This article was written by Microverse student, Maria Reyes. Header image submitted by Maria Reyes.
Microverse has changed my life. It has been such an incredible experience for me.
Maybe you’re a developer looking to get a remote job in an international company, or a STEM graduate who wants to learn to code, or maybe, like me, you’re someone with no technical background whatsoever.
It doesn’t matter your experience: Microverse could be the place for you.
A little over a year ago, I decided to switch careers and learn to program. Now, I’m proficient in more than five programming languages and have built more than 50 projects.
I’m succeeding mainly because of the Microverse program, the supportive team behind it, and all the amazing students I’ve met through it.
I found Microverse when looking for an intensive programming course online. I instantly was attracted to the idea; an international online program, that is free until you get a job.
After successfully making it through the application process, I started the program as part of the August 2019 cohort.
In retrospect, I would say there are three things that make the Microverse Experience so enriching and enjoyable: your teammates, the community, and the program itself.
One of the first things I did after joining the program was meet my standup team. We are six students from Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Nigeria. I was so excited to see I had three female teammates! After almost a year of meeting daily, I can say for certain they are the best part of my experience here.
Well, I love to learn and find it exciting, but doing it with other people, side by side… that’s powerful! We meet every day and we chat about coding challenges, our projects, our struggles, our countries - everything.
We added two more people from Rwanda and Nigeria to the team a few months ago, so our team is now 50% from Africa and 50% from Latin America. Our backgrounds are very diverse but we all connect in a deep way.
The bond we’ve built is so strong that we consider ourselves more than friends: we are a family.
As students, we also have access to a vibrant community, which is awesome! Not a single day goes by without someone posting a nice coding joke, a complex problem they’ve been trying to solve, an invitation to a hackathon, or a meetup…our Slack channel is very active.
And you can be sure that you will always get an answer (or more than one) when you ask a question there.
Since every one of us is going through the same curriculum, we can get help and be of help when another student is facing a technical problem. From my experience, having an issue can be discouraging for people when they start to learn to code alone: how do you solve the problem?
Having this experience with hundreds of students is what helps us improve our skills and keeps us moving forward every day. Reinforcing our own knowledge through helping others is one of the ways we achieve mastery.
Another cool thing: since being a woman in this industry can be tough, through Microverse we’ve found a way to grow a supportive community for women, where we share opportunities or talk about our particular struggles.
I’m happy to say that some of the best developers I’ve met in the program are women.
Microverse provides a wonderful experience so I want to talk a bit more about the program.
A few days ago, I was talking to my teammates about being Microverse students and what it meant to us.
It was shocking to me that we ALL said we wouldn’t be programming full-time if it wasn’t for Microverse and the opportunity it provided us.
Even though we are from different countries and continents, we have one thing in common. It's the main reason why we joined Microverse: we all want to improve our lives and find a remote job working for an international company.
We dream of a better life for ourselves and our families. But none of us could have paid for a program upfront.
Microverse is different.
Microverse is creating opportunities for people from developing countries like myself. People who, otherwise, wouldn’t have the chance to switch from the local to international job market - or at least not easily.
And yes, we will pay our tuition when we find a job. But from my point of view, it will be worth it!
Before I joined Microverse, I didn’t even know about remote jobs. I didn’t know that I could work in companies with such amazing cultures and working environments. It’s something I just can’t find in Mexico.
Also, salaries in my country are nowhere near what I can earn working remotely for a tech company in the US or Europe. Now, thanks to the experienced career coaches in Microverse I can be prepared for and competitive enough to apply to the job of my dreams.
To sum it up, I can tell you this:
Microverse has shown us a different, better world and they are training us to be part of it. In my opinion, that’s the most valuable thing we are getting from the program.
To learn more about Microverse, and joining a supportive community of remote software developers, get started below!
Maria Reyes is a software developer that loves Ruby on Rails and React. She believes programming is the ultimate creative expression.
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