkable stories through their obituaries. I asked students:
Does anyone know what an obituary is?
What might an obituary include?
Where might we find one?
Does everyone who dies have an obituary?
You might also share an obituary from the Overlooked series to begin. One interesting example is the story of Emily Warren Roebling, who oversaw the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. You can read it together as a class, either by projecting it or printing it out and reading it aloud, and then discuss the following questions:
What did we learn about Emily Warren Roebling?
Was there anything you learned that surprised you?
What important interests did Roebling have? How did she become interested in bridges?
What obstacles did she face while pursuing her goals?
Why do you think she was overlooked? Why should we know about her and her work?
Do you see any patterns in the ways that an obituary’s information is organized? (A question to introduce “obituary style,” which you can learn more about in this lesson.)
Main Activity: Learn About Someone Who Has Been “Overlooked”
Then, students chose their own historical figure to research and shared the person’s life story with the class. Here’s how:
1. Choosing a person from the Overlooked series: One good place for students to start their search would be this article from Wikipedia. Though this list is incomplete, it can give students an idea of the various kinds of people included in the project. If none of these people interest them, they can go directly to the Overlooked page to find many more.
2. Reading, annotating and taking notes: Students can save the link to the obituary or print it out. Printing it out will enable them to highlight important facts, annotate with their own questions, or mark sections that are challenging to understand.
My students used this plan and note sheet to record important information about the person’s life. This was their guide for producing their presentation for the class.
3. Class presentations: I had my students choose one of the following ways to share what they learned:
They could write an expository piece of several paragraphs that included an introduction, information about the person’s life and accomplishments, why the person was overlooked and why the person deserves to be recognized.
Or they could deliver a first-person monologue, either in a Flip video, where all students could view and comment on it, or in a live presentation. Monologues helped my students better understand how it felt to be that person, and develop more empathy for those whose lives differed from their own. For this option, practice with peers, as well as a lesson on presentation skills, is encouraged.
Reflection and Student Outcomes: The Importance of Story
The presentations became a collection of stories of interesting people in written and video form.
As a class, we explored the question of why it is important to pursue a project like this one. What does it teach us about the importance of story? How do lesser-known stories inform our understanding of time, place and culture?
For my students, it was very powerful to expand their understanding of the world by learning that history is a kind of kaleidoscope, made up of many people’s stories. We began to understand that there are so many stories and perspectives we don’t know, a loss of richness for all of us. To look only at stories we find in our textbooks often diminishes our understanding of the world as it has been and is, and if we are to make the world a better place, we need to have experiences like this more often.
Going Further
You might consider teaching this lesson alongside a shared class text. For us, as we opened our eyes to people and ideas we didn’t know, it became an activity to further develop our thinking as we explored “This Book Is Anti-Racist,” by Tiffany Jewel. Another favorite is “Spoon River Anthology,” a 1915 collection of short fictional epitaphs by Edgar Lee Masters that is based in part on residents of his hometown, Lewistown, Ill. The many portrayals are fascinating to read.
Students can learn more about who gets a Times obituary and why most obituaries are still of white men by reading this essay by the Times obituary editor. They can also try writing their own stories about someone who they think led an interesting life with the lesson plan, “Writing a Short Biography With Obituaries.”
What Should Stores Do With Unsold Goods?
Retailers sometimes throw out returned, damaged or otherwise unwanted items. What should happen instead?
Giving Tuesday
What can you do for others this holiday season?
Word of the Day: florid
This word has appeared in 30 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
How I Went From Product Owner to Front-End Engineer at Adidas in 15 Months
Learning to code so that you can land a job in tech can feel daunting. That’s why we’re sharing inspiring stories from Codecademy’s community — to show how people like you (yes, you!) can embark on a learning journey and end up with a totally new career. We hope these stories serve as a reminder that there’s no single path to a more fulfilling work life.
Today’s story is from Serena Isone, a 35-year-old Software Developer at Adidas, living in Schiedam, South Holland, Netherlands. Read more stories from Codecademy learners here — and be sure to share your story here.
Why I chose to learn to code
“I was a Product Owner for 10 years, and that’s how I discovered how cool coding was. A Product Owner is the business side of an Agile team; they are responsible for prioritizing a backlog of features that will be developed and shipped onto the website, according to the priorities of the company and the preference of the consumer.
In August 2019, I subscribed to the ‘aspiring engineer’ program at Adidas, and I used Codecademy as a way for me to learn a little bit more JavaScript, because JavaScript was one of the languages that we needed to learn in order to apply for this program internally at Adidas.
Before the pandemic brought us all into a lockdown, my mind was set that I wanted to learn coding, and then the pandemic just happened to give me free time to actually focus on it.”
How I made time to learn
“In 2019, when we were working from the office 8 hours a day and also had our social lives, it was actually quite tough. I was studying in my free time on the weekends, because that’s just the way it is when you still have to work a full-time job.
