Coding has provided many people with second careers. In some cases, it has created the means for people to escape from undesirable situations. Consider a recent article for WFPL titled “To Escape Public Housing, Louisville Woman Turns to Coding.”
Jacob Ryan of WFPL writes, “With more than 17,000 people on the waiting list, securing a spot in Louisville’s public housing system can be difficult. Some spend years waiting their turn to move into one of the Louisville Metro Housing Authority’s 17 housing sites. Others can spend years trying to get out, people like Errin Johnson. Johnson, 51, lives on the eighth floor of Avenue Plaza at 400 S. Eighth St. in downtown Louisville, an 18-story public housing building that opened in 1974. For the past 20 years, she’s been in and out of public housing — mostly in, a result of some bad decisions and tough luck, she said. She knows that getting out of public housing is up to her, and now she’s trying to do just that by learning a new skill: computer coding…Before public housing, she was moving through the city’s homeless shelters. She came to Louisville from California in the 1980s after getting married. She had a daughter, had a job and a home. Then things began to unravel. She got divorced, turned to alcohol, started struggling at work and eventually lost her job. She said she was diagnosed with a mood disorder. Looking back, she remembers it as a confusing time. ‘I didn’t realize I was self-destructive as I was,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t hold down a job.’ After losing a string of jobs and getting deep into debt, Johnson’s self-esteem plummeted, she said. Spending days at the Avenue Plaza tower didn’t help much, either. ‘You walk down the halls and it’s just disparity,’ she said. She wanted a change. The layoffs and resignations made her realize she didn’t fit the mold of a typical 9-to-5 worker. She needed something different, something that fit her. Through the online learning program called Treehouse, offered at no cost by the Louisville Free Public Library system, she began learning the basics of coding. ‘Just teaching myself,’ she said.”
When it comes to customized coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, our lessons focus on computational thinking, which encompasses a wide variety of programming languages and concepts.
Our lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. Thus, the entire curriculum is customized. We are known for saying we are the most educational tech camp out there, but we also keep the focus on having fun. As a result, students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.