Kristopher — Computing HND
To give me the best possible chance of securing a job within the industry, I knew I needed a decent learning environment to progress faster.
Kristopher — Computing HND —
Kristopher Pearman, 31, wanted to make his hobby of computer programming his full-time career, so he quit his job at Tesco and made the decision to return to education to retrain to get the skills, experience and qualifications he needed to make his ambition a reality.
He enrolled on the one-year Level 4 Computing Higher National Certificate (HNC) and progressed to the Level 5 Higher National Diploma (HND), which he graduated from in 2021. Since then, Kris has secured a job as a Software Developer for business technology consultancy, BJSS.
“A lot of jobs I’d seen prior to my training at College would ask for a HNC or HND as a minimum requirement, so to give me the best possible chance of securing a job within the industry, I knew I needed a decent learning environment to progress faster.
“Originally, I was quite anxious about committing to a two-year qualification, but after getting halfway through the first year I was very confident that it was the right choice, and so I signed on for the second year to give me more experience in the field.”
Benefits of studying at College
“You get loads of one-to-one support with your tutor and there’s more of a feeling of ‘we’re all in a group together’, as opposed to learning individually, which I’ve been told is how it can feel at university.
“It’s also local to me which has helped massively for me personally. It feels like it’s more enjoyable than being at a large university, where realistically you only ever need to see a tiny part of it.”
What do you enjoy about the course?
“I really like the practical side of things and there are a good few of them. We did small amounts in different programming languages, which from what I understand, is considered to be important in the industry, and we also covered a wide variety of different areas which kept things interesting and relevant.
“I would recommend the College for this course, my tutor Ken was brilliant and very friendly. There’s good resources and it’s got nice links to the trams and busses.”
What interests you about this field of work?
“For programming in general, I enjoy the aspect of creating things and problem solving. It’s very enjoyable when you finally work out how to solve a problem in making something work and knowing you’re unlikely to make similar mistakes in the future.”
How did the course prepare you for industry?
“Some of my first experiences with C# programming was what eventually helped me to get through the interview phases for my new job. Having a better understanding of the different sides of Computer Science also helped give me additional talking points, and having a brilliant Tutor to talk to about these things helped encourage me to try harder and get better at solving the sorts of problems I needed to get my foot in the door.
“The course gave me experience with different technologies which then went on my CV, so I’d say it was invaluable to help me secure the job!”
Choosing a computing or office technologies course can open the door into hundreds of different jobs in a range of career areas worldwide, such as: programming, network administration, website development or business administration.