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| Me and Andrew at Get Fit or Be Hacking. (We were a team - and we won!) |
Andrew has totally blown me away by his commitment to ScriptEd and our students. This year, he completed his third year of teaching at Harlem Village Academy High School. He played a critical role in creating the first version of our curriculum, and he also has taken on ScriptEd students as interns at About.com every summer, and this year, is raising money for ScriptEd by competing in the New York City Triathlon (want to donate to his fundraiser? Click here.) He's also just an incredible teacher, friend, and human being, and our students are so lucky to have him.
Below I asked Andrew some questions. Enjoy!
What's your favorite part about volunteering for ScriptEd?
Seeing a student have an "Aha!" moment. Their excitement is contagious and it brings me back to how enthralled I was when I was first learning to code. It never fails to put a huuuge smile on my face.
How has ScriptEd made you better at your job?
It's completely transformed my role at About.com. When I started at About 3 years ago, I was a backend developer writing C++ with absolutely no frontend experience. Since ScriptEd teaches HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (all frontend technologies), I had no choice but to learn them and to learn them fast. As a result, my frontend skills have developed tremendously to the point where I'm now a frontend developer on my team at About and better at JavaScript than I ever was at C++.
It's made me a better public speaker, teacher, and gotten me more involved with the programming community as a whole, all of which benefit my work tremendously.
And it's not technically part of my job, but I'm designing and teaching a 10-week web development course for non-developers at About.com which will largely follow ScriptEd's first year curriculum.
Has ScriptEd changed your life?
Practically every aspect of my life has improved as a result of ScriptEd. I'll keep this short, but it changed me from a backend developer to a full stack developer. It introduced me to a community of amazing people, many who have become my best friends. It expanded my programming interests beyond what's relevant to the coding I do at work.
I have found nothing more motivating than having students who depend on me. It makes me so much more driven to understand material and find interesting ways of sharing that knowledge.
ScriptEd has made me a better programmer, teacher, and person.
Seeing a student have an "Aha!" moment. Their excitement is contagious and it brings me back to how enthralled I was when I was first learning to code. It never fails to put a huuuge smile on my face.
How has ScriptEd made you better at your job?
It's completely transformed my role at About.com. When I started at About 3 years ago, I was a backend developer writing C++ with absolutely no frontend experience. Since ScriptEd teaches HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (all frontend technologies), I had no choice but to learn them and to learn them fast. As a result, my frontend skills have developed tremendously to the point where I'm now a frontend developer on my team at About and better at JavaScript than I ever was at C++.
It's made me a better public speaker, teacher, and gotten me more involved with the programming community as a whole, all of which benefit my work tremendously.
And it's not technically part of my job, but I'm designing and teaching a 10-week web development course for non-developers at About.com which will largely follow ScriptEd's first year curriculum.
Has ScriptEd changed your life?
Practically every aspect of my life has improved as a result of ScriptEd. I'll keep this short, but it changed me from a backend developer to a full stack developer. It introduced me to a community of amazing people, many who have become my best friends. It expanded my programming interests beyond what's relevant to the coding I do at work.
I have found nothing more motivating than having students who depend on me. It makes me so much more driven to understand material and find interesting ways of sharing that knowledge.
ScriptEd has made me a better programmer, teacher, and person.
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