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7 Code Schools That Care About Your Well-Being

Code school can be really tough on your brain and body. Becoming an effective coder isn’t all about sitting in a chair in front of a computer screen, it is about boosting your brain power. If you don’t feel well, you won’t won’t code well. It’s important to stay healthy while in code school so we’ve hand picked 7 schools that make it easy.

1. Dev Mountain

The cost of tuition at Dev Mountain includes a fitness pass for students, and on top of that the school is located in the beautiful Provo, Utah, so it’s easy to stay fit at the gym or hit the trails of the Wasatch Mountains for some fresh air.

2. Bitmaker Labs

Bitmaker Labs promotes wellness by providing students with weekly yoga sessions every Wednesday during lunch time. They also drop hints of a healthy lifestyle on their campus by providing bike racks and encouraging students to actually use them. Bitmaker is a huge proponent of the idea that staying active is a critical component in a student’s ability to learn well.

3. Deep Dive Coders

Deep Dive Coders promotes wellness by escaping the classroom a couple of times a week for a quick walk and talk. This provides students with a refreshing change of pace, and the opportunity to discuss some of the topics they’re covering in class in a casual setting. On top of that, Deep Dive is located next door to a gym, where students are able to hop over for a customized training session, all included in the cost of tuition.

4. Wyncode

The folks at Wyncode believe in working hard and playing hard. Their wellness program includes weekly yoga, Crossfit training sessions, and a monday night run crew, but it does not stop there. Be prepared for a day of sailing, and go-kart racing. Wyncode believes that experiencingthe excitement of the real world inspires its students to create the next great app.

5. Hack Reactor

At Hack Reactor students get the opportunity to exercise at a nearby San Francisco gym, the cost of which is subsidized by the school.

6. Dev Bootcamp

At Dev Bootcamp, students learn so much more than coding. They are equipped with the tools to be lifelong learners, and part of that is overall well-being and health. At Dev Bootcamp there is yoga, stretching sessions, and basic meditation offered in an effort to promote good habits for the coders of the future.

7. Coding Dojo

Coding Dojo takes health and well being very seriously. They understand that a tired and burnt out coder is an ineffective one. Throughout the day, students take part in regularly scheduled breaks where they can enjoy healthy snacks, fresh air, and walks outside. If that isn’t enough, Coding Dojo provides platforms for routine exercise. Every Wednesday during lunch, students take part in a team sport, and on thursday nights there are pick-up basketball games.

visit HACKAPP.CO for more information about these code schools.

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7 Best Code Schools in the South

In an industry dominated by the tech giants of the west coast, check out these schools that call the South home who are making waves in the coding world.

1. General Assemby - Georgia

Though this global network of education offers classes all over the world in a range of topics from business to design, their Atlanta based, fully immersive, 12-week web development bootcamp is a great option for any aspiring developer seeking courses in the metropolitan heart of the South. 

2. Nashville Software School - Tennessee

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 5 years, you know that Nashville is much more than country music and cowboy boots these days. Nashville is making a name for itself in the tech industry with it’s increasing entrepreneurial endeavors. Not to mention Nashville is a cultural hub with its fantastic music, food, and arts scene. Nashville Software school (and hack_app, of course) call Nashville home, and are throwing gasoline on the growing business fire.

3. The Iron Yard - South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia

Greenville, Charleston, Atlanta, Durham. This school is all about the South. With fully immersive offerings in mobile development, rails development, and front-end development and a number of locations to choose from, this school is a great option for anyone in Georgia or the Carolinas that doesn’t want to be far from home. Oh yeah, and the best part is they’ll help you get a job after graduation or they fully refund your tuition.

4. Tech Talent South - North Carolina + Georgia

If the name didn’t already give it away, this hack school is dedicated to growing the tech industry in the south by increasing the talent pool of coders and developers. Tech Talent South is an affordable option with full-time and part-time courses at their four locations- Asheville, Raleigh, Charlotte, and Atlanta.

5. Coder Foundry - North Carolina

Located in Kernersville, North Carolina, halfway between Winston-Salem and Greensboro, Coder Foundry offers what they call apprentice and master level courses, both fully immersive. What makes coder foundry so great is their dedication to helping its graduates find employment. Their full service job placement staff guarantee you’ll get the skills and get the perfect job for those skills.

6. Wyncode - Florida

Okay, okay, many would argue that these last two are not considered the South, while culturally that is probably true, for all intents and purposes Miami is in the South, and these code schools deserve just as much recognition as the others.

Wyncode prepares its students not only with the technical skills they’ll need to succeed, but also the business mindset they’ll require to boost their professional acumen. This nine-week bootcamp will prepare you for a career working with Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS, Javascript, and jQuery. Plus you might get to soak up a little sun on the beaches of Miami… on second thought, just keep coding.

7. Iron Hack - Florida

Another Miami based coding school, Iron hack offers web development and mobile development classes over the course of 8 weeks. Iron hack emphasizes entrepreneurship and continuing your education beyond code school. They don’t just teach you to code, they teach you to learn. Not to mention, if you’re not satisfied with Miami, they have locations in Madrid and Barcelona so you can take a hack-vacation.

Visit HACKAPP.CO to learn more and apply to these great code schools. 

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Founder Interview: Lawrence Reaves, Coder Foundry

John Reagan Moore at hack_app recently sat down with Coder Foundry’s co-founder and CEO, Lawrence to discuss the ins and outs of this outstanding code school and how they can help you "get the skills and get the job."

JRM: What is the story behind the founding of your code school? How did you guys get started and what has the journey been like so far? LR: I have been personally involved in growing a software company to a national level over the last ten years and have personally experienced the widening gap in demand for software programmers and the available pool of candidates.

From my perspective there are a couple of major forces at play. The traditional university education option that manufactures graduates in computer science cannot keep up with the changes in technology or demand in the market. The reason is that the required accreditation process dictates the curriculum. The accreditation standards cannot keep up with changes in technology. Therefore students are graduating with degrees that are accredited but with coding skills that are not relevant in the market.

In addition, the changing technology also leaves industry veterans with a skill set that needs to be regularly refreshed and re-launched. The result is a shortage of coding talent at a local and regional level.

I consistently hear from other IT executives about the same talent shortage problem across the software industry and that the demand for developers is also growing double digits annually. 

JRM: What differentiates your school from other similar code schools? LR: We have a college-level professor leading our instruction. He is a Ph.D. candidate that knows how to code, but more importantly knows how to teach and has a passion for it. We have professional coders that are mentoring and instructing our students as well. Also, we have a dedicated job recruiter on staff who finds the jobs and lines up the interviews for our graduates to ensure we realize the students' career goals. They start working together on day one. Our job recruiter acts as the student’s agent from the get-go.

JRM: What type of students do you accept? What qualities do you look for in potential students and how do you make those judgments? LR: We have two programs that run at the same time. One is for beginners that have not coded before and have no background. The other is for experienced coders - those individuals that have coded on an amateur or professional basis. Our instructors and staff talk with the prospective student upfront to understand the best fit based on their experience.

JRM: Why did you choose to teach the specific technologies that your school focuses on? LR: Our goal is to place all of our students in jobs with organizations that will provide salary, benefits, etc. That is the reason we chose a Microsoft-centric curriculum. The .Net platform is one a majority of organizations have adopted because it offers a secure, stable, scalable solution for small, medium and large enterprises. There is a strong demand for this skill set at a national level right now, and a shortage of available coders to fill these jobs.

JRM: What are your student:teacher ratio and your teaching style like? How do these affect your students learning? LR: We have small classes lead by our teacher and then professional coders that work with the students through the tough parts. Our approach provides a very individualized environment.

JRM: How do you select and train your instructors? LR: We look for professional educators those with a background teaching at the college level. They not only know how to code but more importantly know how to teach and have a passion for both.

