Episode 31: July 2018 Bootcamp News

What happened in the world of coding bootcamps in July 2018? In our latest news roundup we look at the fascinating merger of two prominent bootcamps, an exciting fundraise for a bootcamp which focuses on apprenticeships, and a settlement worth $1 million. We also delve into the college versus coding bootcamp debate, celebrate lots of successful bootcamp graduates, and look at the proliferation of coding bootcamps in up-and-coming tech areas. Finally we look at new, innovative ways to finance bootcamp (and the potential for predatory behavior in them), and what the job market is looking like for grads right now. Read this blog post or listen to our podcast!

Acquisitions & Fundraises

• Indianapolis, Indiana-based training and apprenticeship program, Kenzie Academy, raised $4.2 million in seed funding from Buckhill Capital, Gratitude Railroad, Rethink Education, and Learn Capital.
• Galvanize acquired Hack Reactor. This was covered by Reuters, EdSurge, AmericanInno and more. Galvanize is a Denver-based bootcamp, with campuses around the US. Galvanize isn’t disclosing details of the deal, but they recently raised $32 million and say they used some of that to buy Hack Reactor. In total Galvanize has raised about $100 million in venture capital.
  Related: Galvanize Acquires Hack Reactor: Everything You Need to Know
• General Assembly, one of the largest coding bootcamps with campuses around the world, has agreed to pay $1 million to 1200 former and current instructors, after they accused the school of misclassifying them as independent contractors, and failed to pay them minimum and overtime wages. The suit was filed in California federal court.

College vs Bootcamp: The Debate Rages On

• iProgrammer reported on a new survey from Digital Ocean about developer trends, which found that 15% of respondents had taken a coding bootcamp to provide them with better skills and experience than college. The survey showed that 61% of respondents who had attended a bootcamp felt well-prepared for a job, but this was true for only 36% of college graduates.
• CNBC looks at Ziprecruiter stats which show that technical skills that don’t require a degree are in demand, and how the existence of “new collar jobs” means people without a degree can potentially increase their salaries to over $100,000 with skills from a coding bootcamp.
• An opinion piece in Real Clear Education, by Carol D’Amico (who served in the U.S. Department of Education as assistant secretary for adult and vocational education), looked at how students should be treated as consumers when it comes to education, and how she believes that like coding bootcamps, colleges should start being judged by their student outcomes, rather than faculty credentials and the quality of the institutions through accreditation.
• An interesting case study in the Seattle Times this month looks at how the city of Seattle gave grant money to two apprenticeship programs last year: Launch Code and Apprenti. Launch Code spent $1 million, but were only able to place 4 of their apprentices; so they closed their Seattle and Portland campuses. But Apprenti, was so successful that it expanded to other states.
• Conservative columnist Peter Morici writes in Trib Live about how President Trump wants to merge the Department of Labor and the Department of Education. Peter thinks it makes sense because right now there is a disconnect between educational institutes and practical jobs, and a merger could align the goals of education with those of the labor force.

Celebrating Alumni Success

• CBS MoneyWatch profiled Darc Boykin, a college dropout who was working at Uniqlo, and after attending Per Scholas and General Assembly’s free 12-week CodeBridge program, he’s a developer at an e-commerce company
• Military.com profiles a Code Platoon student and former Marine Scott Plunkett who was working in sales, then after for Code Platoon, he is now an assistant instructor at the bootcamp!
• Philly.com profiles Michael McVeigh, who used to moonlight as a gravedigger, but after Penn LPS Coding Boot Camp, a Trilogy school, he is now working as a software developer at 21PSTEM, an educational software firm in Conshohocken.
• Today Online profiled a successful student from 42 code school in Paris, Brian Young, who studied there for 3 years, and is now a software developer intern at Insas Technology Berhad, a software and systems firm in his home country of Singapore.

Learning to Code in Up-and-Coming Tech Hubs

• A guest post by the Michigan Workforce Development Department in the Sentinel Standard rounds up five training programs that can prepare someone with no IT experience for an entry-level position in tech in Michigan.
• Forbes looks at the tech scene in Mexico city and how deportees from the US who are having serious trouble procuring employment are going to Hola Code bootcamp, an intensive 20 week course that trains them in tech and prepares them to be placed in high paying tech jobs.
• Thomson Reuters publication Zawya looks at how coding initiatives like bootcamps are training more than 16,000 youth across Europe, the middle east and Africa to help close the region’s skills gap.
• A coding bootcamp called the Asha Bootcamp in Hyderabad is for women engineers who are currently on a career break and considering resuming work. It’s run by a software firm called Aveva
• Also in Hyderabad, Your Story profiled the founder of MountBlue, a coding bootcamp that teaches Javascript, MERN, Python, and React, where grads engineers are deployed at startups and on their payroll for the next 12 months.
• The Guardian profiled Gaza Sky Geeks Code Academy, the first coding school in Gaza City, Palestine launched by tech hub and co-working space Gaza Sky Geeks.
• News24 reports that an ex-convict in South Africa who taught himself to code when he was released, is now teaching school dropouts how to code with his coding school Quirky 30.

