For the Labor Day Holiday, Invent With Code ran a contest to giveaway a Treehouse 3-Month Pro Plan ($150 value) to a randomly selected winner. The Treehouse giveaway was shared by many on social media, resulting in hundreds of entries.
With the Treehouse Pro Plan you get…
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Treehouse is a great investment for those wanting to learn how to code, build a website, or develop an app without any prior experience or a college degree. Their course catalog also covers the coding levels described in The Web Developer Playbook.
Who Won The Treehouse Giveaway?
The contest was setup using the KingSumo Giveaways plugin.
And the winner of the Treehouse 3-Month Pro Plan giveaway is...
Nicole Archambault
Invent With Code connected with Nicole to learn more about our lucky winner.
What's your name, age, and where are you from?
I'm Nicole Archambault, I'm 32 years old (by the time this is posted, haha), and I'm from Ashland, Massachusetts.
What do you do for a living?
I'm a tech entrepreneur, focused in Educational Technology.
Educational technology has deeply fascinated me since learning to code. I had a really positive experience with educational technology when teaching myself web development, versus a traditional learning environment.
Specifically, I was always a very anxious learner, all the way up through my time at Wellesley College. I struggled with anxiety in general—and didn't even realize it at that point—but the way it specifically affected my educational experience created major obstacles for my professional development.
Entrepreneurship was just kind of an organic progression for me, because I seem to be a natural idea generator. I also have a gift of connecting with people and understanding their pains and needs.
As a highly empathetic person and effective problem solver, I decided that I wanted to use EdTech to provide solutions to their problems, and really help people transform into their best versions of themselves.
How did you get into web development?
I've always loved web development! My passion first spurred from curiosity, when I was poking around with HTML and CSS, designing my first Diaryland (diaryland.com) "diary", or journal. I wanted a really great looking diary page, and they offered the ability to customize your HTML and CSS. Honestly, I can't remember if I even wrote much CSS early on; I think it was just stylized HTML!
I worked in Customer Service management up through 2015, before I lost my job. I had lost my mom the year before (on my birthday), which I don't talk about very often. And think I felt hyper-aware of the fact that being only 54, she hadn't gotten to live her best life. It wasn't a conscious awareness—it just seemed to be driving a lot of my decisions, and it almost took over like autopilot.
I knew I didn't want to keep doing what I was doing, because I didn't really feel valued. I had found Treehouse by that point, but couldn't really commit to it with my work schedule. But with that job out of the way, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to commit to changing my career.
I had no idea how much my life would change as a result of that decision. I learned so much about who I really was, and what was important to me. I found the confidence to teach others, and started to see myself in a whole new light. I felt empowered by the skills, and learning programming more in-depth has really tickled parts of my brain and shaken me out of depression.
Basically, learning web development saved my life. I was able to take the pain I was experiencing and turn it into something truly incredible. Plus, I acquired these badass programming skills along the way!
What are you looking forward to learning on Treehouse?
So, here's an interesting twist—I'm actually already a long-time user of Treehouse! I've been featured by Treehouse as a student success story, and I am currently in the top 1% of their students worldwide in terms of content completed. That doesn't make me an expert at all! It just means I've been exposed to a lot of content, but I certainly haven't gotten around to using all of it yet. I'm excited to get the course launched so I can start practicing more
I've been wanting to finish the PHP and WordPress tracks. They've changed a lot in the PHP track since I originally finished it in 2015, so I want to visit the new stuff. I was working through the WordPress track when I got my first freelancing gig, and never got to finish it. However, I did find myself referencing it regularly while completing the project!
Given what you'll learn on Treehouse, how will you apply your new skills?
I'm building up my skills to begin contributing to EdTech and Open Source, although not currently using my programming skills regularly. Creating the courses requires more writing, research, and recording than programming—which is a little bit of a bummer! But, the way I look at it is key: I know it'll help so many other people develop their programming skills, which is a bigger impact than I could make with my own web development skills at this point.
It's really interesting to note that with e-Learning, and sharing my knowledge of web development through the La Vie en Code podcast and blog, I seem to have retained my knowledge much better than I ever have. Like, to the point where I remember most concepts and even details I encountered back in 2015, without even applying them regularly. That's just plain amazing, because I can barely remember anything from college.
When the time is right, I have no doubt that I'll be able to get back into it, and actually create some great projects to share in the future. I have PLENTY of ideas!
What awesome projects are you currently working on?
Currently, I am focusing on creating my first, flagship online course for new self-taught web development students to prepare them for the experience of e-learning, 30 Days to Web Development.
It also provides valuable guidance for the process of finding a job in their new career, and making a full, successful transition. Students just don't get that, and I certainly didn't. So, it's needed, and I think it's going to transform a lot of lives.
I also host the La Vie en Code podcast, and am looking forward to breathing some new life to the La Vie en Code blog.
You can catch me on Twitter @lavie_encode!
What Will Be Our Next Giveaway?
Congratulations once again to Nicole for winning the Treehouse giveaway!
Thank you to everyone who participated and shared it with their families and friends.
This was our first giveaway, but it won't be our last.
So, what should we give away next?
Another course? Book bundle? Conference ticket? Software?
Tell us in the comment what to give away next.
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