January 2019 Coding Bootcamp Podcast

In January 2019, the top news in the tech bootcamp industry was all about Income Sharing Agreements and university coding bootcamps – it was a flurry of fascinating news! We start with a potential policy change being discussed in congress, talk through a $30 million fundraise, and summarize articles about ISAs from the New York Times, Fortune, Vice, and TechCrunch. Plus, we will tell you about some student success stories, and the 11 new bootcamps we added to the Course Report directory in January!

Universities + Bootcamps in Congress

• Inside Higher Ed examined a proposal to lift the cap on how much instruction universities can outsource to a non university partner (aka the “50% rule”). Then Politico picked this story up, calling this “Betsy Devos’ Bet on Bootcamps.”
• Campus Technology published a nice landscape of university + bootcamp partnerships, mentioning Trilogy Education and Revature.
• According to BizJournals Portland, Epicodus is now partnering with Warner Pacific University.
• An editorial in the Chronicle of Higher Education looks at the Harvard Coding Bootcamp (powered by Trilogy) and Yale Coding Bootcamp (powered by Flatiron School – students are eligible to receive two credits towards a Yale degree!)
• Remember that some universities offer their own coding bootcamps. The Omaha World Herald reported on Midland University’s Code Academy which just relaunched.

The Debate Over Income Sharing Agreements

• Forbes, Education Dive, and others reported that online bootcamp Lambda School has raised $30 million to expand its income sharing agreement (ISA), scale the school, build its hiring network, and expand internationally.
• Lambda School was also the subject of a piece in the New York Times DealBook section about income share agreements by Andrew Ross Sorkin. Forbes responded to commentators who criticized that NYT article, debunking a few ISA myths from critics.
• Vice responded to both the NYT and Forbes articles by publishing a Q&A on ISAs with Julie Margetta Morgan, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. We are not sure if Morgan has a strong enough grasp on the outcomes at coding bootcamps, but do agree that demanding transparency in ISA contracts is key.
• Finally, TechCrunch writer Danny Crichton calls income sharing agreements like Lambda School’s a type of “social resilience” solution.
• Here are four more articles about ISAs if you’re looking for further information:
  • An ISA criticism by Spectator and another by Forbes Contributor Derek Newton
  • An article in Sacbee about a new bill that would require California colleges to offer ISAs
  • A Hackernoon podcast featuring Austen Allred of Lambda School

Are coding bootcamps still motivated by “filling the skills gap”?

• Grace Sweeney from Softonic looked at bootcamps from an individual’s perspective.
• Spectrum News One wrote about bootcamps growing the number of tech workers in the US.
• JS Chen posits that tech companies are investing in coding and STEM education not for altruistic reasons, but rather to “create a future supply of cheap labor” in Jacobin Magazine
• TechCrunch dug into Andela’s business model – aiming to boost the tech industry in Africa.
• Bustle offers advice for folks switching careers later in life (with help from Flatiron School).
• TechCrunch writes about bootcamps for skills other than coding – namely, cyber security, mentioning bootcamps like SecureSet academy, Open Cloud Academy, and Evolve Security Academy.

Bootcamps for a Cause

• The Telegraph reports that a Korean-American Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur, who was unexpectedly nominated to become next in line to the Korean Emperorship, plans to launch a free coding school in South Korea.
• Queens Eagle profiled Fullstack Academy’s Web Development Fellowship in partnership with the City of New York’s Tech Talent Pipeline – 34 low-income graduates have landed good-paying jobs through WDF.
• Arizona Public Media and TechCrunch both profiled Hola Code in January.
• According to Cheshire Live, UK coding school Code Nation is aiming to train 500 people who are out of work and claiming unemployment benefits.
• This Day Live profiles Girl Code Academy in Nigeria, a free bootcamp for women that launched in 2017.

Two Apprenticeships To Know

• KRQE reports that an Alburquerque data science company called RS21 is offering apprenticeships to graduates from Cultivating Coders coding bootcamp.
• Inside Indiana Business looks at Kenzie Academy’s first group of graduates in Indianapolis, Indiana. Forbes also highlights Kenzie Academy’s partnership with staffing company Kelly Services.

Three Success Stories

• A software engineer at the New York Times, Charity Corcino, wrote a piece for the Times Open Blog about her experience overcoming a brain injury and learning to code at Fullstack Academy
• Business Insider profiled a Holberton grad who went from working at Trader Joes making $20,000 to making 4x that amount at her new job at a startup called Scalability.
• Hypepotamus profiles DigitalCrafts grad Clare Barton, who has a background in Library and information science

New Bootcamps & Campuses

• According to New Times, Rwanda is launching its own coding school, which lasts 3 years and includes a 6-month internship training abroad.
• According to Business Cloud, Northcoders is opening a campus in Leeds, UK. In the Yorkshire Post, the founder talks about the diversity of the Northcoders cohorts, saying that 35% of students are women.
• Coding Dojo has announced a 10th campus in Orange County, California
• Lubbock Online reports on a new part-time coding academy in Lubbock called Lubbock Coding Academy.
• According to Geekwire, Nicole Buchanan is stepping down as director for all-women's coding bootcamp ADA Developers Academy. Christine Martin, partner and founder at The Valtas Group, will serve as the interim director.
• Innovate Birmingham is launching a 13-week free data analytics boot camp in addition to their 14-week web development program in Birmingham, Alabama
• Flatiron School is launching a campus in Denver and launching their data science bootcamp at their Houston campus.
• Eleven Fifty coding bootcamp founder Scott Jones was interviewed by Inside Indiana Business about his plans to expand the bootcamp statewide in Indiana.

New Bootcamps in January 2019:

• San Diego Global Knowledge University in San Diego, California
• The University of Redlands Coding Bootcamp in Redlands, California
• Manchester Codes, in Manchester, UK
• Altcampus in Dharamshala, India
• Untapped Code Academy in Cincinnati, Ohio
• The Valley Bootcamp in Bangalore, India
• Digital Career Institute in Germany, with campuses in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, and Koln (Cologne)
• TrueCoders in Birmingham Alabama
• Woz U in Scottsdale Arizona, and online
• Pragra in Mississauga, Canada, Noida, India, and online
• Great Learning in India (Bangalore, Gurgaon, Chennai, and Hyderabad)

Our Favorite Blog Posts in January

• Imogen enjoyed interviewing Roniece Ricardo, a graduate of Flatiron School’s Access Labs - a version of their software engineering immersive which offers deferred tuition for low-income students. Roniece told us about her feelings of imposter syndrome as a woman of color entering tech, and how the Flatiron community really embraced her and made her feel welcome in the space. Roniece then moved from New York to Atlanta to help launch a new Flatiron campus, and work as a teaching assistant.
• In light of Data Privacy Day, Liz’s favorite piece was with Logan Weir who had been to a data science bootcamp, was working at a startup, and found himself feeling like a “jack of all trades” engineer. So he went to Galvanize to hone his skills and is now specializing as a Machine Learning Engineer! In talking to him, we could tell that he was very intentional about the jobs he applied to and companies he worked at in data. He says, “My top tech companies are going to be doing ethical, socially responsible work with data, and are people who believe in open source data. People call data “the oil of the information age” and while it can be used in terrible, terrible ways, it can also be used in some pretty amazing ways to benefit people. I’ve had the ability to follow a moral compass in my career.” Great advice!
   

FURTHER READING

• November 2018 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• October 2018 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• September 2018 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast

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