JRM: What is your school's relationship like with the local developer community and how are they involved in your school? LR: We are a part of the local, regional and national landscape. We owned in part by a local and regional company called Core Techs. Core Techs is a Microsoft Gold Partner that does custom technology development. They design, build, deploy and support technology for companies in the Southeast for the past 10 years. We are also co-owned by the software company, Advanced Fraud Solutions. A software company that is ranked a national level for the financial services industry.  Both of these organizations rely on software developers to drive their respective businesses. We all share the same work space and both companies are involved in Coder Foundry.

JRM: What is your dream for students who attend your code school? LR: One of the first questions we ask our prospective students is what their dream is and what is it that they want to accomplish at Coder Foundry? Then we work over the next 12 weeks to realize that dream together. In general, that dream is a great job with great pay in a dynamic industry. We have a dedicated team that works to deliver that with the student.

JRM: Do you help students find a job after the program?  What is that process like? LR: Absolutely, that is the point and mission of Coder Foundry. We have a full-time, dedicated IT recruiter that starts working with our students from day one to understand the best fit, locate the job, set up the interview and secure the job.

For more information and to apply to Coder Foundry, visit: https://hackapp.co/schools/coder-foundry

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Jumpstart Foundry

We are proud to announce that hack_app is is joining the Jumpstart Foundry 2014 cohort.  We are honored to be a part of this cohort and excited for the growth that we will experience as entrepreneurs and as a company this summer.  

It will be a lot of work, and I am sure we will make a few mistakes along the way, but the mentorship and resources provided by Jumpstart will enable us to serve all of our customers with more innovative products, and more marketing reach than ever before.  We are looking forward to the experience ahead and growth of our company, and translating our time at Jumpstart into a product and service that provides greater value for our users.

We are extremely grateful for this opportunity and eagerly anticipating meeting the mentors and companies that will be joining us this summer.  Let’s get started!

John Reagan and Stephen

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Founder Interview: Jay Wengrow, Anyone Can Learn To Code

The hack_app team had the pleasure of interviewing Jay Wengrow, founder of Anyone Can Learn To Code, for a deeper look into their Chicago code school experience. Jay walked us through his journey leading up to Anyone Can Learn To Code, and his experience as they ramp up for their first cohort this summer.

We are so thankful to Jay for giving us his time and providing us insight into the coding bootcamp industry from a founder and former educator’s perspective. 

How did the Anyone Can Learn To Code school get started?

Well, before I entered tech, I was in education. I went for my masters in education here in Chicago, and I taught for a little bit before I decided I wanted to move to tech. I had done some computer programming as a kid and I remembered how much I enjoyed it - so even though I enjoyed education, I wanted to transfer into tech. So eventually I made the leap.

After a few years of developing, my desire to teach wasn’t being satisfied so I decided that I was going to teach some people Ruby on Rails – a language I had experience with. I took my Sundays and started dedicating them to teaching people how to code. Whether in person or via Skype, I got so busy that I was literally teaching people all over the world. It was at that point I realize how much I loved it. The combination of education and tech was perfect for me. So I decided, “you know what?”, I could do this full time.

If my students could progress with just an hour of straight instruction and extra exercises given to them via Skype…. then, with an immersive bootcamp, I could take people to an even higher level.

What differentiates Anyone Can Learn To Code from other code schools?

The mainstream model of most bootcamps is to only select students who are able to teach themselves. The way this works is: the school provides a lot of material for the students to learn and teachers are in the room to answer questions or assist when students get stuck.

Here at Anyone Can Learn To Code, there is a heavy emphasis on high quality instruction.

Coming into this with my masters in education, I knew a lot about the power of high quality instruction. In fact, I actually taught the first introductory day at another boot camp, and students gave me a lot of feedback about how that clear instruction really helped them for the rest of the course. That is, they felt that that instruction given on the first day really helped them stay that course. So we put a super high emphasis on high quality instruction at Anyone Can Learn To Code.

Concerning our style, we try to float back and forth between instruction and exercise. We will introduce a new concept for 20-25 minutes and then we will switch to exercises for 45 minutes.

Since we have the high quality instruction component, we believe students can absorb the material much faster than they could if they had to teach themselves. So while most bootcamps are at least 40 hours a week, and usually encourage their students to stay nights and weekends (something that ends up being 70+ hours per week), Anyone Can Learn To Code is actually a nights and weekends only program. It is four nights a week (Mon-Thur), 3.5 hours each night, and then 9:00am - 5:00pm on Sundays. We think this really opens up the bootcamp experience to a lot of people that could not otherwise attend because of other life commitments.

Normally to attend a bootcamp, you have to quit your job in order to go to that bootcamp. And that obviously isn’t possible for many people because of the financial instability that would ensue.

A caveat to that is, many people who attend bootcamps are career switchers, so they do actually quit their jobs, but once the bootcamp is over, they still don’t have one. Some people struggle with that, even though bootcamps are successful in placing their students, there is still that period of instability - especially during the bootcamp. During a typical bootcamp, it’s almost impossible to make any income. And even if you could, the bootcamps often will not allow students to do anything other than focus on the course at hand.

Anyone Can Learn To Code is exclusively a nights and weekends program. That means students can go to work and maintain their job but still learn how to code at the same time. That being said, it is still an intense program, but I believe it can offer a bootcamp experience to people that otherwise could not afford one.

Is Anyone Can Learn To Code a pure classroom experience or are their online classes?

There are no online courses; it is all on-site here in Chicago, IL.  

What do you look for in applicants and how do you make your judgements?

As the name of our program implies, you do not have to know how to code. The main thing we look for is people who are dedicated and willing to stay the course. Like I mentioned before, it is intense, especially to give up your Sunday and four nights a week to learn to code, but ultimately it’s a decision of who we believe is dedicated and capable of pushing through until the end. Does it help to have a background in tech? Sure, it obviously helps, but it is not necessary.

Well that’s it everyone! Anyone Can Learn To Code is a high quality-focused code school that is great for the person that doesn’t know how to code but is dedicated and determined to learn. Thanks again to Jay for his time and useful information! Thanks again, Jay! Best wishes to everyone at Anyone Can Learn To Code!

Please view the accompanying YouTube video for the complete interview with more information, in-depth interaction with AnyoneCanLearnToCode and hack_app teams, and increased insight into the coding bootcamp industry.

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Founder Interview: Eric Wise, Software Craftmanship Guild

The hack_app team recently had the privilege to speak with Eric Wise, the founder of SWC Guild, a code school based out of Akron, Ohio. Eric and our team covered a variety of subjects throughout the interview; these topics included the vision behind his code school, the exclusivity of the SWC Guild, as well as the excellent job placement activities and numbers of the school.

We would like to extend our thanks to Eric Wise for giving us his time and providing us insight into his code school. The SWC Guild is a rigorous and exclusive school that teaches both Micrsoft.NET and Java.

What is the story behind the SWC Guild?

Eric began in the coding industry as the director of App Development for an insurance company. In 2008, he experienced difficulty in finding qualified coders for a large app development project. His team then turned to the local colleges to find qualified coders; this also resulted in nothing but frustration. This is when Eric realized a large flaw in the secondary-educational model in regards to teaching code - the experience was too fragmented to prepare the students for the job market. And furthermore, Eric knew that given the right people, you didn't necessarily need a degree. 

Due to this discovery, Eric developed the Software Craftmanship Guild to quickly and effectively educates coding students who are immediately ready to enter the job market. Eric decided to meet a dire need in the coding industry with an innovative educational model that only produces quality coders.

What differentiates the SWC Guild from other code schools?

According to students, the most attractive aspects of the SWC Guild are the small class size of eight or less as well as the extremely personal education experience.

According to Eric, one of the school’s focal highlights is that the SWC Guild does not hire TA’s. Eric believes that the students deserve to be taught by a teacher who has had experience in the coding industry. This is the basis for a very strict requirement of the SWC Guild; every teacher in the SWC Guild must have at least 10 years of experience.

