Core Curriculum

I decided to start learning programming when I was 27. I tried many different resources on the Internet, either paid or free tutorials, but none of them really worked out. I mean, those are really great resources, however, I never felt I was able to achieve anything or build my own project after finishing the lessons. Then I came across Launch School.

I was looking for lessons that are systematic and intense. After browsing the syllabus of Launch School, I found it offers plentiful contents, not to mention great preparatory lessons and quality digital books. At Launch School, it's not about languages themselves. It's all about fundamentals and concepts. One of the instructors of Launch School used to tell me that any languages and frameworks can be out of date, and only if you have the solid understanding of the concepts of programming, you would be able to adapt yourself to the web development world.

After a few months learning at Launch School, I felt that I have a better command of Ruby and JavaScript, and I can start my own projects from scratch. At the moment, I had a chance to apply for an internship as a Rails developer, so I used the projects I built during I was at Launch School (some of them are assignments) as my portfolio. Guess what? I got the offer! I nailed every question I was asked during the interview, and I felt extremely confident. It's all because I have been practicing interview skills during the assessment at Launch School.

I have been working as a Rails developer for almost 2 years. I might not be able to make this if I didn't choose Launch School. It's definitely one of the best decisions I have made in my life.

I'm going to get to the point. Did Launch School prepare me for a job in the industry? 
 

At my job as a Systems Analyst we use a reporting tool to make query's to our database. After taking the database course and learning SQL at Launch School I know everything the tool is doing and why. 

The basic principles of programming that I learned at Launch School have been priceless. We code in a proprietary language for a enterprise application. I have been able to read the code of the coders before me and figure out how to make changes without having training in this language yet. I would say reading code from my classmates at Launch School was a good idea. I guess that's why my instructors at Launch School told me to do it. 

I am in a room with the Server team, System Admins and a Web Developer. I not only understand the problems they face and discuss but can offer assistance and ideas. So Launch School teaches you more than just how to code in Ruby or JavaScript. It truly prepares you to be an asset on day one of a real job in the industry.

I refer young adults to Launch School every time I get the chance, It's life changing!

~ Jevon D. Hayter

   Systems Analyst, HTC Global Services

I’ve been with Launch School for over one year, and am happy to share that thanks to Launch School, I landed a Software Engineering Team Lead position at a multinational tech consultancy. Aside from being a good resource for beginners, Launch School has proven transformational to me as a prior startup founder with a few years of programming experiences and a MS in Software Engineering.

My intention with this testimonial is simple: no matter what cool things one has done, knowing things from the ground up is THE way to go in the long run. I’m currently half way through the Launch School curriculum, so I’ll focus on how the methodology sets me apart even when I’m not through with the curriculum.

Mastery-based learning

Even a child can code. But does one know what’s going on under the hood? The zealous attention at Launch School to knowing “What does X mean?” or “What does this line of code do?” or “Why does it do X versus Y?” makes me more of a master than my Master’s degree has made me.

Interviews

Interviewing is a skill in its own right, and it takes practice for one’s interviewing skill to catch up with his or her competence level. The requirement to pass interviews at Launch School motivates me to make this extra layer of coordination into an integral part of my problem solving (a.k.a. thinking out loud), facilitated by the emphasis on correct use of terminology.

Career-focused

One reading assignment in the orientation course makes points about the types of companies there are for a software engineer to launch a career, and also the differentiation between being in a cost center versus a revenue center. This talk is immensely helpful for me to persue companies that are worth moving forward with among the many options out there.

p.s. I gave a rating of n/a for job assitance because techincally they don't provide that in the core curriculum. I cannot speak for the Capstone program but I believe there's a lot more job search support in there.

LaunchSchool helped me to transform from Software Developer to Full Stack Developer.
 

My background is C++/C# in enterprise software, but the city I am living in has more opportunities for Web Developer, after hours investigation and studies, I finally chose LaunchSchool to help me do the transformation, and it has been proven to be the best decision I made in recent years. I have experience in OOP and Web Services, what I miss is cool web stuff, so I directly jump to Front End to learn JS as a dynamic/prototypal language, JS MV* frameworks, Browser, HTML/CSS, etc. I am really into the way of learning by doing and mastery. The 1n1 interviews helped me to set up confidence, learn how to think loudly, express ideas/algorithms, split problems. 
 

After 6 months of after work learning (20hrs/wk), I feel confident to work in web development and started my job hunting. I interviewed 2 companies and got 2 offers within a month or so...much better than I thought...never been that popular before. I want to thank Launch School for the wonderful curriculum and the assessments, because I would not have been as prepared if it weren't for that.
 

