Seanje Lenox-Wise

Prior to Per Scholas, Seanje Lenox-Wise worked a variety of jobs in retail, customer service, and food service. He was also in and out of college, struggling to work out the funding needed to continue. 

Seanje had always been interested in tech. Since he was a child he liked figuring out how computers worked. He really longed to pursue a career in game design, but he had no idea how to break into tech, or how to fund the classes that would be required. “I previously thought that a 4-year degree was the only way to get started in the field,” Seanje recalled.

Seanje’s mother suggested that Seanje build a stable foundation in IT before pursuing game design. She saw that Per Scholas was coming to St. Louis and immediately informed Seanje. He chose to apply to the cybersecurity course, as he felt it best suited his interests.

Seanje was accepted into Per Scholas St. Louis’ inaugural cybersecurity cohort. He enjoyed the people he was able to meet and connect with through the course, as well as the chance to expand his network, and he is still friends with his classmates to this day.

Seanje really liked his teachers and their approach to the difficult subject matter.  “The teachers were great,” Seanje reflected. “They were friendly and funny. The material was tough, but the teachers were very supportive and made it easier for me to figure out how to get to the end of assignments and understand what I was doing.”

He also really liked the professional development portion of the course – something he had not seen offered in other tech bootcamps. “I enjoyed the fact that there was a professional development aspect to the course,” Seanje said. “The majority of tech training bootcamps don’t really focus on that and are more focused on getting the tech down. That is great, but the soft skills and the professional development skills needed to go through an interview, know the proper ways to negotiate your salary, know what you have to do in order to follow up after your interview — those skills aren’t taught enough. Per Scholas took the time to make sure we were tech savvy, but could also conduct ourselves in a professional setting and had a strong resume. They made sure we knew how to build a cover letter, make our Linkedin pages great so that recruiters would come to us — I’m really glad I was able to get that experience.”

Very quickly after graduating Seanje secured a job as a Service Help Desk Analyst at Frontline Managed Services. The job offers training and certification opportunities that he is excited to take advantage of. Seanje is excited to grow his skills, experience, and resume in order to move up to higher tier IT jobs  and grow his career. He is grateful to Per Scholas for helping him launch his tech career.