Coding is about communication

Our second Code Camp for Ladies brought 24 enthusiastic women to our office in Ruoholahti for an afternoon of learning and doing. Among this group were Riikka Rajaviita and Julia Niskanen, who sat down to chat with us and give us their thoughts on why they chose to learn about coding.

Code Camp for Ladies began this year as the grown-up version of our popular Code Camp for Girls. The aim is to make coding accessible for women who work in different fields or are studying something completely different, but feel like they would benefit from understanding even the basics of programming. We weren’t alone in thinking there was a need for this – in total, we’ve gotten almost 800 applications, but have so far only been able to accommodate a total of 48 eager learners at our premises.

Rajaviita and Niskanen both agree that their interest in coding stems from the basic need to communicate. Rajaviita, who works at wealth management group Taaleri, says that she was pushed to learn coding by the frustration of not understanding what her developer co-workers are talking about, even when they seemingly speak the same language, like Finnish or English. Niskanen, a graduate student in marketing from the University of Vaasa, says she has similar experiences from her work experiences in the field of digital marketing.

Just like learning Spanish

“At my work, I’ve actually been given the opportunity to dive into the world of coding before, but a busy work schedule has kept me from taking the first step. Code Camp for Ladies felt like the perfect opportunity – a fun after-work activity with like-minded people”, says Rajaviita. And Niskanen agrees, saying that although she’s dabbled in the basics at Codecademy before, a lack of both time and a support group has stood in the way of really taking the bull by the horns.

This is exactly what we aim to offer with our Code Camps. While three hours at our office will most likely not turn you into a sought-after full-stack developer, we want to ignite a spark in people by showing them that coding is more like learning Spanish than trying to understand aliens. Rajaviita crystallizes this idea perfectly: “If you’d consider taking a language course like English or Swedish, you might as well take a course in coding!”

If nothing else, Niskanen says that even the first steps into coding have allowed her to widen her perspectives just a notch more. She and Rajaviita both assure that they’re interested in delving even further into the learning process. Niskanen is even excited about the prospect of beginning to build her own personal website. And the one thing we at Frantic have learned is that there really is a demand for easily approachable courses in coding – and we’ll definitely try to do our part to bring digital skills available for all in the future as well.