Eric also highlighted the Ohio location of the code school. The Ohio location has a very reasonable cost structure and provides students with a very low cost of living; students will only need to spend around $3000 to live in the coding school area for 3 months.

What is your application process like?

If you are applying to be a member of the SWC Guild’s next coding cohort; applicants will go through the following process:

 1. You will have a video interview with the SWC Guild leadership.

 2. The SWC Guild will evaluate you throughout this interview on three main concepts: your communication skills, understanding of the upcoming challenge, and previous coding experience.

 3. Lastly, the SWC Guild will give you an entrance test to indicate your ability to follow directions and potential to build complex models mentally. About half of the applicants fail this test.

What could a new student expect from the SWC Guild education experience?

Throughout the program, the instructors are physically in the building 9-4 daily, providing education and advice. Typically, the students will see a lecture in the morning and experience hand-on teaching in the afternoon. Students can expect to be in the classroom around 40 hours a week; the most successful students spend upwards of 70 hours a week.

A focal feature of the SWC Guild educational experience is that students are given mastery projects where they are tasked with utilizing all their knowledge to develop a complex system that will test their abilities. These tasks teach execution of the material as well as communication of the concepts.

Additionally, instructors are on-site from 9:00am - 4:00pm and have email and Skype accounts for students to reach them after hours. 

Do you help your students in any way, post graduation?

The focal platform through which the SWC Guild aids students and graduates in the employment process is through their employer-partnership relationship. The SWC Guild partners with local and national businesses in multiple employer-educator partnerships; these partnerships allow potential employers to come and interview the students for positions before the cohort has even ended. This partnership is also very beneficial for the students because they are in a position where the employers desire them and their learned skill set enough to interview them before they have completed the learning process.

Some employers actually pay the SWC Guild to become an employee-partner with the school; this fee and the purchased status affords the employers early access to the schools’ students. The fact that employers would pay for this opportunity speaks to the quality of the education and demand for SWC graduates.

Eric recalls an employer recently telling students (that were being interviewed):

“We really aren't going to ask you guys any technical questions. We are looking for a company culture fit. We know you guys have been taught the right things and we are not concerned about that part.”

“That was a really defining moment for me because we are a little more than six months old and our employer-partners already trusted us...”

In addition to the employer-partner program the SWC Guild also empowers students via traditional methods. Leading up to graduation, the school helps the students optimize their resumes, put them through mock interviews, and invites business owners and recruiters on -campus to test them.

In fact, 70-80% of the placements are before the students graduate.

But let’s say you graduate from the SWC Guild and still do not have a job. What happens then?

Students who graduate that are not placed immediately, are allowed to stay with the school for free and continue to refine their skills.

You are welcome to hang out with the Guild for as long as you want. You are welcome to attend our career events for as long as it takes.

But this shouldn’t typically be the case; The SWC Guild has only not placed 3 students.

-JWH

Please view the accompanying YouTube video for the complete interview with more information, in-depth interaction with the SWC guild and hack_app teams, and increased insight into the code school industry.

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Interview with DevMountain Student, Alden Aikele

The hack_app team had the pleasure of interviewing Alden Aikele, a current DevMountain student, for a deeper look into the Utah-based coding bootcamp experience from a current student’s perspective. Alden walked us through his journey to code school, his experience going through code school, and his plans after his upcoming graduation.

We are so thankful to Alden Aikele for giving us his time and providing us insight into the coding bootcamp industry from a student and graduates perspective.

What did your journey to DevMountain look like?

Before attending code school, Alden owned a roofing company in the San Francisco Bay Area; Alden and his family ended up selling the roofing company and Alden soon found himself in need of hard skills in order to progress his career. That is when he came into contact with DevMountain.

Being from the Bay Area, there are plenty of recognizable coding schools within Alden’s close vicinity; yet he choose to attend coding school in Utah. This decision was based on the fact that he knew the quality of leadership at DevMountain as well as the low price point of the coding bootcamp.

Did your experience at DevMountain match your expectations?

Alden attended DevMountain expecting to have a plethora of hard work thrown at him, and that was exactly what he experienced. Alden came to the coding bootcamp with zero coding experience, but after a couple late nights he was right in the flow of the class and participating with even the most advanced students.

The teaching style was extremely accommodating to his lack of knowledge and afforded him the ability to adjust to the new concepts. He found that as he practiced more and more, he became exponentially more familiar with the concepts and, in turn, more proficient with each coding language.

“It is a little overwhelming and you will have to put time and effort into it, but I love to learn that way. I did fine in school but the whole time I was in school I would always feel like I was wasting my time and I wasn’t doing what I really wanted to be doing. I do not feel that way here at all.”

-Alden Aikele, DevMountain Student

The program begins with HTML/CSS introduction to wade the students into the immense curriculum; but as soon as that is over, the students are thrown into the heavy languages with guidance and mentorship. The students are given projects to complete both individually and with teams to test their understanding and application of the learned concepts.

“Everyday, all day, this is what I do. I was working on every project for hours.”

-Alden Aikele, DevMountain Student

How was the Utah location for DevMountain?

        It is a college town and there is always a lot going on. The area that surronds the DevMountain location is filled with events, activities, and fun things to do during your very limited downtime. The kids in Utah know how to have fun in a unique and memorable manner.

What is the DevMountain team doing to prepare you for graduation?

        During the last week of the code school program, DevMountain has a variety of instructors visit class and delineate what it is like to apply your learned skills to an actual working environment. The classes leading up to graduation also teach students how to perform the best in interviews and how to present themselves in the best light during an interview. Alden was a huge fan of these instructional periods because the visiting instructors work in the coding career field and know what potential employers are looking for.

        DevMountain also hosts a demo night for all their graduating students where they can showcase their projects for potential employers in the local community.

        In addition to both these activities, DevMountain also has potential employers visit classes throughout the program and speak about their company. These visits from employers allow the employers to see the quality of the graduating students and the students to see what is expected for future employment. This occurrence also provides fantastic networking opportunities for the students.

Thanks again to Alden Aikele for sharing his experience at DevMountain! Please view the accompanying YouTube video for the complete interview with more information, in-depth interaction with the DevMountain and hack_app teams, and increased insight into the coding bootcamp industry.

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Founder Interview: DevPoint Labs

The hack_app team had the pleasure of interviewing Ty and Nhi, Co-Founders of DevPoint Labs, for an in-depth look at the functionality of their premier Salt Lake City code school. We covered a variety of topics, including the story behind DevPoint Labs and their success, the logistics and benefit of a DevPoint Lab’s education, and how DevPoint Labs is equipping and aiding their students for the job market.

  We are so thankful for the DevPoint Lab’s team giving us their time to allow prospective students to gain insight into the code school experience; these are great people who run an innovative and effective code school.

  Please view the accompanying YouTube video for the complete interview with more information, in-depth interaction with the DevPoint Lab’s and hack_app team, and increased insight into the code school industry

DevPoint Labs Story

Co-Founders, Ty and Nhi, have been friends since high school and have since founded multiple startups, DevPoint Labs being one.

Ty is a graduate of the coding bootcamp Starter League that is based out of Chicago; Nhi earned his Masters degree in information systems management from the University of Utah. Nhi found that his education did not offer him experience in alternate coding languages, aside from the common PHP or Java.

Their varying experiences with education led Nhi and Ty to open their own school in Utah to meet the huge coding education need in the Las Vegas/Salt Lake City area. Ty earned his coding education via flying to Chicago and attending the Starter League coding bootcamp; this caused him to ask the question,why should someone have to fly out of state to get a quality coding education in the language they desire? From this concept, DevPoint Labs was born. DevPoint Labs specifically addresses the need for coding education in the less-popular languages, such as Ruby on Rails.