If I wanted to do this, I needed to do it during my free time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make time to learn at work because I worked in two different departments: I belonged to the business department, and I was trying to get ready to move into tech. Only studying on the weekends was not enough with the learning curve. I would study for a few hours in the evenings during the week, but there are also other things that you need to do — like going to the gym or meeting friends.”
How I got in the door
“Adidas has an internal program that promotes job fluidity. People who want to try to do some other job can do a short-term assignment in a different department. If they like it, they can get prepared in what we call an ‘individual development plan.’ At the end of your development plan, if you are ready for it, then you can apply for the job.
So the ‘aspiring engineer’ program will give you an idea of what the life of a Software Developer is like on a daily basis. In your individual development plan, you set a goal saying, like, ‘I’m going to become a Software Developer within six months.’ A mentor will be assigned to you in order to guide you to what you have to learn in order to apply for a Software Engineer position.”
How I saved up money to switch careers
“Anytime that people talk about coding and software engineering jobs, they think that there is a salary bonus or a little benefit with it. In my case, it was the other way around. I was a Senior Product Owner and I had a very comfortable salary, but felt limited because I wasn’t learning that much anymore.
For me, investing in learning actually means investing money. I am getting a much lower salary, because now I’m a Junior Engineer, and I am also not getting as much in bonuses as before. It’s like I’m paying money for new skills, but the way I’m paying is with a salary cut. Overall, I am enjoying what I’m learning, so it was worth it. Ultimately, if you already are above a certain salary, earning more will not make you happier if your job doesn’t fulfill you.”
How long it took me to land a job
“I had a plan with my mentor, who was a Senior Software Engineer, to learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React. After I learned all of that, I started to prepare for technical interviews. I studied data structure and algorithms, which are the questions where they ask you to solve a coding problem on the spot during the interview.
After doing that for five months, the Head of Software Engineering literally asked me, ‘When are you going to apply? Your mentor says that you’re ready.’ I still felt very frightened about being asked to solve a problem in an interview, and I wanted to be 100% sure that I was ready.
The Head of Software Engineering just said, ‘It’s better to go into an interview and find out if you’re ready for a job than wait a long time. Who cares if you fail? We’re going to tell you why you failed, how to fill the knowledge gaps you’re missing, and you’re going to take that feedback and incorporate it into the development plan.’”
How I nailed the interview
“From a human perspective, the interview process was actually really nice. They weren’t trying to make me fail; they were trying to give me a chance and they made me feel at home.
The interview process was very structured, and similar to how people would apply externally. They interviewed me on the theory, like, What is JavaScript? What is React? What’s the principle of React without React hooks? The second part of the interview was the coding challenge, where they give you a problem and you have to try to solve it with code. The third part was more about the soft skills.
The scariest part of the interview was the coding challenge, because it’s live, on the spot, and you need to take care of so many different things. I thought, Even if I cannot solve the challenge, I want them to know how I structured my way of solving it.”
How I evaluated the offer
“Adidas is a great company. Our motto is, ‘Change is a team sport,’ and that reflects on everything. Moving from being a Product Owner in a business position to a Software Developer position in tech was a team effort, if you think about it: I had my mentor, there was a whole organization that was promoting this type of process, and together we achieved something.
The company overall has a very healthy culture, and that’s what I really appreciate about Adidas — they literally helped me to change my career path, and keep on learning, which is what I wanted to begin with.”
How day one & beyond went
“The first day was cool, and it felt really exciting. I finally got to see the code and everything that developers would talk about when I was a Product Owner, like all the limitations and opportunities that we had. Seeing firsthand what my developers were talking about really felt empowering, because now I had direct insights on our code base.
There was a period where I was really frustrated, because obviously when you’re new to a code base, there’s so many things that you need to take into account. I always say to the people who write to me on my Instagram page, ‘Be prepared, because this path is not easy.’ There are going to be times where you’re going to feel down and times where you’re going to wonder if you’re made for this job or not. You always need to remember, I’m enthusiastic about this. I really love this. I’m going to keep going.”
What I wish I knew before I started learning
“I wish that people would have warned me more about how difficult it would be from a psychological perspective. I had to start from scratch, and I thought it was going to be a lot easier to be good and have all the answers.
Even Software Engineers that have been doing this for years and years told me, ‘You are never going to feel like you know everything. You will always have to learn.’ Yet I overestimated myself. There’s a lot of expectations that I put on myself, and I thought I could do better with this feeling of failure that’s very common in this job. I had to learn how to cope with being a junior.”
Learn like Serena
See the courses and languages that helped her most.
Not sure where to start? Check out our personality quiz! We’ll help you find the best programming language to learn based on your strengths and interests.
Want to share your Codecademy learner story? Drop us a line here. And don’t forget to join the discussions in our community.
JavaScript Courses & Tutorials | Codecademy
The JavaScript programming language is fun and flexible. It’s one of the core technologies of web development and can be used on both the front-end and the back-end.
