“Hour of Code” Assembly features Software Engineer Lydia Stepanek ’08

Stepanek learned writing code the hard way—she taught herself, starting with “Learning Python the Hard Way: The Terrifyingly Beautiful World of Computers and Code.” And then it was off to a coding boot camp which she highly recommends to those wanting to get into the coding industry.

“Coding boot camp was very, very intense,” Stepanek said, “Hopkins intense!” The days were crammed with lectures, writing an application a day and then getting up in the morning and doing it all over again. At the end of the camp, she re-took the entire course over again at home to solidify her command of the material. Stepanek has no doubt that her Hopkins education gave her the valuable foundational skills for learning to be a software engineer. She credits her English classes for teaching her to read quickly with comprehension, Mr. Harpin’s Classical Greek class with teaching her the tedious process of translation, Physics class with how to ask questions and Biology lab with how to work in a team.

Stepanek is now a software engineer with Codeacademy, an interactive online platform that offers free coding classes in 12 different programming languages. Founded in 2011, Codeacademy has over 24 million users and was awarded the Best Education Startup Award in 2015.

Stepanek fielded a wide variety of questions from students at the assembly and met with students for at two talk-back sessions in the Weissman Room. Thanks to faculty member, Sarah Duckett Ireland for organizing the day.