DevPoint Labs has graduated one class from their Las Vegas with a second in progress. Additionally they have their first class in progress at their Salt Lake City location.

DevPoint Labs Experience

DevPoint Labs is the first coding school in the Salt Lake City/Las Vegas area.

They specialize in educating students on ruby on rails to become a full-spec developer.

DevPoint Labs is a full time coding immersion school.

The average students gains 440 hours of coding education and experience over three months.

The average student graduates at the level of a two-year full time developer.

DevPoint Labs offers a plethora of outside activities, including a hackathon, as well as private, one-on-one mentorship time with students.

DevPoint Labs is based on a hybrid curriculum that was conceived from the Co-Founder’s experience as coding bootcamp students, secondary education students, and plenty of industry experience.

DevPoint Labs not only teaches the necessary coding skills, but trains students in the foundations of coding that every developer needs to be effective in such an innovative industry.

Price

Cost is $8,500 for a student to attend DevPoint Lab’s 3-month course.

  DevPoint Lab's Ideal Student

DevPoint Lab’s Co-Founders look specifically for a passion to learn code when accepting potential students. That is, prospective students must have the hunger and drive to learn code, they cannot be lukewarm about the subject.

  Ty and Nhi like to see students who have tried and failed - committed students that simply need some structure to learn to code. They are looking for people who have tried to learn code on their own and cannot get past a few hiccups here and there; the DevPoint Labs experience is built for people like this.

An interesting point of conversation that became relevant was the number of women currently in the coding industry. Ty and Nhi saw the need to increase the female awareness in the coding industry and acted. DevPoint Labs is currently offering a $2,000 scholarship for females wanting to attend DevPoint Labs. The Co-Founders want it to be known that anyone can learn to code via DevPoint Lab’s educational environment and immersive structure.

  Post-Graduation

The DevPoint Labs team is not currently releasing job placement numbers but did confirm that they are seeing the expected, high success rate of graduates being placed in the workforce.

The Co-Founders did share a job placement story of one student with us:

“One guy came in with a tiny bit of SEO experience and now he is a ruby on rails developer that specializes in search engine optimization for a company called Master Connect. Four companies offered him positions before he graduated and he ended up doubling his salary from prior to the program.” - Nhi, DevPoint Labs Co-Founder

  Thanks again for the wonderful insight and information from Ty and Nhi, Founders of DevPoint Labs!

[hackapp-blog]

Interview With BrainStation Student, Grey Thompson

The hack_app team had the pleasure of interviewing Grey Thompson, a current BrainStation student, for a deeper look into the Toronto-based code school experience from a student’s perspective. Grey and our team discussed a variety of topics, including: his journey of selecting a coding school, his experience with and the benefits of a BrainStation education, and how BrainStation is equipping him for the coding industry overall.

We are so thankful to Grey Thompson and the BrainStation team for giving us their time and providing us insight into what makes the BrainStation experience so unique.

Please view the accompanying YouTube video for the complete interview with more information, in-depth interaction with the BrainStation and hack_app teams, and increased insight into the code school industry.

Student Involvement

Grey is currently enrolled in BrainStation coding school in Toronto, Canada. He is in the front-end web development course and will transition to the back-end web development course in the spring.

Student Background

Interestingly enough, Grey has not always been in the coding industry; he has a primarily marketing background and is currently in the commercial real estate field.

Grey found many reasons to attend code school. He found that, from a business standpoint, a lot of the most exciting progressions in the industry are in technology and specifically coding. He was inspired by the intersection of coding and business progression.

“A kid in his dorm room can change the world just with an idea, some time, and some brilliance.” - Grey Thompson, BrainStation Student

He tried to learn to code multiple times on his own but found he needed the structure, direction, and experience that a code school offered. With that on his mind, Grey entered

in the first cohort, or class, of the BrainStation school earlier this fall.

BrainStation Overview

The biggest reason that Grey chose BrainStation is the part-time class structure that this coding school offers. This is an interesting class structure due to the fact that most code schools prefer the immersion (full-time) class structure. He loves this structure because he currently has a profitable job that he is able to maintain while attending the BrainStation code school.

This part-time class structure works because BrainStation is focused around the concept of self-directed learning. This basically means that BrainStation will provide its students with all the material, information, and aid that they need, but the students must be willing to put in the work in class (and on their own time) to be successful. It takes a very motivated student, like Grey, to get the best experience and education out of the BrianStation experience.

BrainStation is a great option for the coding student who can’t afford a full-time coding school and/or would like to continue working their current job without a dramatic lifestyle shift.

BrainStation Educational Structure

The BrainStation program is 12 weeks long, with two classes a week; each class is three hours.

The classes are structured around a very hands-on learning approach. They will introduce the new topics, walk you through some examples, split you up into groups (with about 1 instructor for every 4 students), and then you engage with the material and concepts via the smaller groups and low instructor/student ratio. Grey specified that most of the learning occurs in the small group dynamic where you are aided by peers and instructors when you are confronted by an issue with your code.

“In the past, when I was learning on my own, I used to have a lot of trouble (with learning to code) and I did not have access to people who could help me. But now I find that I am internalizing the concepts so quickly and so easily with the instructors and the class.” - Grey Thompson, BrainStation Student

BrainStation students also have homework assignments that you must stay ahead of in order to be successful in the program. Students must be able to balance their schedules with their homework assigns, as mandated by the self-directed teaching style of the course. There are 10 hours a week minimum of homework.

BrainStation Curriculum

Grey is currently in the front-end web development course, which teaches: HTML 5, CSS 3, JQUERY, and JavaScript. This includes the visual and surface aspects of web development.

BrainStation and Future Plans

BrainStation is very supportive and helpful with connecting students and potential employers; they give their students every chance to succeed post-graduation. BrainStation places a large emphasis on networking and social events, revolving around the technology industry within Toronto itself. Grey is planning to attend one of the specified networking events this week, as were many of his peers.

BrainStation Location

Grey absolutely loves the Toronto location of BrainStation. The BrainStation office location is in the heart of Toronto nightlife, there is even a club in the ground floor of the BrainStation building. The building itself is beautiful with exposed beams as well as the brick-and-mortar essence.

The location is great for networking as well. Many of the social events regarding the technology industry are located within 15 minutes of the BrainStation location.

-Many thanks to Grey Thompson for the chance to share his experience at BrainStation. Thanks Grey!

[hackapp-blog]

DeepDiveCoders Interview with Founder John Mierzwa

The latest interview victim of the hack_app team was John Mierzwa, the founder of DeepDiveCoders, a coding boot camp based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. John and the hack_app team took their conversations in-depth regarding the vision behind DeepDiveCoders, what differentiates DeepDiveCoders from other coding schools, and how DeepDiveCoders is effectively preparing students for their goals in life.

We are excited that John agreed to join us for this interview and are exceptionally happy with the insight this interview provided for potential coding students. As will all entrepreneurs, John is extremely busy and our team was honored to have him on our interview series.

Please view the accompanying YouTube video for the complete interview with more information, in-depth interaction with the DeepDiveCoders and hack_app teams, and increased insight into the coding boot camp industry.

The story behind DeepDiveCoders:

Prior to becoming the founder of this coding boot camp, John spent many years in the construction industry before eventually transitioning into the startup industry. After his construction career John started off his entrepreneurial ventures by founding a language school that educated and empowered individuals into the job force.

John soon recognized another opportunity for an entrepreneurial venture in an attractive location, Albuquerque. After moving back to New Mexico, John was inspired to create a coding school in Albuquerque when told that “there was no local coding talent” in the town; with that in mind, John set out to cultivate local development talent.

That is the vision behind DeepDiveCoders, the vision to empower the local Albuquerque community through coding education.

"What differentiates DeepDiveCoders?"

