On Wednesday 21 March 2018 the London Met Chapter hosted a programming workshop expertly led by Stephen Reid, Head of Education at Sparta Global. Also present were Gaia Caruso, consultant at Sparta Global and Laura Bartle, Student Engagement Co-ordinator at BCS.
Gaia kicked off the session with an icebreaker exercise. Each delegate stood up to say their name, the course they were studying, their passion and an interesting fact about themselves. Most of the passions around the room were tech based from cyber security, gadgets and video games to the not so tech based of football and cycling. There were some great interesting facts in the group, one student often appearing on screen in his spare time as an extra.
Stephen then led the room through practical tasks showing how to combine some of the most modern tools and techniques to create powerful web applications in a fraction of the time. The focus was on open source technologies and rapid product development principles that help build in a day what can take others, months. Most importantly students learned how to create something of value and to avoid “over-engineering”.
NodeJS / Express, HTML, CSS and Bootstrap were used to build a fully working application from scratch and it was clear why these languages and tools are useful for rapid prototyping and, thus, for reducing the time taken to market. This was a very commercially-relevant exercise, providing insights into real industry scenarios. The group enjoyed a pizza break halfway through, provided by BCS.
This was the first event BCS and Sparta Global have partnered on and hopefully there will be many more. Both companies would like to thank the London Met Chapter for organising and hosting the event. A special thanks to Dion, the Chapter’s Secretary for all his support on the day.
Sparta Global is one the UK’s TOP 10 graduate employers. They provide a full range of IT and Business Services as a refreshing alternative to offshore outsourced and Contractor IT models by providing Blue-chip partners with a cost effective and flexible alternative to deliver digital products.
Sparta Global’s Graduate programme aims to turn suitable graduates into technology consultants through a fun and rigorous technology training programme based in London, Leeds or Birmingham. Even a graduate with NO programming experience can apply for Sparta Global’s Graduate programme, and become a technology consultant through their unique training academies - with high employment rates at companies like 4, EasyJet, the Ministry of Justice, the Law Society, 3, the Discovery Channel, Clarks and Warner Brothers.
If your BCS Student Chapter would like to host a Sparta Global event, please contact Laura.Bartle[at]bcs.uk. Also contact Laura if you want to learn how to start a Student Chapter at your University.