Nathalia Bailey

Nathalia Bailey | Marketing & Communications Consultant

Courses:

Front End Developer

When I started taking Skillcrush courses, I was working in Silicon Valley at a 401K technology start up. At the time, I was working in operations and doing a little bit of everything from copywriting to customer support, rollovers administration, office management, just everything.

I compete in Olympic style weightlifting so I have to practice everyday at the gym for two hours, and I was starting to get a lot of flack from my job. Honestly, I was feeling like I was being punished professionally for not being at the office 10 hours a day. So I decided to get some technical skills so that I could have better pay, more respect, and more power to do what I wanted. 

Growing up, I was given a lot of messages about what I was supposed to be interested in—I got messages that as a woman in my family I was supposed to be the one hosting events and cooking and cleaning and taking care of people. It started to dawn on me that these messages, these cultural expectations, had really shaped what interests I pursued throughout my life. Once I started examining that fact, and honestly, freeing myself from a lot of those expectations, I was able to look towards what else I might be interested in, things like technology. 

Now that I've taken Skillcrush, I just do my work and I'm happy with every minute of the work I do. I'm engaged, I'm never bored, and I have control over the work I'm doing.

Before Skillcrush I had no idea what coding was, which feels ridiculous to me because I went to college in Silicon Valley! My freshman year, all of my classmates were taking computer science courses, and I just put the blinders on and I said that is not for me. I don’t know what they’re talking about. 

I love Skillcrush courses because each step is encouraging and fun and they don’t leave you behind by all of a sudden jumping ahead in terminology or what they expect you to do. I learned what HTML and CSS is, and I learned it’s really simple, just words and typing. It’s a very nice gradual transition into coding and so it made me feel very confident and like I could do this.

I started getting work from my Skillcrush course before I even finished it. It was really funny because with my very first client, I had only my very simple one page portfolio from Skillcrush to show, so I was really nervous but I showed it to him and he loved it. He said, “Oh I love this, this is really simple and clean. This is what we want.” And I said “Ok, I’ll give it to you,” and that’s how I got my first client!

I finished the Front End Developer course in the summer of 2017, and by the beginning of 2018 I was making enough through freelance to support myself.

Nathalia Bailey’s consulting website.

Right now I work from home, and my desk is right next to my window and my cat just comes in and out from my window and it’s awesome and it makes me so happy.

Now that I’ve taken Skillcrush, I just do my work and I’m happy with every minute of the work I do. I’m engaged, I’m never bored, and I have control over the work I’m doing. I have more control and empowerment in my career, and that’s how Skillcrush has changed my life.