A key differentiator of the DeepDiveCoders experience is the variety of student types you will find in their cohorts; you will find those looking for a job, those with jobs, and those learning coding for personal advancement purposes. This coding boot camp features a large variety of students with a multitude of different life-goals; this boot camp is a welcome reminder that coding can also be learned for the enjoyment and not simply career advancement.

There are also a few additional highlights to the DeepDiveCoders experience.

The DeepDiveCoders educational curriculum focuses on the front-end development education for the beginning of the course and focuses on the back-end development education for the remainder of the course. As far as the back-end education goes, the school focuses on teaching the PHP language because it continually remains one of the most popular back-end coding languages.

“PHP might not be the most elegant or coolest language but everybody uses it. It stable, its scalable, so that’s what we are focusing on.”

In additional to these two key differentiators, Albuquerque also features a very low cost of living when compared to the rest of the United States. It is advantageous for an out-of-town coding student to attend a coding school in a state with a low cost of living to cut down on the already steep cost of attending a coding boot camp.

Price Point:

The price to attend the nine-week DeepDiveCoders boot camp is $4,995.

However, if you are in a minority group, you are eligible to apply for a $500 scholarship. This is a fantastic feature of the DeepDiveCoders model and displays tangible evidence of their commitment to educate a wide variety of students.

Ideal student:

The ideal potential student for DeepDiveCoders cannot be explicitly named; this coding boot camp offers a coding education for students of all shapes and sizes. It is not even mandatory to have a coding background; their current cohort has students with both language and science backgrounds.

“We have a variety and I like it that way. Our first cohort we had ages of 19 to 60”.

Though there is no explicit ideal student for DeepDiveCoders, there are similarities in all the DeepDiveCoder students:

1. Students are hungry to learn.

2. Students have their life in order.

3. Students know tech.

Curriculum:

A key feature of the DeepDiveCoders educational experience is that there are no more than seven or eight students per teacher; DeepDiveCoders also like to maximize student-teacher interactions through small class sizes under 15.

When a student enrolls in the DeepDiveCoders boot camp, they can expect the following requirements:

1. Class Monday-Thursday, with Fridays off.

2. Nine week long course.

3. Forty-plus hours per week in class.

4. Thirty-plus hours per week outside of class.

5. Around seventy total hours of involvement are necessary per week to be successful.

Post graduation help:

It is a common theme in the Albuquerque business and tech communities to be looking for developer talent. John utilizes his relationships and connections to these communities to ensure that students receive as much job market exposure as possible.

“We had a couple employers come into our location for a meet and greet one day. One of our students was conversing with these employers and pretty much got a job that day.”

John also meets with potential employers to figure out what the employers are looking for in graduating coding students; John will then take this information and pour it into the students to ensure that the students are maximally optimized for the job market. The DeepDiveCoders educational curriculum is constantly adapting to the job market requirements and the expectations of future employers.

In addition to these efforts, the DeepDiveCoder’s students are also afforded the opportunity to attend a “fieldtrip” to a local coding company where they get their hands dirty in real-life coding work. This is a great opportunity because it has dual benefits; students are able to experience the real world of coding and potential employers are able to see the students in action.

[hackapp-blog]

Will Your Job Be Deleted?

Kondratiev Waves.

Given the climate of the U.S. economy over the past decade, the debate on how new technological innovations will affect current job markets has many people abuzz, discussing how new superwaves may be different than past waves.

Technological advancements often create jobs rather than eliminate them. But will new technological waves follow the trends of creating jobs like they have historically? Experts differ on that answer, but they find common ground on one thing: future waves will rely more heavily on the programmers and developers who understand the systems in which the future waves will be founded upon.

For those unfamiliar, below is a very simple example of how technological innovation can create new jobs:

A factory replaces all human painters with robot painters.

These new robots apply paint to widgets without the need of a human painter.

New technology (in this case, robots) creates a need for tools and services that are needed to keep the new technology running properly and efficiently.

This in turn, creates new jobs for human workers to maintain the robots.

These new jobs are often technical positions, such as the scenario above of a robotics technician.

Technical Training.

But many technical positions require certification, or specialized credentials that don’t come with traditional four-year degrees, much less a high school diploma.

In the past, engineers and designers have created products that require maintenance from service technicians who are trained either internally or at trade schools and community colleges.  But in the new wave that involves endless lines of code and vast amounts of programming to create new products (programs, databases, apps), there is talk that creation and service can now reside under the same roof, or perhaps, the same position.

Preparing for the Future.

In a recent article in The Economist, writers point out that there will be a bifurcation of the working class. Essentially, there will be those who do not know how to code, and those who do.

It notes that there will be jobs for those who do not, but they will be much more “human only” jobs - creative jobs not easily taken over by formulas and algorithms. That is, traditional positions often dubbed “stable” will likely be taken over by automation, leaving only the people that understand the automation involved in the process. The article names many positions like accountants, auditors, technical writers, machinists, lawyers and retails salespeople as those most likely to see their jobs eliminated by this new superwave of technological innovation.

So how does a generation prepare for such a superwave?

With trade schools becoming a popular alternative to the ever-increasing cost of traditional four-year institutions, which path should those who want ride this new technological wave go?

Riding the Wave.

The answer is to learn how to code. And the fastest way to do it is by attending a coding school.

Coding schools are 6-12 month courses (affectionately referred to as bootcamps) that take those interested in the field of programming and teach them what it means to be a developer. Within that time, these schools teach their students how to build applications, databases, programs, and web sites. These coding schools offer a unique way of learning code that has been unavailable until now - full immersion. Students at these schools learn programming languages similar to how an exchange student would learn their host country’s language - by living and interacting 24/7 with the language. Many students find it infinitely easier to learn when they are immersed in the culture, rather than sitting in a class that only meets once or twice a week. Furthermore, using a process called electroencephalography, researchers have found that full-immersion learning is the most effective path for learning.

With many options for coding schools around the country, those interested often find it hard to compare schools and choose one that is most appropriate for them. Hack_app has created a tool to help those interested in finding a school a way to easily find information and apply to multiple schools with only one application. Additionally, Hack_app features schools geared for those who know nothing about coding, to those who want to expand their existing knowledge of a language and/or learn new languages.

It will be exciting to see how job markets are affected by new technologies in the near future, but however it pans, new technologies always offer new opportunities and this superwave will be no different.

To begin exploring coding school options visit https://hackapp.co/ today and create an account.

“Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer...

because it teaches you how to think.”  -Steve Jobs

[hackapp-blog]

DevMountain Interview with Founder Cahlan Sharp

The hack_app team had the pleasure of interviewing Cahlan Sharp, the founder of DevMountain, a coding bootcamp in Provo, Utah. Cahlan and our team covered a variety of subjects via the interview including his journey with creating a coding school, what differentiates DevMountain from other coding schools, as well as the ideal student that coding schools are looking for.

We are grateful that Cahlan was able to take the time to share about DevMountian and hope you guys enjoy it as well.

DevMountain Story

Cahlan had his interest piqued in starting a coding bootcamp in Utah while he was living in the Bay area. He began as a spectator, simply watching coding bootcamps pop up all around the country; but he noticed, that no coding school had been started in Utah.

So Cahlan, decided to go and meet that need. As he began to reach out to his contacts and explore this opportunity he found that the idea of a coding bootcamp in Provo elicited very strong, positive response.

DevMountain started their first class last fall and now are in their second class of coders for the spring. DevMountain has taken off so quickly that Cahlan has had to quit his full-time job in order to handle all the work that DevMountian is throwing at him, and the school is continuing to attract great students.

DevMountain Experience

Many coding bootcamps around the world are full-time, expensive, total immersion experiences; while Cahlan does see value in this, he decided to meet a different need via DevMountain. DevMountain is a “part-time” bootcamp which means that students are able to have a life outside of their coding education. Students are still able to hold down jobs and maintain their family relationships while attending this bootcamp and gaining the skills and tools necessary for the development industry.