ISAs + Deferred Tuition: Potential for setbacks?

• Lindsay Gellman of The Atlantic wrote a deep dive about Income Sharing Agreements, recognizing that ISAs have the potential to really change the way that educators relate to students, indicating that ISAs are very much in their nascency, and pointing out that there’s little consensus around how much is fair to reap from program graduates, and for how long. She uses Lambda School’s ISA as an example.
• Bakersfield profiles Wyncode graduate Calvin Simms, who didn’t finish college, used deferred tuition to go to coding bootcamp, and now works for Wyncode’s in-house consulting agency, Wyntalent, in Miami, making $8000 more than in his old job.
• The Associated Press reported some colleges are following bootcamps to adopt ISAs and looks at how in the past decade, technical training programs like coding bootcamps have used this type of funding largely because participants do not have access to federal student loans.

The Job Market for Bootcamp Grads

• A few publications including TechRepublic, IT World Canada, SD Times, and Dice highlighted Digital Ocean’s latest report on developer trends in the cloud, which surveyed around 5000 tech professionals, and included questions about hiring coding bootcamp graduates.
• A survey by Coding Dojo looks at where people think the responsibility lies for upskilling people with tech skills - with employers or individual workers.
• Two Thoughtworks recruiters wrote for Fast Company about what they look for in software developers, mentioning things like determination, and commitment to learning your craft, over having a college degree.
• A guest post in Entrepreneur by Launch Indiana founder John Wechsler looked at why your next hire should be a coding bootcamp graduate! The Author mentions the diversity of graduates, the eagerness to learn, and the soft skills.
  Related: How to Hire a Coding Bootcamp Grad
• Technically Philly talks to coding bootcamps about the most sought after coding language skills in 2018, and found for Philadelphia specifically, the top languages include Java, JavaScript, Python, C#, and Swift
• Tech Republic put together a “cheat sheet” to getting a career in software development, with an overview of the types of jobs you can get in tech and how to get there, and mentions coding bootcamps.

New Campuses, Courses & Bootcamp Updates

• Coding school WeThinkCode_ and female entrepreneur network OYA Venture brought the world’s largest startup Hackathon competition focusing on women and technology, to South Africa.
• Andrea Leinfelder of the Houston Chronicle wrote about the new launch of a big data bootcamp in Houston; a collaboration between Rice University’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies and Trilogy Education and will be called - Rice University Data Analytics Boot Camp
• We Can Code IT, a low-cost coding bootcamp with established campuses in Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, is bringing its 10-week course to Ashtabula County in Ohio with the launch of Ashtabula County Web Tech.
• The Hawaii Technology Development Corp.’s Innovate Hawaii program is now an approved provider of the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations’ Employment & Training Fund. Through this ETF Micro program, local companies can receive up to 50 percent off total tuition costs for DevLeague’s JavaScript or Cyber Security Prep Course.
• American Inno and Atlanta Biz Journals report that Flatiron School will open a campus in Atlanta, and is partnering with Atlanta-based Opportunity Hub (OHUB) to offer $1 million in scholarships per year for students of color across the country.
• Codeup cofounder Jason Straughan has become the CEO of the San Antonio-based coding bootcamp. An Article in San Antonio Business Journal looks at his vision for Codeup, and how it now accepts the GI Bill.

New Schools on Course Report in July

• The Coding Boot Camp at UCR Extension in Riverside, CA
• Coding Autism, online
• Tuitt, Quezon City, Philippines
• Gaza Sky Geeks Code Academy, Gaza City, Palestine
• Codica, London, England
• Umuzi Academy, Johannesburg, South Africa

Our Favorite Pieces on the Blog

Liz really enjoyed talking with Galvanize CEO Al Rosabal about the Hack Reactor Acquisition. She also spoke to another Denver bootcamp grad in July – Mimi from Turing, who is a really great example of someone who just commits fully to their goals. She moved from LA to Denver for Turing and then to Phoenix for her new job.

Imogen enjoyed working on two video pieces that we published on our YouTube channel in July! The first one was with James, a graduate from New York Code + Design Academy who started his own web development agency, and the second one was with Bernard, a Hack Reactor graduate who is now a software developer at Consumer Reports! Both graduates told us about how they made sure they were successful at bootcamp, and why they each felt coding bootcamp was worth the time and the money.

Lauren was excited to interview a coding bootcamp prep course grad in July – Sarah, a graduate of First Step Coding’s 8-week prep course. Sarah was a high school English teacher for 6 years before realizing that she was more excited about the way technology could support education. She wanted to transition into a more logical, problem-solving role so she attended First Step Coding, and now she’s moving from Boston to San Francisco to attend full-time coding bootcamp Rithm School in September.

FURTHER READING/LISTENING

• June 2018 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• May 2018 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup + Podcast
• April 2018 Coding Bootcamp News Roundup and Podcast

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About The Author

Imogen is a writer and content producer who loves writing about technology and education. Her background is in journalism, writing for newspapers and news websites. She grew up in England, Dubai and New Zealand, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.