Where I’ve started from…

Meet the Makers Fellows: Jennifer Shepherd

I grew up in Southgate in London and have remained North of the river, other than my 3 years at Nottingham University studying Maths.

After graduating I began to teach secondary Maths — first at a grammar and then for 7 years at a fully comprehensive school in Haringey.

I gained so much by working with students from so many backgrounds and with diversity of attitudes. There was a lot to learn so that I could serve them well and I was lucky to work in a place that brought such a variety of people together.

I’m also a keen road cyclist, having joining Islington Cycle Club back in May 2016.

I’m incredibly proud of how I started from scratch and have now made some pretty epic self-supported journeys: including London –> Amsterdam, Manchester –> London, and some of the challenging Tour de France mountain climbs.

It showed me what I could achieve with the right mindset and a lot of determined effort!

After experiencing long-term anxiety that was brought to a head by the sudden death of my best friend, from SADS (Sudden Adult Death Syndrome), I began to rethink what a well-spent life looks like: how do I want to progress and what do I want to achieve?

Decisions were needed as to how I could best move forward following improvements in my health.

My new focus is to be productive with my time to bring positive change on a micro level initially — to the people and situations in front of and around me.

I want to be challenged in new ways and be proactive in finding these opportunities, but without doing so at the expense of my health.

The idea of studying again excited me and problem solving has always been fun. As I began to explore coding, I discovered how expansive the area is.

I started learning online through a free Harvard course.

Whilst having total freedom over what I would learn appealed to me, I longed to be taught again — not passively but as an active participant.

I wanted to gain insight from staff with more knowledge and experience than me and also benefit from the varied journeys that other students would arrive from.

Makers Academy espouses working hard whilst still looking after your own well-being, which was very appealing.

I’m excited about studying at Makers this month and have enjoyed the pre-course so far.

There’s been a lot to learn but I’m already impressed that I’m encountering challenges, working to overcome them and moving on to the next area quite quickly.

It helps to have been to the ‘Demo Days’ and hear from graduates talking confidently about their own journeys.

I like that the Makers ethos is about learning plenty, getting stuck, working out how to get unstuck and then working hard to move forward.

Given this is a huge career change for me, I am way more confident that I’ll come out with invaluable skills to accomplish tasks for future projects having had to ‘learn how to learn’ over the course.

I’m certain I’ll find role models in this next adventure.

People who strive for inclusivity inspire me, especially if it comes at their own cost or requires bravery, and this is a core value at Makers Academy.

It’s an ongoing personal challenge and I’m keen to be shown how I can continually improve by making small positive changes.

We launched a Fellowship because we want to improve diversity in the tech community. We wish that money wasn’t a barrier to achieving your dreams — that’s why we’re experimenting with removing fees in order to include a broader range of people on our course. If you’re interested in knowing when our next Fellowship is launched, click here.

Want to find out more about hiring Makers? Find out more here.

Originally published at medium.com on January 8, 2018.