The DevMountain program is 12 weeks long. This program requires around twenty hours of effort per week from it’s students in order to maximize the student’s return on their investment.

The acceptance rates for DevMountain are fairly low which speaks positively to both the quality of the education, the number of applicants, and the desire to attend this specific bootcamp. The acceptance rate for the first class of coders was one out of every three and one out of every four for the second class of coders.

DevMountain also has a very entrepreneurial spirit and focus. DevMountain is not 100% focused on getting it’s students job placement at tech firms or companies. The goal of DevMountian is to empower its students to create their dreams via coding; they applaud entrepreneurship and the startup mindset.

DevMountain Price

The price for the 12 week program will hover around $3500 and $4000 in order to provide maximum availability to potential students. This is a very low rate for the courses that this bootcamp is offering; this low price point is a huge upside for this bootcamp.

DevMountain Ideal Student

Cahlan and the DevMountain team look for three specific indicators in a potential student:

1. They want students with passion for what they are doing. Their students must have a passion to code.

2. They want students to have basic aptitude with technology.

3. They want students to have availability to learn to code. While DevMountain is an “after-hours” bootcamp, they still require that students have the necessary time available to invest in their coding education.

DevMountain Location

DevMountain is based in Provo, Utah where there is a very strong technological presence and startup community. DevMountain is currently operating out of a startup space which has a fantastic entrepreneurial spirit.

DevMountain Post-Graduate Aid

“Although we encourage entrepreneurship, we love it, we can’t deny the fact that placement and recruiting is absolutely critical”

- Cahlan Sharp, DevMountain Founder

The DevMountain team provides its students with all the necessary placement exposure and opportunities. DevMountain will invite companies to come and present their company in order to network with the students and potentially find an employment fit. The students are given every possibly networking opportunity in order to increase post-grad job placement. Of the last graduating class, only one student who was looking for a job was not able to find one.

[hackapp-blog]

Why Selectivity Matters in Choosing a Code School

For students choosing a code school, selectivity matters, here’s why:

1.  Selectivity is an indicator of classmate caliber.

One of the most important factors in the educational experience at a career accelerator is the students.  A student’s classmates are one of the most important aspect of the career accelerator experience.  The classmate's intelligence, experience, attitude, and work ethic all impact the student's learning experience.  A strong class creates a competitive atmosphere that pushes students to improve.  Classmates are also the first line of instruction.  Students explain concepts to each other and bringing various perspectives to the same problem.  An environment of talent and motivation is a career accelerator's best educational asset.

It seems reasonable that low acceptance rates indicate a higher quality of accepted students.  A school’s selectivity can be an excellent sign of the education a student will receive at a career accelerator.

2.  Selectivity is an indicator to employers.

Employers don’t have the time to vet job candidates on their own.  They are busy, and thus look to digestible indicators to assist them on judging job candidates.  The reputation of a school is exactly one of those indicators.  Most code schools have not yet developed strong industry reputations with many employers.  Employers have to look to other indicators to evaluate a school and its graduates.  A low acceptance rate can go a long way in indicating the caliber of students at a school.  

For example, when a student from a school with a 5% acceptance rate applies for a job, that is an excellent indicator.  The school has vetted and selected that student above 19 other potential junior developers.  The employer can rely on a school's selection process and selectivity rate.  That low acceptance rate is a great indicator that an employer should give that student another look.

In the absence of broad school brand recognition, a low acceptance rate serves as a good proxy for school prestige.

This article is not intended to say that selectivity should be the number one metric a potential student considers.  It may not even be one of the most important factors.  But, selectivity can serve as an excellent indicator of the caliber of classmates a student can expect.  And can also indicate the type of graduates an employer can expect.  As such, it is an meaningful statistic for students making their decision about where to attend code school.

- JR

[hackapp-blog]

Tech Talent South Interview

Transcript of an interview with Tech Talent South from Jan. 9th, 2014.

hack_app:

What is the Tech Talent South story? How did you get started and how has it been going so far?

Tech Talent South:

Betsy:

Sure, I can start out and then Richard can pop in and can kind of give you a little bit about his background. We actually met in a code immersion program ourselves and kind of saw the impression it was making on a different area of the country and wanted to bring that down South.

But prior to that, I actually ran a physical product development company and I loved it, it was awesome. We were service based, so helping people take paper napkin sketch and turn it into a product on a shelf. which was just so cool, but also so expensive. So I started to see a trend towards web apps. You know, you can spend $40 and launch a new idea on the weekend if you have that skill set. So my company was acquired and I decided, “Hey! I want to learn how to code, I want to be a part of this, I want to help other people launch their ideas”.  And that’s where I met Richard.

Richard:

Yeah, it kind of clicked for me when I was working for a small startup in Chicago and I had a background in technology - loved tech, and was really interest in entrepreneurship obviously so I went to go do a startup. Go from the ground up and kind of see if I could do it and see if it was really for me.  And the moment it clicked for me is once we kind of went through the whole song and dance and raised around, even though I had been brought on for business purposes I naturally wore a lot of hats on a small team, right?

So I kind of fell into this position where I was overseeing a lot of product development and having to talk to developers, say, “Hey can we build this feature in the next three weeks? Can we integrate with this third party API?” And I just had no clue what I was talking about, haha. And you know I think they saw right through it. And it kind of clicked for me that, “Hey I need to learn how to code so I can be dangerous on both sides”.  And again, I had aspirations to be an entrepreneur myself so I wanted to be able to prototype ideas of my own.

So my background is a little different in that I’ve always been in tech, but was more on the business side up until that point where again I realized how much more dangerous I would be if I could code too.

So that’s what made me start the process. I met Betsy and we were the only two Southerners in the program that we did.  Like Betsy said, we got excited about kind of bringing that experience back to the South and hopefully making a huge impact here which we think we are doing.

hack_app:

When did you actually get started and how many classes have gone through? What progress have you seen so far? What impact have you had?

Tech Talent South:

Betsy:

It’s amazing to us that it’s gone by as quickly as it has, but I suppose everything in this industry is that way. We incorporated in the spring of last year and started out doing kids camps and we toured around the Southeast teaching children while we were amping up and getting ready to do our adult program.

So we’ve run one full-time and one part-time program in Atlanta and we start our second in one week. And then we launch in Asheville on February 24, so we’re very excited and we’re launching in a couple of other cities in the next few months. Our first class had over 85% job placement for full-timers in a matter of days, so it was really exciting for us 

hack_app:

Wow, yeah that’s really good.

Tech Talent South:

Richard:

One thing that’s been so exciting for us, and obviously we’re real passionate about the South, thus the name of our company and kind of our mission to grow tech talent specifically in the southeast. But what’ awesome, and it’s true everywhere, but especially here, there is just such a shortage of this type of skillset, so like Betsy was saying, students that just came through our program late last year in Atlanta got picked up like that! People were just foaming at the mouth to bring in this fresh talent and get them going and bring value to their organization. So we’ve just been incredibly thrilled with how they have been received throughout the community.

hack_app:

Cool. Well that brings me to question #2. You hit on being in the South as an advantage to you and something you are passionate about but I’d like to hear a little bit more about what differentiates your school from other schools in the industry that are doing immersive coding programs.

Tech Talent South:

Richard:

Sure, so there is a few things. One, like you said, obviously I think our focus being on the Southeast is a little different in that we know the market here and we know the right people. and it hits home for us because we’re obviously from down here and want to see it right to that next level as a tech center.

I think another big differentiator is our class size. That’s something that Betsy and I, we’re always talking about and especially when we first kick things off. And we’re fortunate in that there is a lot of people that want to do our program, but we try to keep the class size relatively small. So up to this point we’ve had at most ten people in a class which allows for great one-on-one time with the instructor and more attention which we think is really valuable. So that’s definitely one of the biggest differentiators for us.

