Meet Carolyn Whelpley
Carolyn is a student at Flatiron School’s Accelerated AI Engineering Immersive program. She’s working with a team to build an onboarding tool for future program engineers.
In her interview, she shares what drew her back to Flatiron after completing the software engineering certificate program, how the work-integrated structure has exceeded her expectations, and what it’s like to balance real team collaboration with deep technical learning, all while navigating the productive discomfort of genuine growth.
Snapshot
Current Job Title: AI Engineering Apprentice and Freelancer
Current Employer: Flatiron School
Past Employers: LA Conservation Corps
Experience: 8 years in software and web development
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-whelpley/
Technical/Professional Skills: JavaScript, React, Ruby on Rails, HTTPS, CSS
What They’re Learning: “I’m learning a lot working with the language I hadn’t used before.”
Favorite Part of Your Job: “Working with groups in a greatly supported way where we’re just all in this together and everyone has the same goal.”
Q&A Transcript
Intro
- Can you tell us a little about yourself? Your name, which work-study program you’re in, where you’re working, etc.
- My name is Carolyn. I am just finishing up my second month of Accelerated AI Engineering Immersive with Flatiron School. It is a half schooling, half working, and I am currently working with the work-integrated learning program.
Warm-Ups
- What’s your favorite studying snack?
- My favorite studying snack is probably coffee – it would be number one, even though it’s not a snack. But I would say either fruit or candy, like jelly beans or something small.
- Do you listen to anything while you study/work? If yes, what do you listen to?
- I do like to listen to stuff. I listen to a mix of either music like Bad Bunny or Noah Kahan, or I listen to podcasts, or I listen to audio thriller books that you don’t need to be listening to continuously, that are somewhat predictable that I love.
- What’s your favorite game?
- My favorite game would probably be any kind of sports game. So like tennis or soccer or something like that.
- What do you do away from screens?
- I guess I like to be outside a lot. I like to hike. I just went snowshoeing this morning. I like to garden and bake. I have two kids, so I am usually on the side of their games is where you’ll find me or driving them somewhere.
Core Questions
- Tell me about your career in development so far, what are some of your career highlights/accomplishments?
- I originally started off in more of the nonprofit marine biology world. And in that space, I often saw that technology wasn’t being utilized as easily within some of the smaller nonprofits and people juggling many hats. So it really inspired me to get more involved in that part of it. With that, I started to teach myself to code and ended up actually taking the Flatiron software development certificate program, which was really wonderful. I just loved it. From there, I did a lot of freelance work, helping smaller nonprofits nearby, making things for them that they needed, etc. And just to even bring that even more so, I’m finding that coming into this program, I feel that I’m learning so much more and that I can utilize that in that way as well. I really enjoy working with everyone and what they bring – there’s so much to learn.
- You were at an inflection point in your career – why did you choose the Flatiron program to accelerate your career?
- I guess I was at somewhat of an inflection point. It’s been just looking for something more robust and more stable and looking at different jobs. It was just like hard to find the right spot. And I just felt like this was going to really point me in the right direction.
- Who is your Mentor/Facilitator? How do they support connecting the dots between learning and application?
- That’s another one of my favorite things about the last few months is that you have two kind of mentors. You have your learning mentor, and I’m currently working with CJ, who’s just been so lovely and helpful and so willing to just help in any way possible. And then also I’m working with Drew. I’ve also been working with Drew on the work side through the Flatiron School. He’s our mentor for that side who has also just been so lovely. And they both have different tactics or different ways about them, of course. And I really love both of them. So I’ve learned a lot on either end.
- What were your top considerations when choosing the Flatiron program?
- My top considerations, since I have done Flatiron school before, I already knew how much I liked the way that it was structured and the support that you get and also the accountability with it. I really enjoyed. So I knew that was going to work well for me. But I just thought that the way that the work-integrated learning program is structured, it was like the biggest boost for me. I think having that experience of working in a space while learning at the same time was probably the biggest consideration I had. And I found that it has exceeded my expectations for that, with the way that you’re supported and guided has just been really lovely.
- What are you working on now?
- Right now, we’ve broken up into small groups of three to four people. I’m currently in a group of three, and we’re working on building something for the engineers coming after us, like a board to help them work through some of their projects. It’s been really fun for us to follow, that being supported on the back end, but us doing it on our own. We’re making sure we’re talking through it, getting all of all on the same page, and then the research and the implementation. We’re right in the middle of it, and I’m learning a lot working with the language I hadn’t used before. I’m really excited to see it get deployed.
- What skills are you learning/have you gained in the apprenticeship? How has this experience made you adaptable?
- I’ve done a lot of software development and creating on my own, and I’ve really enjoyed working with groups in a greatly supported way where we’re just all in this together and everyone has the same goal. The support, working together, and camaraderie have been one of my favorite parts. I’ve loved learning that, and the languages and some of the data science stuff that I hadn’t worked on before. I had touched on it previously, and this was just a really nice deep understanding in that, and I can’t wait to dive even more into it. I think one of the things I would say I’ve enjoyed it over the last few months, but I’ve been very uncomfortable in the best growth way. You feel like when you know you have to do something that’s going to be a little hard and you’re going to be a little uncomfortable, but it’s like the best thing to do and it’s going to be so good. There’s been a lot of that, which I think is just amazing. That’s been something that’s really carried me through – the push and support to do things that I hadn’t done before.
- How have you adapted your schedule to balance learning and your apprenticeship work?
- It has been an adaptation and I’m not sure I’ve done it super well yet, but it’s been good. I think the thing I’ve struggled with that I’ve liked is you do have a three week of big part for the class. And then you have a week off to focus more on the work portion on the week off of your classes, which has been nice. So I’ve tried to make a balance and I’m getting better at it definitely. It’s not that I fell behind, but I was able to kind of squeeze everything in at the last minute for some of my recent classes. This week, I’ve been able to really focus on the project we’re working on. I think a big thing for my balance is finding to make sure that I get outside and take a walk. I’m getting better at setting aside time for myself while also making sure I get all the work done.
- What advantage do you think you’ll have at the completion of the program?
- I think there’ll be a lot of advantages at the end of this program. I think having students come out of this with the learning, in addition to the work, where they are really getting to do more real-world stuff. You’re really getting into code bases, making sure you’re doing more pull requests. You’re doing all of the things that are required when you’re working somewhere, and that’s going to just put an advantage. We’ll have the best knowledge and have the best work practices. In addition to the basic work practices, I always think working together as a team well is a really great aspect of it. I think having the learning experience, so I’ll have the knowledge base at the end, having learned bigger, deeper, and more complicated work, along with experience working in a professional environment.
- What excites you about this career path?
- A lot of things are making me excited about this career path. I love building things. Anytime I can be building and working on things, it’s my favorite part. I’ve always liked to build different things, and I’m really interested in learning the deeper parts of some of this stuff. I really loved the data science program I just completed. The final lab involved a deep analysis of airplane data, and it was so fun to work with and see it so clearly. I’ve enjoyed all of the work stuff, but I’ve also loved working on a team and getting better and smoother at some of the parts of it and getting more comfortable with it.