I'd like to share my experience to new LaunchSchoolers, don't doubt, trust LS, follow the syllabus, make your efforts, your decision is 100% correct.

I was starting my final year of a CS degree and I had been diligently learning to code outside of school for the past year.  I would work through a new tutorial or follow along with the code examples in the latest book that I bought and feel pretty good about what I thought I knew.  Unfortunately, when I would open a new text editor and try to create a new project from scratch I would just sit there frozen.  I just could not get to a point where I could apply what I was learning in a meaningful way.  On top of that, I was getting distracted by all the new/latest languages/frameworks/libraries that were popping up every day.  I was trying to learn everything at once and I really did not have any idea what was relevant.  I needed to be job ready when I graduated from college.

I was considering attending a bootcamp after I finished school.  This was not a very desirable option for me.  I have a family and going away for a few months would have been hard, not to mention the financial burden would have been hard to bear.  In my search for bootcamps I came across Launch School. I had not considered an online school up to this point, but reading through the materials about what they were offering really piqued my attention.  It was clear (from their literature) that it was going to be a long and slow path to success.  You were not going to jump right into a Rails project; you would start at the beginning learning the foundations of Ruby.  Here is where I almost moved on.  I felt like I knew the basics and I was ready for something more substantial.  I ended up deciding to "try" Launch School for a month or two.  I convinced my wife that I could do both college and Launch School concurrently and that If it worked out I would be job ready about the time I graduated.  Plus, I thought that I would just breeze through Ruby fundamentals and be working in Rails in no time.  As an aside, I spent 20 years in the US Military.  Going to college full-time, taking care of my family and working through Launch School ranks high in my list of hardest things I have done.

Within the first couple of days of starting Launch School I realized what I really did not know.  College taught me a lot of valuable theory and learning on my own allowed me to learn the basic syntax of the language, but I really did not truly grasp what it meant to be a software engineer until Launch School started to teach me to decompose the Ruby programming language.  Within a couple of weeks I was starting to program with purpose.  I realized that previously, I was getting lucky a lot.  I was surprised that I made anything work before without understanding concepts like variable scoping rules, pass by reference vs. pass by value and mutation of the caller.  The best part was that although the language we are using was Ruby, I knew now how to decompose a programming  language.  I even attribute some of my success in school, where I was using Java and Python, to these skills and first principals.  Launch School also placed an emphasis on being exact in how you talk about code as well as problem solving, both of which were instrumental in me landing my first developer job.

My first job was not as a Ruby on Rails developer or even Ruby.  I was primarily using Node and React and they were transitioning towards Elixir.  The training I received at Launch School gave me a common ground when it came to talking about code with my potential employer.  Being exact and explicit gave us a shared understanding of the problems we were discussing.  My ability to quickly discuss how I would set about learning a new language or framework quickly set their minds at ease about hiring someone with little experience in the stack they were using.

The biggest take away that I got from Launch School was confidence.  I solve software engineering problems for a living and every day I reach back to the patterns that I learned here and still marvel at how relevant they are and how neatly they fit.  As I continue to learn, I focus a majority of my attention on the things that don't change.  When something is hard, I lean into it instead of backing away.  

My experience with Launch School was very positive. Learning to code can be extremely difficult, and with a seemingly endless array of computer science techniques and tools out there, it's not always apparent which direction one should go in. The LS curriculum's heavy focus on fundamentals is less about teaching you the newest parlor tricks, and more about building yourself into a person who can navigate the ever-changing landscape of web development with confidence and understanding. The old adage, "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime", would appropriately describe their philosophy.

Prior to signing up for the program I found it very difficult to comprehend the official documentation for anything (Rails or Express, for example), which left me at an impasse. Oftentimes a great way to learn a new technology is by studying its documentation and going through some tutorials and practice projects, but a lot of that stuff assumes a certain base level of knowledge that can be hard to acquire on your own. The Launch School courses are clearly written and well-ordered, and they help you to gain that very knowledge without frustration. They delved deeply into the idiosyncrasies of Ruby and JavaScript in order to teach me how to build apps with the raw languages themselves, and without using frameworks as a crutch. Because of that, and because of the knowledge that I gained in the more advanced courses, I was able to learn a wide variety of commonly used frameworks and tools on my own, and integrate them all together. I can now confidently say that, because of what I learned in the Launch School courses, I've been able to add the following skills to my resume: Ruby, Python, JavaScript (ES5 & ES6), HTML, CSS, Rails, Sinatra, Express, Backbone, Ember, and React. I've also been able to start delving into audio programming languages like Csound and SuperCollider, which have come in handy for my current job as an Audio Engineer.

