Coding En Español: Cristian Viveros
Cristian Viveros recently took our Intro to HTML&CSS workshop in Spanish, taught by Eva Gabriela Zamudio. She’s currently an office coordinator at Slack who would like to change careers to being a front-end developer. We sat down to ask her about learning to code.
How did you decide to learn to code?
Learning code was not in my plans, although I have always been very interested in the technology and tools used to create it. Additionally, I feared learning code would be too complicated and being that the field is mostly male-dominated, I wasn’t sure if I’d fit in. Born and raised in the city of Veracruz, Mexico, I earned my degree in Business Administration at Universidad de Veracruz. Despite already having started an administration career in Mexico, I quickly realized that I would have to start over again to develop a new career in the US.
After working as a nanny in San Francisco for a few years, I was presented with a great opportunity to work at one of the most renowned companies in Silicon Valley, Slack Technologies. This company definitely opened my eyes to new career paths and increased my curiosity to learn how a product is managed behind the scenes.
These classes have allowed me to gain a better understanding of how some softwares work in my company
What was it like to take a GDI class?
I was incredibly happy to learn GDI was offering an introduction class to HTML and CSS in both English and Spanish, which is my first language. It was my perfect opportunity to learn code and to meet other Latina women like me who are also interested in furthering and developing their career. It was inspiring to find out that GDI reaches out to agencies for refugees and invites less fortunate people to take these classes. It’s amazing to know that just by doing that, they could change a person’s whole life.
The instructor, Eva Gabriela Zamudio, made me feel very comfortable along with the Teaching Assistants and Karla Lopez. They made sure the class was enjoyable, fun and easy to understand.
I was happy to find out that… taking this class was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
What will you do with skills you learned at GDI?
I will continue to take what I learned from this class and apply it to my job to create tools that make daily tasks simpler. I also plan to design and build a website for a personal business endeavor I’m hoping to get off the ground soon. Additionally, these classes have allowed me to gain a better understanding of how some softwares work in my company. In the near future, I would like to change career paths from office coordinator to front-end developer.
What advice would you give to beginners who are learning to code?
I doubted myself in the beginning before deciding to take this class. I wasn’t sure if I’d excel because of my lack of experience in design and code. I was happy to find out that this was not the case at all and taking this class was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. You just have to try it out! It helped me gain confidence in abilities I didn’t know I had. You can achieve anything you put your mind to. I can’t wait to take the next class!
Ready to learn to code? Take a class with us in San Francisco, or find your local chapter in 57 other cities in the United States.