Betsy:

Being a female in this industry of course we have a big spin on trying to get more women into coding. So that’s a passion of mine, and something that I think definitely differentiates us from most programs.

Richard:

One thing I would say too, although we have a lot of students coming out and going straight into junior developer positions, which is fantastic, but we have a pretty strong emphasis on entrepreneurship as well. So we are equally excited to bring in people that are more interested in actually launching a company coming out of the program. So we do a lot of stuff like touring local startups and, sharing tech success stories here in Atlanta and of course we’ll do that in Asheville as well.

We bring in entrepreneurs to come in and tell their stories. We have a great mentorship program where each student is paired up with either an entrepreneur in the community or a developer if that’s the route they want to go. So we have a lot going on outside the classroom to kind of encourage students that are a little bit more entrepreneurial and help them get those connections they need for the next step coming out of the program

hack_app:

Cool, that resonates with me as someone who went through a program and just started a company straight out. It’s been fantastic for me and I hope you can help lots of people do it as well.

hack_app:

What types of students do you accept, and what qualities are you looking for in those applicants, and how do you make a judgement on who to accept, and who maybe needs a little more time before they are ready?

Betsy:  

Sure,  we definitely put passion above pedigree, 100 times over.   So we want really smart people, but whether you went to Harvard or have an associates degree doesn’t really matter to us.  It’s your enthusiasm for the program, and we try to gage how excited you’re going to be in your continued learning after the program.

That said, we do dual round interviews with Tech Talent team members, so you have to interview either in person or Google Hangout or phone, twice to even make it to the final round.

Richard:

The only thing I would add is we been really thrilled with the variety of students we have had in our class.  So one thing that is awesome, Betsy touched on this earlier, but it has been a dead-even split between guys and girls, which of course is traditionally pretty uncommon in the tech world.  So we are thrilled to see that, and even beyond that, it has just been a really interesting mix of people.  A lot of people just assume, “Oh it’s just a bunch of 20-somethings” but we have all ages, and people from really interesting backgrounds.

One that we love to talk about, in our past session here in Atlanta, one of our full-time students was an OBGYN that ran her own practice for 16 years, and eventually got to a point where she just wanted to get out of medicine.  She shut down her practice and did a little bit of playing with coding online, and was like, “I love this, I want to do this, I want to make this radical change in my life”.  So she came and did our program, she was a rockstar and now she works for a dev shop here in Atlanta.  

So people like that, who are just totally out of left field, who have such a different background than what you would expect and obviously still thrive.  So it’s been a really interesting mix, which we love.

[hackapp-blog]

9 Ruby schools on hack_app

"I hope to see Ruby help every programmer in the world to be productive, and to enjoy programming, and to be happy. That is the primary purpose of Ruby language.” - Yukihiro Matsumoto, Designer & Developer of Ruby

Ruby is a general purpose, high-level programming language created in the 1990s and over the past two decades, has played an ever-increasing role in the programming world. With the popularity of Ruby on Rails for web applications, the language has become a favorite for many developers and programmers. One of the advantages of Ruby is it’s syntax, which is much easier than other “lower-level” programming languages. This makes it easier for students with little to no experience and increases the opportunity to jump in and begin to learn code.

With it’s popularity and demand rising proportionally, code schools have sprung up across the country, eager to help potential students understand and harness the power and simplicity of Ruby.

The following are 9 schools on hack_app that will teach you Ruby and put you on a course to speaking the language fluently.

1. Anyone Can Learn to Code (Chicago, IL)

Anyone Can Learn To Code is a nights-and-weekends web development bootcamp that is beginning this summer in Chicago. It's a 12 week program focused on Ruby, Rails, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TDD, and API development, and expects no previous programming experience from the student.

2. Bitmaker Labs (Toronto, ON)

Using their practical approach, Bitmaker Labs teaches Ruby, Rails and JavaScript. Their methods of teaching the languages and frameworks includes recreating the functionality and implementation of some of the world’s most popular web applications, including Amazon.com and Kickstarter.

3. BrainStation (Toronto, ON)

BrainStation is located in downtown Toronto and offers web and mobile development courses. BrainStation uses intimate class sizes to offer collaborative, project-based learning, facilitated by industry professionals in order to create a classroom environment that mimics the real world.

4. CodeCore (Vancouver, BC)

CodeCore is an 8 week intensive program for Web Software Development. If you’re an entrepreneur, company or professional, CodeCore aims to give you the skill set to take your business/career to the next level. Learn from nine instructors in a project based environment focused on Ruby on Rails with foundations in HTML/CSS, Javascript/jQuery and popular APIs.

5. DevChamps (Dallas, TX)

DevChamp’s goal is to jump-start your career and brighten your horizons by teaching you how to code. DevChamps strives to provide affordable technology education through a project-based hands-on teaching approach with corporate mentorship to advance careers.

6. DevPoint Labs (Salt Lake City, UT - Las Vegas, NV)

DevPoint Labs is a 11 week immersive training in an intimate class and lab setting. They established a curriculum of tools, lectures and skills that will build you into a developer. DevPoint Labs has two locations: 1. Salt Lake City, Utah and 2. Las Vegas, Nevada.

7. The Iron Yard (Charleston, SC - Atlanta, GA - Greenville, SC)

The Iron Yard Academy teaches intensive, three-month courses that mentors students into professional junior-level programmers. Their program aims to go beyond tactical skills and dig into what it means to think like a software engineer. They believe programming is a lifelong study and is best learned by living a lifestyle of continual development.

8. MakerSquare (Austin, TX)

MakerSquare is a 10 week immersive full-time web development training program located in Austin and Dallas, TX. MakerSquare takes individuals who have tried to learn web development on their own to the next level - employable. They teach the full-stack (Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, HTML/CSS) and various JavaScript frameworks like Backbone.js.

9. Tech Talent South (Asheville, NC - Atlanta, GA - Durham, NC - Charlotte, SC )

Tech Talent South's mission is to grow tech talent in the Southeast and empower students who are on a mission to do something big. Their beginner-focused code immersion programs aim to take you from being completely new to code, to a “web dev pro” in eight fast paced, and exciting weeks. They are currently looking for passionate, persistent, and creative people who are on a mission to do something big.

If learning Ruby interests you, click here and apply to these schools and others with one simple application.

[hackapp-blog]

15 Things I Learned at MakerSquare

1.  Classmates are one of the most important parts of a learning experience.

At MakerSquare we pair-programmed 4 days per week.  Before the class I thought that I was going to hate this process because I generally prefer to work independently, but I found that it greatly enhanced my learning experience.  Problem-solving directly with another person opened my mind to new ways of addressing problems, and that increased perspective frequently led to better products, and made me a better problem-solver.  It was also great to have a partner to help with simple questions I had as well as prevent me from making silly errors like typos and forgotten semi-colons that can frequently be extremely frustrating.

Pairing made me a better programmer, and it led to us producing better products, but it could have been a negative experience if I had a partner who was not diligent or focused.  A bad partner could really slow me down and decrease my productivity and learning for an entire day or even week.  This is why I think that the caliber of your classmates is an important consideration in a choosing a career accelerator, and why I think potential students should definitely consider selectivity rate when choosing a code school.  Most of my classmates at MakerSquare were excellent developers, and avidly learning alongside me, I think they do a great job vetting students and have a fairly low percentage of accepted applicants.

2.  Lots of web development!

Of course at MakerSquare I learned web development.  I learned Ruby, JavaScript, Rails, Backbone, and HTML/CSS.  In addition to learning how to work with those languages and frameworks I learned about a lot of technologies for more efficient development, such as Git and SASS, but also principles of software design, object oriented programming, and how to build more engaging web applications using tools like AJAX and public APIs.  I learned an unbelievable amount in a short period of time, and I was constantly doing, putting into practice things I was learning and researching and improving at my own pace.