The Launch School curriculum is not easy and can sometimes seem very daunting, but if you are dedicated and are prone to self-study then you can gain a ton of invaluable knowledge and skills. It took me about 9 months of mostly full-time studying to complete the coursework. My brain got fried a few times along the way, but it was worth it! The instructors are really cool, and they are quite helpful at guiding you along the often difficult path. I also never felt that they were trying to sell me any BS, which is nice. This could be the program for you if you're looking for something that's more on the hardcore end of the spectrum.

Launch School does a better job describing its curriculum and philosophy than I could, so I'll focus on the results in my life due to their focus on 'mastery-based learning'. Before starting Launch School I had done a small bit of HTML and CSS, I had a digital marketing background, and that's about it regarding my experience of websites. I was in a 'Web Specialist' role at a small, non-tech-savvy organization, that entailed digital marketing and basic frontend work, and I decided to commit to learning web development as a result of becoming more interested in the web development aspects of my job. Launch School seemed the way to go after reading reviews and because I wanted something that was rigorous but would allow me to continue working.

Outcomes - Pay

Since one of the only ways to measure outcomes when comparing bootcamps, curriculums, etc. is via salary, I'll talk about that. Without getting too specific about pay, within 4 months of starting Launch School, I was able to leverage my experience as a 'web specialist' combined with my knowledge gained from Launch School to become a frontend developer, at a salary significantly higher than I had been making. The Frontend curriculum is not the first portion you learn, but I was able to take some of the concepts and overall knowledge and improve my frontend work as well. Before I even finished the whole program (it took me about 2 years, including a few months pause when I started a new role), I got a different role making significantly more than twice what I had been making as a 'web specialist', putting me firmly in six-figures. Money isn't particularly important to me, but having an in-demand skill set, with the ability to really dive in, analyze, and learn new technologies/frameworks/libraries, and deliver quality software, is important. And again, I know it is a common measure of outcomes.

Outcomes - Knowledge / Growth

One of the most significant stimulants for growth that you experience at Launch School is the assessments. These involve quizzes, projects, and mock interviews. I remember for the Frontend Assessment, that, when an instructor explained the project he said, 'this is going to be difficult, but I think you're going to really learn a lot', and he was 100% correct. I look at that project as one of the pivotal moments in my learning at Launch School. It pushed me to really drive beyond the specific tools we had learned to embrace the concepts and incorporate new libraries and APIs. I am avoiding getting too specific, but I definitely believe that is one of the most important factors in how I have grown through Launch School.

To me, that project demonstrated more than anything else the difference between mastery based learning and just learning the hot new thing. I can pick up and learn the hot new framework, but I can also discern when to use it vs when to pass over it in favor of something that is less flashy, but better for the job at hand. Launch School teaches you not only how to engineer and build applications, but also to understand and solve the underlying problems / or make the right trade offs based upon the circumstances. The entire Launch School staff, from instructors to TAs, are excellent teachers who are relentless in their focus on producing knowledgeable programmers, and set high standards for learning. They don't let you take the easy route and it shows in how much you grow. I cannot recommend Launch School enough. I honestly would not be in the career I am today, or as passionate about it as I am today, without all of the hard work and dedication they put into designing the program and continuously improving it.

I just started a new job as a frontend developer at a marketing agency that I'm really excited about, and I definitely credit my Launch School experience with giving me the confidence to get hired. 

While my new position isn't the Launch School "ideal" that's often talking about of a great junior position on an engineering team, for me it's an excellent stepping stone to my goal of a more engineering-centric position in a few years while I get some more real world experience as a developer in the meantime, and also keep working through the rest of Launch School (I'm in course 210 right now).

While I had originally planned to finish all of Launch School's core curriculum before seeking a job as a junior software engineer at a great company, circumstances intervened and I found myself in need of a job shortly after finishing course 201, so I decided to go for it. I already had some frontend development experience here and there in the past, but prior to Launch School I wouldn't have been able to do things like pass coding challenges in JavaScript, develop a custom Wordpress theme completely from scratch, or handily complete some test projects using a company's codebase in a mostly unfamiliar language (PHP). Nor could I sell myself confidently as a skilled frontend developer able to learn new technologies quickly - but that's exactly what I did to land this job. 

