Jamie, a Liverpool Sixth Form student, spent a week at Jamescape on a work experience placement as part of his studies. Over the week, Jamie got a taste of what being a software developer with us is like and here’s a recount he wrote of the week:
My name is Jamie, I’m a sixth form student at Cardinal Heenan Sixth Form and I’m currently studying Computer Science, History and Psychology A Levels. I want to pursue a career in the computing industry and I was fortunate to spend a week here at Jamescape for my work experience placement.
When I began on Monday, I didn’t know what to expect from this week, and I knew nothing about how this industry really operates. I learnt PHP via an online course which wasn’t too difficult, however when I began work on the main task for the week, which was to create an achievements feature for Jamescape’s upcoming Information Management System, I found this quite difficult for the first few days. I struggled to understand much of the syntax and logic of PHP as it was a new language to me. However, after some help, time, and practice, I began to understand and accomplish a lot more of my project than I initially thought I could. I began to complete the tasks quite easily once I had understood the first part of what I had to do, such as understanding the concept of the code and the required syntax. I found the project fun and rewarding, whilst also being a very valuable experience for me to gain.
I also attended the weekly Core Team and Project Harker meetings during my first two days, which were new and valuable experiences for me. This meant that at first, they were difficult to grasp, however I found them very interesting, and I enjoyed this opportunity.
Thank you to Jamescape and all the team for offering me this valuable placement and being so welcoming and accepting of me, and furthering my knowledge of both programming as a skill and industry.
We’ll be offering more experience placements next year, so make sure to keep an eye on Jamescape Jobs to be one of the first to apply to the scheme.