Brittany Walcott

Brittany Walcott’s journey into tech is a testament to the transformative power of education and perseverance. After working as a retail sales representative at Comcast for seven years, Brittany seized an opportunity that would change her life: the Grows to Code program, a partnership between Comcast and Per Scholas.

Brittany’s path to tech wasn’t straightforward. Despite her early interest in business and marketing, she had always been fascinated by programming, and dabbled in the field at a young age, designing Myspace pages for friends. However, life took a challenging turn when Brittany underwent emergency brain surgery in 2018, forcing her to relearn basic skills like walking.

Through incredible determination and power of will, Brittany went above and beyond in her recovery, not only gaining back her abilities but deciding to finally pursue her long-time interest and pivot into the difficult field of tech. After some research, Brittany became interested in earning a Scrum Master certification and, after just 3 weeks of self-taught study, she passed the exam on her first try. 

Encouraged by her success, Brittany next set her sights on the Grows to Code program, seeing it as her opportunity to fully break into the tech field. The 15-week bootcamp, led by Per Scholas instructors, immersed Brittany in a comprehensive curriculum covering HTML, CSS, Java, SQL, and more. Despite the challenges of learning complex programming concepts, Brittany thrived under the guidance of skilled instructors. The culmination of the program saw Brittany and her cohort building a full microservices application for an airline booking system – a feat she still marvels at.

“It’s crazy going from 2018 where I was trying to learn to walk again and now I’m learning to code with the Grows to Code program,” Brittany reflected. “I still can’t believe I’m here…this truly feels like a dream come true. I’m just so grateful and so blessed to have this opportunity to work with the company that I absolutely love, which is Comcast, and the opportunity to become part of the Per Scholas family and have this great support system…I still can’t believe it to this day! It’s just been an amazing journey.”

Now, Brittany is applying her newly acquired skills in a 6-month apprenticeship with  Comcast. She’s tackling new challenges, such as learning Python, with the same determination that got her through the program. Brittany is excited to learn more through Per Scholas’ alumni upskilling courses, and continuously grow and build upon her tech skills.

Brittany is passionate about the power of education and opportunity, and encourages others to apply to programs like this to change their lives.

“I’m just blessed to be in the position that I’m in and to have this opportunity, because not everyone has opportunities like this,” Brittany said. “[Per Scholas] is touching communities that would not have these opportunities otherwise. There’s so much talent out there but…a lot of people don’t know they could strive for more because they never think they could have the opportunity or the ability.

“[Per Scholas] is giving people the opportunity to learn these skills to learn these high-paying abilities and become things they’ve always wanted and always dreamed that they could be, but they didn’t know that there were resources out there to reach that.…To give people a chance, it’s really like giving people hope. [Per Scholas] is giving people a chance to change their life. Not just financially, but in everything. Per Scholas is amazing. They are truly life changing, literally changing lives with just the power of knowledge.”