Our latest on BrainStation

• Why This CEO Learned Online at BrainStation

  Liz Eggleston9/5/2017

  BrainStation

  

  Graeme Davis is the CEO of Brüha, an online ticket provider in Ontario. But when he began working in startups, he found his lack of tech skills impeded. So Graeme started learning web development and iOS at BrainStation, and says he’s now able to contribute to the technical conversation. Next up for Graeme? He’s attending BrainStation’s new online Data Analytics course to learn how to tell a better story with data. Learn more about why Graeme believes technical skills make him a better CEO, and how BrainStation is helping get him there.

  Q&A

  Unlike some coding bootcampers, you didn't do BrainStation to change your career. Tell us why you decided to start learning web development and iOS.

  When I started working at a tech startup in 2012, I found it extremely debilitating not being able to understand the code and especially the finer points of code – how databases work and how to fetch data. I actually hired a tutor in 2013 to work with me one-on-one and teach me the principles of code. I started to see the nitty gritty of code, how to build a website, how to build an app, etc.

  Jason, the CEO of BrainStation, and I both went to Queen’s University, although we didn’t meet until he started the school. I was a big advocate of BrainStation and I had the opportunity to start taking courses. I took Intro to Web Development and Intro to iOS Development in February 2015.

  Now, as the CEO and co-founder of Brüha, an online ticket provider, being technical means I'm able to participate in all parts of the business, and any good CEO should be able to do that.

  After learning some programming with a tutor, why did you feel the need to learn in a classroom at BrainStation?

  When I learned with a tutor, we met two nights a week. The one-on-one experience was great, but he created a curriculum for me that was derived from a computer science university course. I learned Java and very conceptual projects. The reason I decided to do BrainStation was that I wanted to really build something modern and relevant to my work. It was interesting to learn the conceptual and theoretical blocks of programming, but I wanted to know how to deploy an iOS app and how to build a website.

  Could you build a website and put it live by the end of the BrainStation course?

  Totally. For one class project, I built a website for my friend who owned a gym. Plus, I got a free gym membership out of it. It was a cool opportunity. At the end of it, I thought, “Oh look, I can build a modern website that a real company can benefit from." I thought that was super valuable and it was totally a result of the Intro course. Even though BrainStation is teaching the basis, they show you the door and then you can take it upon yourself to expand further.

  Because I work in the tech space and am constantly engaging our dev team, everything we learned about at BrainStation always translated back into my day job. It was inevitable that I would keep learning.

  What do you want to learn next at BrainStation?

  I’m going to take the online Data Analytics course in Winter 2017. I couldn’t pass it up. At Brüha, we've been in the marketplace for a year, so for us data is everything. Whether it's customer acquisition, site performance, project scheduling, or project controls, we're always tracking data. So I thought that this course would be very relevant. In looking through the curriculum, I’m most excited to learn to query SQL databases. The curriculum also covers data analysis, Excel, relational databases, and Tableau for dashboards.

  Why did you decide to take an online Data Analytics course?

  The Intro Web and iOS courses took two nights a week. I would catch a train from Hamilton to Toronto, so I had about an hour to work on homework. Back then, Brüha was heavy in R&D, so it was a lot, but it was feasible. I don't have that feasibility anymore. As with any startup, I’m always working so I can’t make that commitment. Taking the course online allows me to go at my own pace and take the course part-time. There are weekly deliverables like homework – I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to manage it yet, but I’ll plan to set aside one hour each day as my “learning time.”

  We're a small team with a small budget, so we try to do as much as we can in-house, and I feel like taking this course will be perfect for that. Our mentality is to be makers rather than consumers as much as we can.

  What are you doing to prepare for the online course?

  I haven’t really started preparing yet. There hasn't been anything sent my way. With the iOS and web courses, they sent over a few links to familiarize myself with. For this course, I haven’t gotten that prep work yet.

  A note from the BrainStation team:
  The Data Analytics course doesn't require student preparation because it's designed to take students from having little to no experience using data to become comfortable using large or small data sets to extract and present insights. With that said, the more prepared students are, the more they will be able to take advantage of our educators by digging deeper into the subject matter. BrainStation’s free prep course helps students with the following:

  • Understanding the practice of Data Analytics and its significance in all businesses today
  • Reviewing case studies of effective and inventive use of analytics
  • Gaining exposure to the Data Analytics process
  • Learning about the tools used in various applications of Data Analytics
  • Understanding the types of problems data analysts solve and how they approach these problems

  How have the skills you learned at BrainStation made you a better CEO?

