Key Takeaways
- A pandemic income collapse forced the decision: Holden lost all his singing gigs and then all his English students within the same week, leaving barely enough to cover rent.
- The “you’re not smart enough” narrative turned out to be false: He was told outright by others that he couldn’t do it without passing aptitude tests, but found that untrue in practice.
- His outsider perspective is a genuine asset to tech: He points out that diversity conversations in tech are often tokenized, treated as solved once one person is hired, rather than addressed as an environment-wide issue.
As a dazzling Berlin spring danced around him, Holden Madagame sat in his small rented room and watched the year 2020 slowly tear his life to pieces.
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Watching 2020 tear his opera career apart
A professional opera singer from Michigan, he had seen all three of his upcoming singing gigs cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 global pandemic. He’d fallen back to teaching English freelance, only to have all of his students call off their courses in the space of the same week, leaving him with only just enough income to cover rent.
‘That was the moment when I knew that I had to do something else with my life,’ he says.
Not his first radical transformation
Even at the time, Holden was certainly no stranger to radical change. A committed trans activist, six years prior he had flown to Bangkok for top-surgery, and in the process switched professionally from mezzo soprano to tenor, a transformation with virtually no history even in the protean world of opera. This time, though, he wasn’t planning on modifying his body: he was going to repurpose his mind.
From tenor to programmer, in four months
Holden Madagame was going to turn from a tenor into a qualified computer programmer, and he was going to complete that journey in less than four months.
‘To be honest, at first I worried that I wasn’t smart enough. I didn’t think I had the right logical or mathematical predisposition. People actually told me to my face that I couldn’t do it if I didn’t pass this or that aptitude test. There’s this narrative going on that only specially talented people can learn coding, but what I learned was that it’s just not true.’
Choosing a hybrid bootcamp over the alternatives
Of the myriad resources available to start learning, it was ultimately WBS CODING SCHOOL’s AI Software Development Course, the modern equivalent of the Full-Stack Web & App Development Course he originally enrolled in, that convinced him. ‘It covered every topic I was looking for. And the hybrid structure was perfect: I could combine the comfort of studying from home with the practical benefits of working on site and in person.’
Demo Day: presenting Lola, a language-learning app
Holden graduated in September 2020. At the Demo Day, he and his project partner Julia Jannsen presented their creation Lola, a fully functional app designed to assist users with language learning. But for his confidence on the stage, you would never have guessed that this young programmer had been singing in operas when the brown leaves outside the campus windows were still green.
What tech still needs to learn about inclusion
While WBS CODING SCHOOL is always excited to see students learn about tech, in Holden’s case, there is perhaps more to be said about what the world of tech can learn from him.
‘A lot of people in this industry want to be more open and inclusive to trans people, but they don’t know how, they simply don’t have the language for it. Compared to opera, tech comes from a background that is much less communicative, and conversations on diversity tend to be tokenized, people will say, “let’s hire a trans person” and think the question of inclusivity is solved, when in fact it goes much deeper than that. You have to think critically of the environment as a whole. Personally, and based purely on what I’ve seen so far, I still don’t feel that I can totally be myself in tech environments.’
Even so, Holden is anything but intimidated. ‘I am excited to see how I fit into the tech industry and how people will communicate with me,’ he says with a smile. ‘I haven’t just gained a new skill with this course. My sense of self-respect, my self-worth, my understanding of my own needs and boundaries, are all definitely higher. Yes, I am excited!’
Holden Madagame graduated from the WBS CODING SCHOOL AI Software Development Course in September 2020.
Why does representation alone not solve inclusion in tech?
Representation alone doesn’t solve inclusion in tech because hiring is only the first step, the deeper work is building an environment where people from underrepresented groups can fully be themselves day to day, not just be present in the room. Genuine inclusion requires ongoing, honest conversation about culture and communication norms, not a one-time hiring decision treated as the finish line. Holden’s perspective, as someone who moved from a highly communicative field like opera into tech, highlights how much room the industry still has to grow in this area.
Ready to bring your own perspective into tech?
- Explore our AI Software Development Course, the modern equivalent of the bootcamp that helped Holden become a programmer in under four months.
- Read more WBS CODING SCHOOL success stories.
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