The bottom line is that after my first 8 months of studying, Launch School has already given me not only the ability to create full stack web applications from scratch - it's also given me the confidence to get a new job writing code and solving problems, that represents a 30% increase over my last salary, and a path forward in my career.

I couldn't be more grateful for the awesome curriculum and instructors at Launch School, as well as the amazing community of passionate and helpful fellow students - my Launch School experience has already had a hugely positive impact on my life!

Launch School was an incredible experience for me that completely changed my life.  I was a practicing lawyer when I decided that I needed to get back in touch with my passion for technology, so I found an online program and began relearning web development (I was exposed to coding in high school and college).  Unfortunately, the first program I came across was not a mastery-based program and it completely glossed over a variety of details.  Within 2 months, it was very evident that I was fooling myself about my level of understanding.  I was not able to bend the code to my will, and I ended up becoming incredibly frustrated with my progress and understanding. 

So I knew something needed to change.  I started researching online and came across Launch School.  After taking the free introductory courses, I was immediately convinced that Launch School was the right program for me.  I was relearning how to code in order to achieve an intimate knowledge of web development, and Launch School was the obvious choice for accomplishing that goal.  Now that I have finished the program, it is funny to look back and reflect on how little I understood about web development while taking the original online course.  There were definitely times during the Launch School journey when I felt as though I was not progressing quickly, but that was only because the program dives into such detail about every aspect of web development.  There was never a moment when I felt as though I was glossing over a key detail and that aspect of the program gave me the confidence to tackle increasingly difficult problems as the months went by.

Now that the program is over, I can relate to and communicate with all the web developers on my team in a much more productive fashion.  I am not a full-time developer now, but the program has helped me infinitely to understand what is going on behind the scenes and what goals are realistic when projecting the future.  I am so grateful to have taken the Launch School journey.  I highly recommend the course to anybody who is passionate about web development and who enjoys learning at their own pace.  Thank you Launch School!

It has been more than one year since I starting learning to program with Launch School.

Writing code to solve my problems has been kind of a dream of mine. I wanted to use programming skills to do some research in my own field (use ruby to do web scraping, analyze data). The thought was that with the fundamentals in place, I could learn the more advanced concepts and other languages by myself (Haskell, Elixir, Lisp, working on Emacs, Python, machine learning, and modern javascript frameworks). 

Before I found Launch School, I tried to learn to program by myself through various free online resources including MOOCs. I thought I could write some basic programs to solve my problems. Then I found Launch School.

I soon realized that I had a lot of gaps in my knowledge about the fundamentals of programming. I remember that I did not pass the first written test at launch school. I particularly found it difficult to explain the concepts and techniques of ruby and programming fundamentals asked about in the test. It was frankly a little embarrassing considering that I had already spent some time learning ruby before enrolling in the program. 

I opted to retake the test according to Launch School’s retake policy. I felt a little annoyed and thought that I probably didn’t need to be able to write about coding. But then I thought if I couldn’t communicate my thoughts with others, I probably didn’t have a solid understanding of the underlying concepts. So I started working harder to improve my understanding. I reviewed the Launch School lessons, consulted the documentation and starting taking notes. I wrote a blog-post just for myself in which I tried to write down and communicate what I had learned. All these things helped immensely.

Launch School doesn’t just teach you the fundamentals of programming and web development, but it also gives you the tools and context to learn anything you want to learn on your own.

An important part of the program is the Launch School community. I gained a lot from interacting with other students in the program. Even though there are time zone differences involved, I try to communicate with other students through the LS forums and slack channels. I try to visit the channels every week if I can. This helps a lot as students come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives that you can learn from. These channels are important also in that they make me feel like I’m not alone. Then there are teach & talk presentations where members of the Launch School community talk about interesting topics. In short, Launch School has built a great community where you can freely ask questions without the fear that you’ll look bad.

Another great thing about launch school is the phone interviews and the written tests at the end of courses. Writing in front of others can be difficult for some and it’s sometimes painful to have to admit that you have blind spots, but we all do. The tests and interviews help you see that and improve as a result.

Last but not the least, another thing that I like about the LS community is the writing and sharing of articles by students. You’ll see students do some wonderful things and go through a great learning experience and then write about that. Others might have a question and by asking and getting an answer, other students may also learn something in the process. Some former and current students have spoken at various conferences worldwide. Things like that inspire you to do something similar. I’m happy to announce that I’ll be one of the speakers at the Ruby Conference in Taiwan later this year. Although it’s probably not as prestigious as the American version and my topic is the Elixir language, I have to say thank you Launch School! Thank you for creating this wonderful learning experience.

