Profile
Jennifer Bolarinwa
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About Me:
Hi! I’m Jennifer and I live with my family in London (where I was born and raised) and am a Software Engineer 👩🏿💻. In my free time, I love playing The Sims, listening and singing along to music and watching documentaries! 🎤🎧📺
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I’ve loved The Sims for as long as I can remember! I’ve played all 4 games in the series. Fun fact, the first game came out nearly 25 years ago in 2000. Quite a long time ago ⏳, right? What I love most about The Sims is the ability to create stories. You get to see your sims personalities develop, watch how their lives pan out and deal with all of the surprises and unexpected things that come along the way. It’s fantastic!
Recently, I’ve been doing improv acting, which is when you act without a script. It sounds a bit odd but it’s so fun because you, and the person you’re working with, have no idea where the scene will go. I really enjoyed Drama at school and took it as a GCSE. It’s one of the reasons I took up improv acting.
I love watching documentaries because I feel like I learn so much about the world through them. Cultures and countries I might never come across in my lifetime, times way before mine, people from all walks of lives. Documentaries are great when you’re bored and wondering what else is going on in the world.
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My pronouns are:
she/her
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My Work:
I am a Software Engineer and I build websites!
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I work for a building society (which is very similar to a bank). My team works on projects called “proof of concepts”. That’s a fancy way of saying: the company wants to offer new features on their website and mobile app for customers, so we build test versions of these features to see how they could work.
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My Typical Day:
I work from home most days so I’ll log on to work at 9am. In the mornings, we have a short team meeting called stand-up where everyone says what they’re working on, when they think they’ll be finished and asks for help if they need it. Throughout the day, I’m usually coding a bit of a website – like a button, a map, a calendar, etc. I have lunch around 1pm and finish work at 5pm.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I would like to do something related to computer skills because a lot of children nowadays aren’t confident with computers. The ideas I’m considering are an event for local children, a website with interactive challenges or an educational video series.
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Education:
I went to school in East London. Plashet School for secondary school, and then Brampton Manor Academy for sixth form. At A-Level, I studied Economics, English Literature and History. After A-Levels, I went to the University of Cambridge to study Law. Then, after I finished university, I realised I didn’t want to become a lawyer! So, I started learning how to code at home 😃
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Qualifications:
When I went to school, grades went like this: A* (highest), A, B, C, D, F, U.
GCSEs
8A*s (English Language, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, History, Geography, RE)
2As (English Literature and French)
1B (Drama)A-Levels
A*A*A in Economics, English Literature and History.University
2:1 in Law -
Work History:
This is my first job! However, I’ve done internships at law firms in the past and built websites as part of volunteer work.
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Current Job:
Software Engineer
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Employer:
Nationwide Building Society
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Loves making websites
What did you want to be after you left school?
A lawyer, but I found it boring after doing work experience at law firms and decided to look at other ideas.
Were you ever in trouble at school?
A few times 🫣
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
Maybe I'd be a teacher, or a screenwriter, or an artist manager. I'm not sure. There's too many options to choose from!
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Hmm, probably Sade.
What's your favourite food?
Right now, it's rice.
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
(1) Good health for myself, family and friends (2) Big lottery win (3) I'd save the third wish for when I think of something.
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