It was almost exactly five years ago that Jordan Deutsch graduated from Cohort 5 of Juno’s Web Development Immersive. In just a few weeks, she’s teaching Juno’s first React course.
Before coming to Juno in early 2015, Jordan had studied Economics at McGill University. She had spent her time since graduation working in marketing and branding at small companies, with responsibilities ranging from research to package design to media campaign planning, and even some website management.
“It was my last role before starting at Juno (at the time HackerYou) that pushed me to explore coding. I was working at a very small tech company and, though most of my contributions were on the marketing and customer experience side, learning more about the technical aspects of the company helped me perform better. I was always given space to ask questions and sit in as the founders and one other employee (we were a super small team!) solved technical problems. Their challenges looked interesting and I wanted to learn more about that side of the work.”
Though Jordan doesn’t remember the exact moment that she decided to become a web developer, it was around this time that she began looking to learn more about the world she was working in. Through a simple Google search and Canada Learning Code (also founded by Juno’s CEO, Heather Payne) Jordan found Juno and fell in love with coding.
I have always sought out puzzles and challenges in my work and learning to code presented me with that. The demand in the industry coupled with that love for the challenge pushed me to explore a role as a web developer.
After completing Juno’s Web Development Immersive Bootcamp, Jordan was hired at a Toronto-based agency called Say Yeah. Working closely with the co-founder, who was also a developer, Jordan learned many exciting things about development and picked up other useful skills related to client management and running a small team.
Though she didn’t know it at the time, this experience helped prepare Jordan for running her own business. Later that year, along with fellow Cohort 5 grad Trudy McNabb, Jordan co-founded Up at Five, an agency where she’s excited to work with an amazing partner and a diversity of interesting clients. Focused on building “accessible web applications that provide solutions to real problems”, they've since worked with clients such as Borrowell, TD, and Shopify.
I think web development for me is an extension of my previous career. Working in really small companies I learned a lot about running a company and taking on roles when those roles needed filling. I now have the opportunity to create my own work and challenges and web development is a perfect vehicle for that.
Since graduating from Bootcamp, Jordan has also gone on to teach a number of part-time courses at Juno including Web Development, JavaScript, and our Full-Stack Masterclass. Using her experience as a developer to help others break into tech through code is something she loves.
“Coding is an incredibly valuable skill in today’s world. It gives you access to a whole new network of communication, a job market, and a social system that are rich and rapidly evolving. Teaching folks to code is partially providing an entry point to that world, and that’s super exciting. On a more tangible level, I love teaching others to code because I get a front row seat to a diversity of thought processes. I get to watch students grapple with complex problems and celebrate when they solve them.”
In just a few weeks Jordan will teach Juno’s first React course, designed to give students a foundational understanding of this increasingly popular JavaScript library.
Currently I use React almost every day and a lot of the projects I am working on are evolving to use some Javascript framework or library. There are a lot of practical reasons why a developer might want to use React in a project. The library helps with a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to data management and view updating in a website or application.
This course will not only give students the skills needed to level-up their JavaScript workflows and the power to implement things like custom testing environments and React Hooks, but will give them a deeper understanding of the JavaScript they’re already working with day-to-day.
"I think it’s valuable to learn React both for the impacts it can have as a tool in future projects and also for the value it can have in fostering a deeper understanding of Javascript and patterns and utilities that exist in the language. Learning one library will make it easier to learn the next and will extend your skills as a programmer overall."
Ready to level up your JavaScript skills with React?
Download our Student Experience Package below to find out more about this exciting new course, like what you’ll learn and the kinds of projects you’ll build. If you're ready to get started with React book a call with a member of our Student Success Team to talk about whether this course is right for you and have all your questions answered.