Refactoring is the art of making your code simple, elegant and less redundant. When applied to life it takes on much of the same meaning. Seek simplicity, seek efficiency, seek adventure.
That's the heart of why 93 students have chosen to refactor their lives with Code Academy. Each one looking to define themselves by the companies and applications they build, rather than the resumes they produce. It's becoming clear how this new generation of thinkers are evolving. Rethinking their traditional backgrounds: finance, real-estate, marketing, they’re now looking to pivot their own lives as much as their ideas.
Clearly there's a shift occurring. It’s glaringly obvious how many people are willing to put their past work aside to build new products. They want to delve deep into their own code, and their own understanding of what it takes to build a web application from scratch. Look at Y Combinator startup CodeCademy, (not to be confused with us, Code Academy) it’s not everyday you see 300,000+ people sign up, hoping to learn an entirely new skill as complex as software development.
How can we leverage this going forward?
We can educate and help. With an increasing number of people willing to reshape their lives around an idea they want to build, we can help introduce them to the right people, and we can help them focus down their ideas into valuable chunks.
Chicago companies Groupon and 8th Light are setting the bar for growing developers through their apprenticeship programs. We at Code Academy are entirely beginner focused, and want you to build out your ideas. Our goal is to catch and help people trying to pivot their lives, then point them in the right direction, while offering them great examples to follow.
How can you leverage this going forward?
Take the leap. 93 of us have so far, and we haven’t looked back. If you find yourself behind a desk all day, but come home to notebooks and napkins filled with ideas, chances are you’re one of us.
Attend meetups, find people with a similar drive as you. Chances are you’re not alone, so find a group, a team or any support system to help you refactor your life.
It’s a tough decision leaving a secure job for an entirely new field, let alone a seemingly complex one as software development and entrepreneurship. Find and focus on the core element of your idea, and start telling everyone about it. That’s your litmus test for support, be-it mentor or team member
Above all else, let us know how we can help you.
