The world of cyberspace was a realm of mystery and excitement for Javan Rampersad growing up. With no real background in computer science, he decided to jump into the field headfirst anyway. Graduating in May with a degree in computer science, Rampersad is now a software engineer at Alfa Insurance.
Even in high school, Rampersad’s mind would wander toward his computer, curious to see what new discovery he could unlock that day; a whole new undiscovered world at his fingertips.
Rampersad decided to channel that interest and has already laid out tracks for a career in cyber through Faulkner University’s Computer Science Department, which includes participating in the department’s new partnership with CodingSolutions.
“I never had a real background in computer science, I just have always had an interest to learn about computers and the tech industry. It might sound scary to some, but I learned the fundamentals here at Faulkner and now since I know the common language of cyber, I can learn more and explore on my own.”
Javan Rampersad
“When I was in high school, I enjoyed looking at different features of the computer, how they were made, what processes they used and how I could use those,” he said. “I heard from a friend in the field of web programming about how much he liked app development on different devices and I became interested in the projects he was working on.”
The natural next step for Rampersad was to explore those different job opportunities through CodingSolutions by using the fundamentals of coding they learned at Faulkner.
They partnered with different college students around the state and experts who have been in the tech and cyber industry for years. Together the group learned how to solve coding issues to accomplish a project using collaboration software such as GitHub, Docker, JIRA, and more.
CodingSolutions is a new Montgomery-based, job-readiness program, preparing new top-of their class computer science students and graduates for career positions across Alabama.
Their group’s completed project is helping boost Rampersad’s resume and he’s confident the additional experience will push him to the top of the hiring list when he starts looking for a job in his feild.
Rampersad worked with his group for six weeks to create a mobile app that would organize a student’s homework and could be filtered by grade levels, send notification alerts on projects, and ask questions. Together, the group created a way to manage the account and create a model for users to navigate.
Creating an app was something new for Rampersad and opened a new side of cyber for him and was interested in pursuing a career in database management or network management.
“I was glad to be a part of it and it gave us good real-world experience,” Rampersad said. “It was something I never did before, but really enjoyed the project. Now I can use this to show potential employers.”
Rampersad is a recent graduate from the Computer Science department. He served at the Vice President of the newly formed Sigma Zeta National Science and Mathematics Honor Society at Faulkner and was a member of the Alpha Chi Honors Society. He also volunteered his time teaching area fifth graders coding during Faulkner’s annual Day of Coding event.