For as long as he could remember, Caio Graco had dreamed of rising above his circumstances and taking his career to new heights. He knew learning to code would provide him with the skills he needed to advance beyond teaching English at a local language school in Brasilia, but he was limited by his location and the demands of his job.
This is his story from CareerFoundry Web Development student to entrepreneur.
To give himself a brighter future, Caio realized he needed to make a change. The local university tech courses were outdated and expensive. So Caio turned to the internet to look for more flexible and affordable options.
“I figured out coding is the skill that would offer me the capacity of creating for myself the opportunities I needed to move to a better place. I started searching for ways to learn how to code, and saw CareerFoundry was the best option.
I searched a lot and saw that I couldn't afford the prices charged by other online bootcamps. CareerFoundry seemed solid, reliable and offered a good price."
Caio took the CareerFoundry Web Development Course where he learned how to build websites using HTML, CSS, Javascript, jQuery, and Bootstrap under the guidance of his mentor.
“I can now say that it was the best investment I've ever made."
As a tech beginner, Caio knew learning to be a junior web developer in 6 months would not be easy.
As part of CareerFoundry’s course, Caio had a mentor in his timezone to work 1-on-1 with him as he studied. He also joined the CareerFoundry online student community.
“Working with my mentor - Hendie - was awesome. He was always there. Whenever I needed support, I got it from an experienced professional.”
Utilising his new knowledge of Ruby on Rails, Caio constructed and launched a scalable language school app - "Hi".
“Even before reaching the end of my studies, I have founded a school, with students from five different Brazilian states and two different countries (Brazil and Canada)."
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Caio. Sometimes he felt overwhelmed. This experienced language teacher had to learn a whole new language himself. Instead of nouns and verbs now it was HTML and CSS.
Caio had to remind himself why he was studying. He recommends this to any students thinking of taking an online bootcamp.
“Have a clear objective in mind, something that you need to get solved. Then each line of code you write will get you closer to your goal.”
To achieve his New Year New Career resolutions, Caio wants to expand his area of expertise to be more product specific. To gain this knowledge, Graco has now enrolled for CareerFoundry’s UX Design Course. In the UX course he will learn:
- how to design a product
- how to analyze user flows
- how to build product wireframes
- UX testing
- iteration and placement strategy
- how to build graphical interfaces for a website
Caio went from tech beginner to web developer in just six months. What he’s achieved is a lesson we can all learn from: if we push hard enough for the life we want, it is always within our reach.
You can read his full story here.
All it took was 15 hours a week of study and determination.
