Everyone’s educational journey takes different paths. These two Cohort 17 graduates have master’s degrees, but when they decided to pursue software development, they opted for the accelerated, hands-on learning environment that our bootcamps provide.
Joel Legg
Before attending NSS, Joel was a petroleum geologist working for an international oil and gas service company. He worked on projects around the world (US, South America, and the Middle East) utilizing proprietary software. While with the oil & gas service company, he started using Python to scrape the web and appreciated the value that software development brought to his job. When the oil industry declined, Joel decided to pursue software development as a career. He had a conversation with a friend who recommended a bootcamp over a computer science degree since Joel already had a master’s degree. He was drawn to NSS for our full-stack web development program and liked that we are a non-profit.
The best part of the six month bootcamp for Joel was the connections he made with the instructors and students. He shared, everyone was “always willing to go above and beyond to help others learn.”
His largest roadblock at NSS was time. There was never enough time in the day to learn everything that Joel wanted to learn. He used his evenings to go to meetups to learn more about the industry and make connections. Any spare evenings and weekends, Joel found himself working on exercises and projects.
Joel encourages students to immerse themselves in the NSS and Nashville community.
Nashville has some of the brightest minds in the industry and most are willing to help you learn and progress during your career transition. I have been fortunate enough to meet a wide assortment of people that have helped me on everything from React to machine learning.
For his front-end capstone, Joel built a mobile app called Tool Trader that connects locals who are looking to rent tools for a short amount of time. Often a quick DIY project requires a tool that you don’t have. Rather than buy it for this one use, you can rent it from a neighbor. On the flip side, if you have a bunch of tools lying around that you don’t use much, you can make a little extra cash by renting it out. The app was built with Ionic and Firebase.
Joel’s back-end capstone streamlines the process of how a petroleum geologist obtains data. The app is called Well Logged. He used Node.js to scrape the Colorado state website for 110 thousand wells and approximately 350 thousand well logs. He added this data to a Postgres database and used Express to set up his APIs. He also used React, React Select, and Fusioncharts to make the data fast and easy to access.
Joel is currently adding data from more states to Well Logged and studying machine learning techniques to manipulate data. He is also attending meetups and volunteering in the local tech community.
Listen to Joel’s interview with Clark Buckner about his journey and check out Joel’s profile.
Krishnapriya Sivasubramanian
Krishnapriya’s interest in technology began at a young age. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering and a master’s degree in Remote Sensing and Wireless Sensor Networks. After moving from India to the United States with her family, she spent a few years as a stay at home mom, but was ready to get back to work. She chose NSS to give her the tools to reinvigorate her career.
My interest in working with technology stems from a desire to free the user from the mundane, reduce their errors, and allow them to concentrate on the more "human" aspects of their task.
Her time at NSS taught her to think like a software developer. Krishnapriya encourages students to start learning on day one and to always give your best!
For her front-end capstone, Krishnapriya build a responsive web app called SEARCHDOC. The app allows users to search for doctors based on their location and accepted insurance networks. SEARCHDOC is a CRUD app that leverages a Firebase database and the BetterDoctor API. It is built with Angular JS and Materialize.
Krishnaspriya’s back-end capstone is a responsive web app for healthcare providers to access patient information when integrated with electronic health records. The app, called Patient Portal, is a service oriented application built with Angular JS, Materialize, Swagger for API documentation, and RESTful.
Currently Krishnapriya is networking at meetups and learning Typescript and Angular 2. She also plans to get her AWS Developer certificate.
Listen to Krishnapriya interview with Clark Buckner about her capstones and check out Krishnapriya’s profile.
Be sure to listen to all of the graduates talk to our friend, Clark Buckner, about their journey into development and about their experience at NSS.
Check out all of the recent grads on the Cohort 17 class website.
