Tom joined the Studio Coact team in January of this year with the focus on learning to become a front-end developer. 8 months into his new found studio life from Baltic Appreniceships, we thought we’d let you know a little bit about him, his interests and how he’s found his time integrating into the studio culture. This is what Tom had to say.
When I’m not in work, I like to stay active through both the gym and MMA classes, I am a very energetic person, so I need to stay active out of work hours. Another sport I’m massively interested in is football, Liverpool, of course. For down time I usually watch television or play video games. It’s a popular choice, but the TV series I would recommend as a must watch is Peaky Blinders. I like to spend my week ends enjoying plenty of rest for the next week. I am also a massive dog person I have two dogs called Sasha and Lola that love to go on walks every day.
Before I started my apprenticeship at Studio Coact, I didn’t have much of a background in the development world, but I’ve found the process enjoyable. The idea of becoming a developer interested me because it was a strong career choice with longevity; a career path that will test me along the way to develop my skills to understand how websites are designed and developed using different techniques. I like to think of myself as someone who loves a challenge, eager to learn and willing to complete any task that is thrown my way regardless of the difficulty. Being involved in the creative industry is definitely challenging me as I progress in my career and I’m revelling in it.
The Studio Coact team gave me a warm welcome from the off — everyone has been an integral part in my journey so far. I’m picking up pockets of information and advice off everybody. My advice for anyone who is unsure about doing an apprenticeship is to give it a try because you can’t learn anywhere better than on the job.
I’ve faced a fair few hurdles whilst working in the studio but having the support of the team around me allows me the learn from my mistakes and improve my skills moving forward. A good example of this was understanding the basics of HTML and CSS. Despite being here for 6 months, the development team put confidence in me by allowing me to work on live briefs allowing me to learn more efficiently. When I’m not developing project work, I watch resource videos to gather information and learn new techniques that I can later apply to work. Studio Coact gave me a variety of different projects to explore along with designs that contrast one another so that I can expand my skills and apply them to different projects.
I look forward to the future, both short term and long. The strides that I have made whilst working in a studio environment are encouraging as I can see clear progress from where I started to where I am today. This encourages me to keep working hard and enjoy the journey.
I would say my favourite project to work on so far has been On The Green, because it’s one of my first independent projects. I’ve begun to get the hang of all the skills that I’ve learned over the past 6 months as well as pushing myself with new challenges like making the design responsive.