“From JavaScript to ‘advent of code’ to working on my own initiative…”

Hi there. My name is Hannah and I’ve just completed a fascinating couple of weeks in the office and working from home as a member of the Taskize team. It comes after completing my GCSEs in South East London before I head to Sixth Form. 

At college, I’ve chosen maths, further maths, computer science and physics as my A Levels, because I particularly enjoy the problem-solving aspects of these subjects…. I am interested in the different ways that a problem can be tackled and learning from different approaches. I also find the process to reach a solution is quite satisfying and I enjoy the idea of collaboration and teaching each other. 

How was my work experience overall? It’s been very valuable and enjoyable and I must say I feel extremely privileged to have this opportunity. I’ve learnt so much from the little time I have been here and the people here are extremely patient and kind! 

Although I was nervous at first, I think I settled into the rhythm quite quickly and started to understand the flow of a workplace, which I have never actually experienced before.   

This experience was extremely important in developing my knowledge of coding as well as my understanding of an office environment. Even general conversations have been useful – for example, I heard about the possibility of a joint maths and computer science course at university which I did not know was a thing.   

I would say the three main things I learned from spending time with Taskize would be: 

• The Java coding language. In school, they taught me the Python coding language which is much simpler to teach, learn, and implement.  However, my particular project at Taskize required the code to be written in Java so I spent time trying to understand this new language as well as its structure.  I then used Java to add code to a program which processed financial reports  and the pay roll. 
• I worked on the ‘Advent of Code’.  Each day has a challenge, and they progressively get harder. This ‘Advent of Code’ approach helped broaden my knowledge of computer science constructs, for example I was taught about recursion and using it in the given problem which is something I had never heard of before. ‘Advent of Code’ also made me write code which is flexible and can be easily changed to fit different conditions and scenarios
• Over these last two weeks I worked on becoming more independent and taking the initiative for myself. In school we are told what to do and when we should do it. And, if we are finished, we are told what to do next.  However, in the office people are busy with their own work meetings and do not constantly have time to tell you what to do. So I worked on becoming more independent and making decisions for myself; deciding what would be the best and most productive thing to do next. 

I must say that, overall, I enjoyed the whole coding part of this role, especially the advent of code because it was incredibly fun to try and solve the problem, even though it could get a bit frustrating! I also really enjoyed the idea that my code might actually be used for something rather than sitting and rotting on the computer after being marked by a teacher! I liked the idea that the code might actually have a practical use in the ‘real world’. 

There were other aspects which I enjoyed apart from the coding part. Like the working atmosphere, which was very pleasant, as there was a perfect balance between time to work and time to relax and unwind for a bit. I also enjoyed a new sense of freedom. Time for working had always been rigidly scheduled for me (such as the timetable in school) so it was fun for me to work at my own pace and take mini breaks whenever I needed to without the fear of a teacher calling you out. Of course, I also enjoyed the abundance of food options around the office. 

There were definitely a few aspects which were different to what I was expecting… For some reason, I was expecting the work atmosphere to be really stressful and dreary but whenever I was in the Devonshire Square office it never felt like that. I also experienced working from home for three days. This was quite an unusual situation for me because nobody was really there to tell me when I should eat lunch or log off. It felt a bit weird to just go eat lunch without telling anybody. 

Has some time at Taskize helped shape my idea of an ideal job? I would say yes, although I’m not sure exactly how that looks just yet. I am interested in pursuing a career which is related to computer science and maths. I also think a job which includes an aspect of creativity would be ideal for me.