Meet Mayden Academy student, Luke

In today’s blog, academy student Luke tells us what he’s been working on since starting his course at the academy.
Hi, I’m Luke. I’m an academy student and am currently part way through the course. I’ve been asked to share a quick update on my time as part of Mayden Academy so far. Here goes…
I originally applied for the Mayden Academy back in April of 2016 and after attending an open day and some interviews. I was finally given the news that I’d been accepted into the academy and would start at the end of August.
My first week at the academy consisted of getting to know my way around the office and meeting the staff, as well as beginning the first academy learning week which focussed on HTML and CSS. I remember being really unsure about how I was going to deal with learning so much in such a short space of time, but somehow by the end of the week my brain was still in one piece… just! The first week ended up being really enjoyable and I was amazed at how much I’d been able to learn and retain in such a short space of time. The following week consisted of putting into practice what we had learnt during week one, and using this knowledge to work on a project, which I really enjoyed.
Then came the next module which taught us everything we needed to know to help us become good developers. This module was a real eye opener – it was great to see how much stuff is out there that can be used to make your life easier when coding.
Next up was a module on PHP – the first real step up, both in difficulty and intensity. There was a lot to learn and by the end of the week my brain was well and truly fried. I could have quite happily spent the whole weekend in bed recovering. Despite that, when we started the project work to implement our learning, I was able to prove to myself that I had understood a lot more than I expected!
Following on from the PHP module was one on SQL and databases. In hindsight, this has been one of my favourite modules. At first I struggled to get my head around it, but suddenly it clicked! The project which was incorporated into this module has been my favourite to work on so far. It’s also the first one we worked on as a team, which I really enjoyed.
Up next was a module on JavaScript – I’d been looking forward to this one and it didn’t disappoint. It was a great opportunity to start having some fun with the things we were learning. My favourite part of this module was learning how to create animations, and the really cool things you can then do with them. We had to create a game using everything we had learnt so far, including as part of previous modules. It was really satisfying to test the game once it was finished!
The final module I’m going to tell you about today involved taking a deeper look at what can be done with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. If you know what you’re doing you can make some pretty impressive things quite quickly, even just using what we learnt in the one week we spent on this module.
I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to be part of the academy. Yes, it’s hard work and it’s pretty intense at times, but the satisfaction of learning so much, being able to put it into practice and then seeing the outcome is totally worth it. I’d recommend the academy to anyone who is interested. It really helps to be in an environment where anyone in the office is happy to take the time to help if you’re struggling.
All that being said, there’s still a little way to go before the course ends. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s to come…!