  The most prevalent benefit is the ability to be part of the problem-solving. Any decision I make is going to affect the business overall, but especially when dealing with technical challenges. For example, if we’re discussing how to interface with a different currency, that’s going to impact part of the business.

  As technical challenges arise, the most significant benefit of being literate in programming is that I can be a part of that conversation and help to brainstorm or provide suggestions. It's cool to be able to hop into code if you ever need to.

  Do you ever get to create new code in your current role at Brüha?

  I rarely will create code at Brüha– we have a very competent CTO that handles that. But understanding the code has been beneficial. We built all of Brüha native (not sure we’d do that again). So we have iOS and Android native apps and we also use HTML/CSS and PHP for web. All of the concepts that I learned at BrainStation, I can 100% apply to Brüha.

  However, in my personal life, I’m happy to use those skills – my brother needed something done on his website, and I could help him with that.

  What do you hope to bring to Brüha after taking the data analytics course?

  One thing I'm hoping to improve is my ability to model data. SQL queries are really cool, but from the Brüha angle, my role is engaging potential funders and financiers and even customers. No matter the channel or the end user, at the end of the day, I'm making a pitch and that pitch is very heavily about our data. It involves our sales metrics or our ability to increase tickets. I need to take that data, model it, and try to tell a story with it. So I'm really hoping that this experience at BrainStation builds on my ability to do that in a very efficient manner.

  As a CEO, would you ever hire a Brüha developer from the BrainStation bootcamp?

  Short answer: yes, for sure. Long answer: as an employer, you have to really weigh it out and make sure your company is in a place to take that on. We've actually been very active in hiring co-op students (a type of subsidized internship popular in Canada) from local universities and colleges. It’s a huge advantage for a startup that doesn’t have a ton of money.

  The tradeoff that we’ve discovered is that the success of a co-op developer is so depended upon the ecosystem they’re coming out of. The university grade co-op devs don't really learn a lot of hands-on training in school, so they're coming into our company super green and it takes a lot of resources to train them. The only advantage that bootcampers have is they are actually doing hands-on work. The 3-4 months that they spend at a bootcamp is pretty much like getting trained at your first company.

  What advice do you have for other founders and CEOs? Should all CEOs know some code?

  If you’re a CEO at a tech company, then 100% yes! When I give keynotes at MBA programs, I meet so many MBA students that want to get into startups but they just don't have any software experience.

  My advice is always that it’s never too late. I studied philosophy and art in college. I realized at a later age that if you want to be taken seriously, then you have to speak the language. It’s like being dropped off in a foreign country and not being able to communicate. Your first priority should be to become code-literate. From there, you can truly be a contributing member of your team.

  Do you recommend BrainStation for learning Web Development, iOS, or Data Analysis?

  Yeah. One thing I love about BrainStation is that they really went for quality over quantity. Their mission was always to teach small groups with multiple, quality instructors. They’re not just focused on filling up a classroom.

  The instructor who taught us iOS was the Lead iOS Developer for Wattpad, which is a very successful tech startup at Toronto. He was working for a company that's grown fast and he knew how to scale technology quickly. The information you're getting goes beyond “PUTS” commands; you're getting access to knowledge that will be valuable to anyone who wants to work in tech or startups.

  Read more BrainStation reviews on Course Report, and check out their upcoming Web Development, iOS Development, and Data Analytics courses, all of which are available in-person and online.

• Remote Web Development at Brainstation

  Liz Eggleston5/9/2017

  BrainStation

  

  With students all over the world asking to learn with BrainStation, it was clear to the founders that they needed to unlock their courses to remote learners. BrainStation has graduated thousands of students in design, development, marketing, and product at their New York, Toronto, and Vancouver campuses since 2012. We sat down with Jason Field, Founder & CEO of BrainStation, to learn more about their new Remote Web Development bootcamp that launches Summer 2017.

