MEET REBECCA

Rebecca Parker of Web Development Cohort 42 owned a small flower farm and florist business in New Orleans, but slowly realized that running her own business was lonely and that she craved a more collaborative, team environment to work in. “I started teaching myself to code in the evenings after long days at the farm and realized I liked it a lot and that I had a knack for the problem-solving processes involved,” she recalls. 

Having discovered Nashville Software School’s (NSS) Python/Django bootcamps, Rebecca decided it would be beneficial to apply in the 6 month program. “Many of the bootcamps [I looked at] were 3 months long with more intense hours and I felt it would be harder to absorb the same amount of information in that time,” she explains. 

THE NSS EXPERIENCE

Rebecca shares that her favorite part of the program was meeting her classmates and instructors. “I've learned so much from everyone I've gone through this program with,” she smiles. 

Rebecca shares that it was a challenge for her to go from working outside all day to working inside and on the computer all day. “I just had to remember to take regular breaks and short walks throughout the day,” she says. 

When asked what advice she would pass along to future NSS students, she gave “Get help from your classmates when you are stuck on a problem. They can often explain things in ways that the instructors can't that will be easier for you to understand because they are also on your level.” 

CAPSTONE PROJECTS

Rebecca’s front-end capstone, Daily Planter, is an application to help small farm owners schedule their planting seasons. Farmers can log which crops succeed and when they were harvested. “I used a React front-end with JSON server, HTML tables to create visuals of harvest and planting times, external APIs to display weather and frost date tables, and Cloudinary to upload photos of crop varieties,” she explains. 

Arcana is Rebecca’s back-end capstone project she created using React, Python, Django, and SQLite. The social media application is designed for tarot enthusiasts to share and produce tarot card readings with each other. Users can also comment on each other's card readings, giving insight to what their fortunes say.

HIRED! 

Rebecca is excited to begin her first job as a software developer for Change Healthcare. “Practicing algorithms really helped prepare me for the interview,” she shares of her job search process. Congrats Rebecca!

“I love the process of taking a problem, breaking it into pieces, coming up with a game-plan, and implementing it. Software development is a way that I can continuously be building and learning new things while working in a team environment.”

Learn more about Rebecca’s time at NSS by listening to her podcast!

Check out all the recent grads at Full-time Web Development 42's class website and hear the graduates share their experience at NSS and capstone projects in their podcasts below.