Back at the start of the school year I signed up to go to Trinity to do a coding for girls workshop! Myself and 7 other girls in my year went. We got the train in every day and the train back home also. It was such a good experience because I never knew how to code before and I thought it would be great for the future! I got to make a short film and even got to make my own game using scratch! The aim of the course was to get more women into the coding industry and showing us all the jobs and courses we could get into with having known a small bit of coding!
When we arrived we met with two other groups of girls from different schools at the arch in Trinity College. They were also really excited about the trip too! We were then met by a woman from the Bridge 21 programme who brought us to the Bridge 21 center. When we arrived we were separated into groups with two girls from a different school and someone from our school. We then were sent to do various Icebreakers and get to know each other.
By the end of the first day we were taught how to do simple scratch and make really small short films.
Day two was roughly the same as day one. During day two we were taught some more simple pieces of coding and we were also taught how to make a game. Myself and Lana made a fruit basket game out of code. Our idea was great you had to drop the fruit into a given basket. We started the game on the Wednesday but had to carry it on into the next day.
Day three, on the Wednesday myself and Lana had to complete our game for the first half of the morning. After the break we were then told that tomorrow (Thursday) we were going to go to Google for some of the day! We were all so excited to see what Google would be like. Myself and Lana then had to present our game in front of everyone and we were very pleased with how it went!
On Thursday we got to go to Google and get a tour of all the offices and a talk with various women who worked in Google. During the talk the women talked all about what country they were from and how they came to Google. A lot of the women weren’t from Ireland and many were from overseas such as Wales and Iceland. We then got a tour of the offices and learnt some very interesting facts about what you were able to do there like bring your dog to work and join various clubs! Google made me really want to get into the technology industry and it really opened my eyes into what I could do when I leave school !
On the last day we were given a half day. Before lunch and before we left we were shown how to programme a computer. They gave us a very small piece of computer that we plugged into the actual computer that we had to try and programme. When we left they gave us a food token to spend at the Trinity canteen!
I would recommend weeks away to Bridge 21 to everyone who is doing TY. It’s a great experience and it really helps you with your CV! I would love to go back again as it really helped me to get thinking about the career that I want to do when I leave school. It’s a great way to also connect with people and chat to people in your year group that you may not have talked to before!