From Social Work to Software Engineer: One Mom's Story

DigitalCrafts grad and mom Ashley had found success in social work, having reached the director level, but she wanted a job with less stress and more balance for her young family. She'd contemplated the move to coding for a long time, and finally decided to stop putting it—and herself—on the back burner.

That doesn't mean that it was easy. Before enrolling, Ashley wondered whether it was the right move for her family, whether she'd be the only mom in the classroom, or if she'd be the oldest student there. She had to come up with a plan with her husband to manage childcare and the study she needed to keep up with the class pace.

During class, she sometimes felt overwhelmed by new concepts, but found that our teaching style helped her learn quickly. After graduating from our Immersive program, Ashley is now an associate engineer with a starting salary that's $20,000 higher than in her previous role. Almost every day, she puts into practice what she learned in class. Even better, she's found it less intimidating to learn new languages after her time in our program.

Ashley says, "Quitting your job to take a bootcamp is a scary step to take! I had contemplated it for a long time before I dove in. Over the past year, I’ve met several people with similar stories—we started off trying to teach ourselves and dabbled on and off. At some point, I realized that in order to advance, I had to decide on a goal, focus, set aside time, and not push it to the back burner."

Ashley recently shared her story with the folks at Course Report. In the interview, she talks about what prompted her to choose a new career and how her desire to be a role model for her daughters prompted her decision to finally enroll in a bootcamp after thinking about it for years.