The Esendex team welcomed some much younger faces to the office this week as the development team paired up with students from the Nottingham University Academy of Science and Technology (NUAST).
Big believers in the importance of inspiration, particularly when it comes to technology, technical manager, Sam Wessel coordinated the first of two sessions which took place on Thursday, with the aim of showing students what it’s like to be a programmer in a working environment, in the form of some interactive hands on sessions.
The day started with a mini presentation from Sam. But students soon got stuck in, pairing up with a developer to undertake a series of exercises based around tasks which are often supplied at interview stages.
The students, currently learning Python on their Computer Science module, were shown various tasks in different coding languages including JavaScript and C#. Many of them will have to complete a client based project at the close of the academic year, and their teacher Dan Wood, felt the hands on experience would be a great opportunity for them to think about this.
Edwin, a NUAST student, worked with our web team lead, Paul Smith on a JavaScript task and was pretty impressed with the Esendex office. He found working with JavaScript a lot easier than he expected.
Skye also at NUAST, paired up with Web apps developer, Tommy Ly. She liked how the work environment was relaxed and casual and said she was excited to see how developers applied code in the working world.
“I’m already enjoying it, and working in pairs with someone who knows how to apply the code makes all the classroom work come to life.”
The day came to a close with a resounding success.
Sam Wessel, commenting on the day, said: “Today’s pairing over this half-day workshop has enabled us to show pupils at NUAST not only how coding principles are applied but also that software companies can be fun and exciting places to work.”
“We were really impressed with the attitude and aptitude demonstrated by students, which bodes well for Nottingham’s tech community.”
