Olga Sannikov

Olga Sannikov graduated from the Per Scholas Bronx Software Engineering course in 2020 before joining Capgemini. Olga was always interested in tech but did not initially pursue it academically because it was not popular for girls to do so at her school. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in finance before deciding to go back and earn another one in computer science. While she enjoyed the material of her second major, she struggled to find a job after graduating with no work experience in the field. She came across Per Scholas while searching for an affordable tech bootcamp that would give her more of the hands-on experience that she needed. Partially through Olga’s course at Per Scholas, classes switched to online learning due to the pandemic, but Olga felt that the teachers responded well to the new challenge, and she continued to learn a lot and enjoy the course. “I enjoyed going to Per Scholas,” Olga said. “My cohort became a real team. We were working together, doing homework together… I gained a lot of technical knowledge. I liked how the schedule was set up and all the provided information. The instructors were beneficial and were able to answer our questions. When we moved from in-person learning to online learning [due to the pandemic], it was a little bit difficult for us to transition, but in the end, everything worked perfectly. We were able to continue studying the same way.” Olga found out about the Capgemini internship at a Per Scholas job fair and thought it would be a great way to gain new experience in the tech field. “I am enjoying working at Capgemini,” Olga said. “The people who I’ve met have been beneficial; they’re really friendly. You can have a lot of different opportunities at Capgemini, a lot of different paths to try. You can grow, you can learn new technologies…there are also different groups and clubs to join.”

Going forwards, she would like to get her Java certification, explore different fields of tech, and work towards obtaining a senior-level position.

“At Per Scholas, we have real experience creating projects and working as a team. In this field, you always work with a team, so you have to be able to respect and work with your team members and also be able to help them. At Per Scholas, we gain all of this experience during our training. We also had career development training, which helps a lot in understanding how to work in a professional environment and how to deal with day-to-day issues.”