How To Have A Second Career Start With Codeup

A lot of students enter Codeup from a previous career. We encounter diverse professionals from teaching, military service, the service industry, music, and more. From those prospective students thinking about a change, we often hear concerns like: "I don’t have any technical skills or background," "I’m just a teacher," "I’m only a barista," "I’m only a hobby computer person"..."I could never be a software developer." The good news is YOU, the people with a wide variety of non-software development backgrounds, are our specialty. At Codeup, you’ll leverage the qualities that make you good at what you already do, to excel in a new field. If you’re thinking about switching careers, you’ve probably already followed a plan: you listened to advice from a guidance counselor, went to college, developed a skill set, landed a job, and grew in your role. But maybe you found the day-to-day wasn’t what you expected, that what you’re good at isn’t good for you, or even that you want to learn and grow more. Maybe you need a second start? With over 1000+ alumni, we’ve heard that story a lot. We’ve also seen some surprising trends in common careers before entering Codeup. If you want a change but worry about the leap, check out some of the wide-ranging jobs Codeup grads come from and how their skills made them successful in the tech industry:

Teacher/Educator

• Deep understanding of how to learn and study
• The ability to understand someone else’s point of view
• Experience structuring your time, managing a massive workload, and maximizing output.
• How to move yourself and others past learning barriers

Server/Barista

• A work ethic focused on the need of your customers
• The ability to think outside the box to find a solution
• Experience working on a team to accomplish something special

Musician/Creative

• Experience learning, reading, and becoming fluent in different non-verbal languages
• The ability to build something new based on a set of parameters (a key signature, genre, and instrumentation is a lot like a programming language, functionality, and customer)
• The skill of using your base knowledge to improvise a tune on the fly

One of the biggest misconceptions we hear from prospective students is that they are at a disadvantage coming from a non-technical background. In fact, your background, whatever it is, is an ADVANTAGE in learning a new skill and entering the tech workforce. There are plenty of CS graduates, but there are very few Marine-veteran-musician-digital marketers turned software developers. Want to see for yourself? Hear from our students as they share their career stories, and see how far they've gone as developers! If you’re looking for a second start and see yourself in any of the above careers or skills, we’d love to help you find your passion. Connect with our Admissions team to learn more.