I couldn't be happier that I chose Launch School for my programming journey! I was introduced to the program by a friend who completed it previously and gave it glowing recommendations. I began learning with Launch School in February 2017 and completed the core curriculum in August 2018.

What I feel sets Launch School apart from a programming boot camp is that Launch School focuses both on fundamentals and on mastery. Further, there is no 12-week rush to squeeze everything in; mastering programming fundamentals takes longer than 12 weeks. At Launch School, you continue to learn and practice a topic of study until you can demonstrate a strong understanding (they test you and interview you to test for this). Because of Launch School's bottom-up, mastery-based teaching style, I have found it very easy to pick up new languages / frameworks on my own. Further, coding challenges / interviews became a lot less scary (Launch School tests / interviews you to gauge your understanding).

Since completing the Launch School Core Curriculum, I have taken some of their advanced electives, learned various frameworks and languages (e.g. React, Express, PHP), taken on contract work, created my own startup (a pilot project with my first clients is underway), studied computer science theory, and found an amazing job at an innovative retail startup in Toronto (where I live).

Launch School gave me all of the core tools I needed to start building meaningful, useful software applications. If you are serious about learning how to program and can put the time in over a sustained period of time, this program is for you!

 You'll never regret taking this course  ! Launch School emphasize on mastery based learning is the real deal. After you have finished the course, you will be a very good web developer. 

Before joining Launch School I had worked 4 months as a programmer but never really felt confident in my skills as a developer, so after reading the rave reviews from past students I decided to join so I could pick up solid software engineering skills (like TDD, BDD and others). Launch School takes you all the way to the beginning, teaching you programming fundamentals from scratch. Because I had programmed before, it started out easy for me, but quickly picked up steam.

You can read my full experience through-out the program here. Every step of the way through-out Launch School, you will be getting delightful 'aha' moments, and there is also a very supportive community that is available if you need to ask a question or want to help someone else.

The whole curriculum is amazingly well-thought-out and slowly builds your skills and your confidence.

My initial thought was that I would spend 3 months on the program, I ended up doing well over 10 months, so expect to invest a lot of time and hard work in this program, but I can tell you that it is truly worth it, and because you pay in monthly instalments instead of one big lump sum, I think the program is very affordable.

One final thing; I worked with JavaScript before joining Launch School, and I work mostly with JavaScript after Launch School, so don't let the fact that the program is focused on Ruby bother you. You will learn principles that apply in any language or framework.

This program is the real deal and I can't say enough good things about it.

I have been taking Launch School's courses for about 8-months now and I'm going out of my way to write a review because of how well I have enjoyed their courses. I have taken all of their beginning back-end courses, some of the advanced back-end courses and am just starting their front-end courses.

It took me a long time to find online programming courses this good - I've tried almost every other online one out there and Launch School is the best for a number of reasons. First, their content is by far the best you will find online. Everything is enjoyable to learn, accurately taught, and you will complete each course with a wholesome understanding of the subjects. Second, they teach mastery based learning. This is one part of Launch School that took me a few months to really accept as the best way to learn. As long as you take the time to do all of the assignments (and they all are important) you will really master the subjects they are teaching and you will have a very good idea about where you stand with the material. After almost every class they mandate a "interview" with them to be sure that you're really grasping everything they teach. This is a crucial part about why I think their graduates will be more successful than other online schools.

I think there is a ton of awful online material and competition in this space right now but I could not say enough good things about Launch School. I have recommended Launch School to tons of other people and I cannot say enough good things about it.

Thanks to the thorough curriculum at Launch School and the boundless effort and support of the instructors and TAs, I am now working as a software developer for one of the largest MOOC platforms in the world.

I can honestly say that a couple of years ago, even in my wildest dreams, I wouldn't have believed I would be working as a professional software developer at the age of 26 (with no college degree in Computer Science either!).

I tried many, many online programs and courses over the past couple of years, but the big difference with Launch School is that the curriculum is designed to allow anyone to gradually work up to the level of a professional junior software developer at their own pace. No other course out there goes into as much depth as Launch School. I can personally testify to this - in the first month of my job my mentor was extremely surprised how wide my knowledge base was, especially in topics such as Object-Oriented Design, Continuous Intregration and TDD.

Take one of the preparatory courses for free and get your foot in the door - you've got nothing to lose!