Kelly Marchisio was spurred by an interest in programming after taking an Intro to CS class before working in customer service at Google. She ultimately started the Full Stack Nanodegree at Udacity and was able to turn that experience into a full-time Web Solutions Engineer position at Google! Check out the video to see what inspired Kelly to make the transition.
And in Kelly’s own words…
Back in college, I thought about taking a computer science class, but didn’t get the chance to—there just wasn’t room in my schedule at the time. I went from college to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where I pursued a Master’s in Education in Mind, Brain, and Education (basically, the intersection between education and neuroscience).
While there, I figured I may as well take an Intro to CS class, just to see what it was like, taking Harvard’s famous CS50 on campus. Almost immediately, I fell in love—it became my favorite class I’d ever taken, and I started spending a very large percentage of my time programming, watching lectures, etc. I took a second CS class at Harvard before graduation. Shortly after, I took a job in customer service at Google.
I took a moderately technical role on the team after a few months because of my basic programming knowledge. Working on small projects reinforced what I’d realized earlier: that I wanted to pursue programming full-time. I got myself on a few key projects on the team, and also spent a significant amount of time in self-study (watching MIT OpenCourseWare lectures, doing Codecademy, etc.)
Then I started the Full Stack Nanodegree in February, after anxiously waiting for registration to open for a few months. While taking the degree, I met with a woman at Google who informed me of open developer roles on her team that might be appropriate for someone very passionate, but who also didn’t have a CS degree and wanted a space to learn and grow while programming full time. I prepped for a few weeks for the technical interviews, and through self-study, was able to brush-up enough to pass. And now here I am! I started as a Web Solutions Engineer on June 1.
