What We Have Done | 
Simon is NEXT Academy’s Part-Time Front End Coding Graduate.
As a digital marketer at a professional training company, Simon had always maintained a passion for coding.
Due to new opportunities at his workplace, he realized that learning to code is the fastest way to unleash his full potential at work!
What was it like before you joined NEXT Academy?
I tried to learn programming myself initially. However, I lost interest as there was no one to guide me to solve my problems. Although other online resources, such as Stackoverflow, has a large number of developers who are willing to help, I did not understand the solutions at all. I find that there is no point to blindly plant their code into my project.
At work, I was assigned to take over tasks such as website setup & maintenance, server migration & setup, as well as APIs integrations in this company. Sometimes, I had no idea on how to complete the tasks and ended up spending hours on researching the solutions online.
Why did you decide to go with the Part-Time Coding Program at NEXT Academy?
What really caught my eye was the provision of mentoring support. Since programming is a heavy subject, I was hesitating whether I could learn the necessary skills by myself within the duration given since I have a full-time work commitment.
What made you happiest during your coding journey?
Definitely the mentoring sessions. The mentors prepared the questions in advance before the sessions and they were always able to guide me to solve the problems. They treated us like friends rather than as our mentors.
I have never known that programming is actually not that tough. Thanks to the mentors, of course. I currently adopt the mentors’ logical approach in breaking down complex algorithms and to restructure them again.
What have you been able to achieve since you started your coding journey?
Due to the limitation of the existing platform, my team was unable to create the visualised landing page. So, I took the initiative to transform their idea into reality with HTML, CSS and Bootstrap during the past marketing campaign. And it turned out to be a positive outcome!
Next, I can finally code! Unlike the past failures, my curiosity has now skyrocketed and this triggered me to feel excited in expanding my knowledge in programming.
What are some of the challenges that you faced during coding and how do you overcome it?
Sometimes, I understand the logic of the code and yet, I cannot get my code to work. There are also times when I find it hard to understand the syntax, properties and methods.
Mentors play the most important role for me to overcome the challenges at the beginning. And now, I can easily detect the errors within a short time myself. Also, I can now understand most of the solutions written by other people on Stackoverflow based on my problems. This gives me the flexibility to adopt new ideas and to implement what is truly necessary.
What’s NEXT for you?
Building and strengthening my coding foundation are the priorities at this moment. I will continue to strengthen my skills in front-end languages in the next 4 to 6 months. I plan to dive deeper to these languages before moving to the back-end languages. For eg, code some games and programs to test my understanding.
My first step is to build a data analytics platform for the company and eventually revamp the entire website with my coding skills.
What would you tell someone who is considering to join NEXT Academy?
My programming journey was really fun with the guidance from experienced Mentors at NEXT Academy. I would definitely recommend this course to my friends.
