Code to start, Code to go forward

Angelo Zarate Esc experience as Education Collaborator at Migracode Barcelona

Hello! My name is Angelo and I study and code, mostly both. If I had to describe it, I would say that code is about reading what a computer says as much as letting it understand what you want to do.

While being at university, I wanted to improve my soft skills, which may sometimes be overlooked, through extra curriculum activities. And the ESC initiative seemed the perfect opportunity. The MigraCode project at OCC Barcelona has the objective to work with both migrants and code. And a place was vacant to assist them in managing their next batch of students.

So after contacting them getting into some technical interviews, I met my future colleagues and the other volunteers at the OCC office, and I started my experience at MigraCode. The first class in person we had with the new groups (and only one we could have back then due to restrictions) was a blast, being able to see people from different backgrounds having code as a common goal.

I was in charge of supervising the advance of the study groups, managing communications with the students, and gathering feedback to help update the syllabus week by week. But I also had to take care of smaller tasks, like responding to daily problems students had with homework or creating extra sessions to help them keep up.

According to the curriculum, after eight months, the students present their final project and we have a graduation ceremony. And there I could see how suitable a project like this was for me, where we develop code and develop with code.