I have a great job! Wait, what?! So why am I also a student at TTS? Well, I arrived at my current job through a non-traditional route. I did not previously study computer science or web development or anything along those lines. I have accomplished a lot on my own as well as learned a lot on the job, but I wanted to take the code immersion course to round out my experience and fill in some blanks. In other words, I wanted answers. And skills…I wanted mad skills. The experience so far has been great…I love going to class! I spend all day at work, and then two evenings per week make my way over to TTS. Even with those long days, I have never once dreaded having to go to class and I have never once been bored. I love it!

Prior to starting the course I had some HTML, CSS, and Ruby experience. But Rails and web application development were new to me. In my work, I actually use a Rails application called Orchestrator as one of my primary tools. I use it to develop automated workflows that carry out media-related tasks. As a workflow developer, I write Ruby code to accomplish these tasks, but I did not know Rails itself prior to TTS. Now that I’m learning, I have a much better understanding of the inner workings of Orchestrator, and how I can use that knowledge to become an even stronger workflow developer. And learning about Partials and Models and Methods and Attributes…whoa, now I’m starting to understand how to do some damage! Things are falling into place and there are lots of “a ha!” moments happening.

There are many different types of technology courses out there, but the TTS program was ideally suited to my needs. On top of that, it’s less expensive than many others, the staff is knowledgeable, friendly, helpful, and they offer schedules that are accommodating to both those who want a full time immersion experience, and those who are employed full time. My decision to enter the program happened FAST (discovered, interviewed, applied, enrolled…all in about a week), and I’m really glad I made it so. The things I’m learning are serving a very specific need for me…but the benefits of the course are wide and could open up a range of opportunities for others who also want to do <BIG>SOMETHING</BIG>!