Last February NEOMA launched its Coding School, a collaborative platform enabling students to learn about web development. Three students tell us about how they used it.

LOUISE RANCHIN, 1st year of the Master in Management Programme

“I am part of the Enactus association. We help micro-entrepreneurs with the management and communication of their business. A lot of people were asking us for help with creating websites. So on my own initiative I went to the Coding School to understand computer language, to acquire the basics, so that I could then create rather more complex websites, and meet the specific needs of micro-entrepreneurs.

At the Coding School, I found a basis of courses written in the languages of HTML and CSS, together with training exercises. So you can quickly apply what you’ve just learned and check that you’re able to do it.

Of course, I don’t have sufficient skills to develop a website, but I have been able to add functionalities to existing sites. You just have to enter a few lines of code to produce something more sophisticated.”

PAUL VATELIER,  3rd year of the Master in Management, Entrepreneurship specialism

“In our web development module we learned the basics of coding. First we each worked on our computers using ‘Sublime Text’ software which lets you edit content. But when several of us had to collaborate on the same project, we use the Coding School platform.

The great thing is that we can all work together at the same time. We’re all on the same file, we can see in real time what everyone is doing, modify it and code it. The web browser and Sublime Text and PHP Admin … everything is on one single interface. What’s more, as soon as you ask the simplest question, you access the coding via the drop-down menu, as well as the part of the course you are interested in. It’s super functional.

This module provides us with the essential basics of knowledge, the vocabulary needed by any entrepreneur. This has to include how platforms and websites function, especially if projects such as commercial sites are subsequently to be developed.”

MELANIE HALLERY, 4rd year of the Master in Management, Entrepreneurship specialism 

“We had to undertake a business project from start to finish. We were introduced to coding by our teacher, Stéphane Motte. Them we created a website; to do this, we used the Coding School.

All the knowledge is collected together on this platform. The courses are classified by theme; it is easy to find the codes. You can work as a group: what we did was to share out the pages of the site, so we could work on them simultaneously. Without the Coding School, it would have been a lot more difficult.

You can even ask software developers for help. They can see our code and see where the errors are. They can intervene at any time, even when we’re not at our screens.

I now understand the world and the language of a software developer much better. I can interact with them and discuss things with service providers. I will know what they are talking about.”