3.  Rails can be confusing.

As a pretty literal and logical person, I found the "magic" of Rails a bit confusing at first.  I was frustrated because here I was trying to learn development and Rails is just making magical things happen without any clear explanation.  As I learned more about Rails and developed a further understanding of how it worked I got much more comfortable with it,  but initially it was confusing and frustrating.

4.  JavaScript is awesome.

I had a vague concept of JavaScript before starting MakerSquare, but I thought it was just kinda this icing on the cake of web application - the trappings a developer added to make a page more dynamic and interactive.  At MakerSquare I learned the power of JavaScript.  It deepened my understanding of programming beyond what it would have been from just learning Ruby, and I my first hackathon project, 4 weeks into MakerSquare, was a web application entirely in JavaScript.

5.  The power of Google.

At MakerSquare one of the main abilities they want to develop in students and web development professionals is independence.  I thought people who were web development pros knew pretty much everything about the web and had that knowledge stored in their minds.  At MakerSquare I learned they are just very good at googling.  They certainly do have a lot of professional knowledge that is very valuable to what they do, but knowing how to google things is one of the most important development skills there is.  At MakerSquare because of their emphasis on independence and preparing us for jobs, our first inquiry was always to Google, before consulting an instructor.  So we learned to google everything first, and improved our search abilities, which helped us become more independent, confident developers.

6.  I am a terrible typist.

After the first week of class, pairing everyday and working through projects with classmates, it became apparent to me that I am a pretty bad typer.  I knew basically no useful keyboard shortcuts, and had typos galore.  I improved throughout the course as I picked up tips and tricks from instructors and classmates, but my keyboard efficiency is definitely still a work in progress.

7.  The empowerment that comes with being able to build something on your own.

I get lots of ideas, and I've always been pretty enthusiastic about them, but couldn't actually make them happen.  Now I can actually do something about it.  I have the tools to create what I envision in my mind.  Having that ability is wonderfully empowering, and encourages me to be even more creative.

8.  The value of mentorship.

My mentorship experience at MakerSquare was excellent.  It was one of the most valuable elements of my time there and opened my eyes to what mentorship can be.  I went to my mentor with any problems I was facing in class, but found our conversations about engineering principles, or business in the startup world much more valuable.  I learned many things that were outside of the scope of the course, but primary interests of mine, through mentorship.  The MakerSquare team did a great job of matching students to mentors, and I really appreciated the effort they put into that.  

The MakerSquare founders were also excellent mentors.  They were engaged and invested in my experience as a student, and in my career aspirations after the course.  They were very generous with their time and listened to my questions and gave sincere and valuable answers and advice.

9.  Everyone needs a web application

I had 4 or 5 freelance offers within a month of finishing up school.  Everyone wants a website or application and they are willing to pay you to build them.  Most of the projects are fairly simple, and I could tackle them on my own after going through MakerSquare.

10.  Embrace frustration.

Or perhaps better put, embrace the challenge of development and keep working at problems that arise.  Sometimes things don't seem to be working as they should, but there is always a reason.  I learned to be patient.  It is ok, in fact preferable, to take the necessary time to research and fully understand a problem in order to solve it.

11.  Design chops are nice to have.

For side projects, small jobs, startups, anywhere really, developers always end up having to do some amount of design work; or at least be familiar with how to properly work with designs and design software.  This is definitely a worthwhile skill on which web developers spend a little bit of time, especially if it interests them and they enjoy working on side projects.

12.  It's not all about who you know, but it helps.

Communication skills, development ability, hard work, and a good portfolio and resume are the most important things to have in a job search as a developer, but it is nice to have a good professional network as well.  Opportunities generally come through relationships, as does professional growth, so it is important to have a good professional community around you.

13.  The addictive nature of a development project.

When I was into a project I could just keep going.  It was hard to take breaks.  There was always some problem to finish or exciting new feature to tackle and it could be hard to take myself away from a project, especially mentally.  Even if I was able to stop working to have dinner with my wife and talk with her for a few minutes, it was very challenging to keep my mind focused on what I was doing rather than letting my thoughts wander to a problem or feature.  I found that the only way I could deal with this problem was to take more extended breaks, like an entire day, or several hours away from the code at a time.

14.  Development is sooo much more than coding, and that is what makes it fun.

I learned the value of taking time to properly engineer a project, domain driven development, and a well thought out data structure.  I also greatly improved in ux/ui just by having to put myself in the mind of a user over and over again on projects.  Writing code to just get something done can be done quickly and in a million different ways, which can also be fun, but taking the time to properly design a project was what gave me the most joy.

15.  Career Accelerators are the future.

It was a fantastic learning experience and this is the way education is headed.  I believe the future of education will leverage online education for a foundation and preparation, but following that foundational knowledge will be an intense period of study or apprenticeship.  During this period apprentices will polish up skills, and build a professional network.  This was a great model for me to learn web development, and I believe it will prove to be an excellent model for people to learn many different skills in the years to come.

[hackapp-blog]

Law School vs. Code School

I went to code school instead of law school.

I was one year out of college and working an entry level job at a fairly large non-profit.  This wasn’t a bad situation considering the circumstances of many of my peers, but it was not at all what I wanted to be doing, so one year removed from my undergraduate economics degree I felt that my career was floundering.  I had a pretty good idea of the industry I wanted to work in - startups - but no idea what my role would be.  

I believed in myself and that I could succeed, but I also knew that I needed a skill, something that would not only help me bring value to the startup world, but something that I could possibly fall back on to make a living if things didn't work out.  

One of my friends had mentioned code schools, but at the time it seemed a bit far-fetched and risky.  Wasn’t $12,000 and a cross-country move a bit much for a 10-week of class?  I considered an MBA but, was afraid I would just come out significantly poorer with an only slightly improved non-specific skill-set. So I turned my attention to law school.  

I had taken a practice LSAT a while back to see how I would do, and I knew that I had a good chance of getting into a top 10 school.  The proposition of taking a single test and being accepted to a prestigious law program was alluring.  Law would be a skill that served both the purpose of having a skill that would bring value to startups, and having something to fall back on in case of failure.  So law school was a temptation.  

I am so glad I didn't give in to that temptation.  

While I know it’s not this way for everyone, for me, law school was the easy way out.  It was a simple path to the comfort, validation and respect I so craved.  Code schools was the crazy unknown.

While I was preparing for the LSAT, the thought of code school was always in my mind.  I think I knew for a while that I was going to make the decision but just couldn't bring myself to do it.  Finally one day I took a step back to consider the two options side by side, and I started to feel a little foolish for even considering law school.  

These are the factors that led to my decision:

In light of the costs, benefits and my specific career ambitions, law school only won in two categories: salary and prestige. I knew that if I were making major life decisions based on those two criteria alone, something was seriously distorting my thinking.  While law school was a fairly secure path to gaining respect, code school made more sense for my personality and financial situation.  

So I told my wife these thoughts, and we made the decision to look at code schools more seriously.  We decided very quickly based on my career goals and our life situation at the time that it was worth the risk.  

So we went for it. From the moment we made that decision I felt both relieved and nervous. Although I had dodged what I came to see as the law school bullet, I was still at risk of having no clear career or direction for my life.  In law school my course would have been mapped out for me.  With the code school option, I was on my own after 3 months.  There’s nothing like the great unknown to give you butterflies.  

Looking back now on the past few months, I’m so glad that we made the decision to go with a code school.  It has been life-changing.  Nerve-racking, risky, and very challenging, but completely transformative in the best of ways.  

I developed that specialized skill that I wanted so desperately, I did it for $7000 in 10 weeks, and I immediately got to work on a startup after graduating.  Code school was, in my albeit short career, the best career decision I have ever made, and a refreshing alternative to more traditional educational and career paths.