At the start of TY, I got the opportunity to sign up for coding in Citywise. At the start of TY, every teacher I spoke to told me to get involved in as much as possible so I decided to sign up for this programme. It was a highlight of my TY experience.
I got offered a place along with three others. We were told that it was for a week, we didn’t go to school just went straight to Citywise and spent our day there. I was nervous at first because I knew there was different schools going to be there. Once we got there we were shown where we could sit until everyone was there, when we sat down one of the mentors came over and started to make conversation with us, told us what we would be doing for the week and overall just making sure we were a bit more comfortable.
The first day everyone was brought up to one big room so we got to know each other, we played games to feel more comfortable. Once we finished, we were split into two rooms but the mentors made sure you had at least one friend from your school with you.
The week was full of activities, we had to make short clips acting out scenes from movies also making a TV and radio advertisement. It wasn’t all about making videos on a computer and coding it was also about helping people with their social skills because you were put in a group with people you didn’t know and you had to talk to them to brainstorm your ideas for the different activities and then actually making the idea that you have all decided on come together. This programme also helps you with your presentation skills because once everyone was done with the video, your group would go to one of the rooms with a projector to show your video as a group. The mentors would ask you to explain, where you got your idea from as a group? How was it to film? How did you make certain things in the film?
We as a group also got a day where we could ask the mentors about college and what they studied. It was very interesting to listen to what they were saying because they all went to college in different ways. Also, one of the mentors went to England to study which gave us as a group a different view on college that we don't just have to stay in Dublin or in Ireland.
I would recommend to anybody who is going into TY, if you get a chance to sign up and go to Citywise to definitely consider it because it was one of the best opportunities I got in TY.
Rachel Callery