  Our takeaways:

  • Delivered online, BrainStation’s Remote Web Development bootcamp is a full-time commitment mirroring their in-person bootcamp running from 10am-6pm Monday to Friday for 10 weeks
  • Their online campus is as close to in-person as it gets. Expect the same amount of support as you would in their in-person bootcamp: career guidance, networking opportunities, and access to global hiring partners
  • You’ll learn through BrainStation’s custom online learning portal, which includes scheduling, video, chat and curriculum materials

  First, tell us about why BrainStation is launching Remote Web Development.

  From the beginning, BrainStation has aimed to be a global player in digital skills empowerment, and the last five years have really given us the opportunity to interact with students in an in-person environment. We’ve tested what works with students, experimenting with different course options, topics and skill sets, but we've always had the ambition to unlock our courses to the entire world. We talk to students who we aren’t able to reach in our campuses in New York, Vancouver, and Toronto, and our new Remote Web Development bootcamp lets us work with those individuals and empower them.

  On top of that, our in-person students have asked when we’ll be offering e-learning or online learning because it’s something that they want access to after graduating. A lot of little indicators and validators continuously poked us and said we needed to start teaching online sooner rather than later.

  Over the past year, our educational product team has worked extremely hard and launched the Full-time Remote Web Development bootcamp. The inaugural summer cohort is kicking off on June 19th.   

  What lessons have you learned from teaching web development in-person that you’ll bring to the remote bootcamp?

  It’s really important that we started with in-person education in order to validate all of our initial assumptions around how humans learn and how people learn digital skills specifically. We’ve learned a few important things:

  The connectivity of students in that social learning environment is so important. We talk to potential students all the time that have already done tons of learn-at-your-own-pace online learning, and I think that's fantastic. But they come to BrainStation and say, "Okay, I'm ready to take it to the next level." The accountability you get from learning with others and networking is huge.

  We also see that the back-and-forth dialogue between fellow students and educators is important. In BrainStation’s Remote Web Development bootcamp, the learning style will be synchronous so that students and Educators are able to talk in real time as they follow a very strict schedule. I also think a hands-on and project-based teaching style is mission critical. Projects are much more meaningful when you have people to actually bounce ideas off of and get feedback, either good or bad. Harsh feedback will refine your skill set to the point where when you head into an interview or when you're in a job as developer, designer or technologist, you're confident and sure of yourself.  

  Are you looking for anything specific in Remote applicants? Will you use the same application process as the in-person Web Development bootcamp?

  At the moment, it's similar to in-person, which is already pretty rigorous. Students can come from all sorts of different backgrounds. There is a 30 to 40-hour prep course (the material depends on the individual's background), and that prep course is needed to prepare potential students for the admissions assessment and the official admissions interview with our program coordinators.

  The most successful candidates have ambition; they’re very focused and have a previous life or career that indicates their drive.

  The initial full-time Remote Web Development bootcamps will be held in the Eastern Standard Time Zone. It's 10am until 6pm every day, Monday to Friday. So it's a total of 400 hours online. It’s intense.

  Is there something inherent about learning to code that almost lends itself to learning online?

  I do think that the subject matter is aligned well with online learning. Web development and coding in general is subject matter that fits into the online format a whole lot better than others. I could see some complications introducing a subject like UX Design, but we're definitely going to challenge our own assumption there.

  Learning to code online can depend on the individual. I’ve met students who don’t need in-person learning; they don't need the accountability or network, and it's actually in their best interest not to go through a full-time immersive bootcamp because they save themselves a lot of money. But the vast majority of people that I’ve interacted with over the past five years want to learn on this roadmap with mentorship support, with all the extra layers. The searching costs of learning on your own are immense and a bootcamp is totally the right fit for most people who are looking to learn something new at an accelerated pace.

  I think that learning online is the direction that our actual workforce is going as well. If you're working for a progressive technology company, you spend a lot of time meeting people virtually and online. Our full-time remote students will get introduced to skills that they will need to use when working with development teams or technology teams remotely.

  Have you built out an online learning platform? Tell us about the tools you're using to teach students.

  We've been working especially hard over the past eight months to build the BrainStation Learning Portal. The learning portal itself contains everything the students need – video conferencing, chat, and all of their material. And once they graduate the bootcamp, everyone has access to the curriculum, even as it evolves. We continually add features to it, iterate and update our content, exercises, labs, etc. This helps our students to continue learning and fine tuning their skills with a supportive community of graduates and get them ready to interview for their desired job in development or launch their own company.

  Will there be any interaction between in-person students and the remote cohort or are these going to be completely separate?

  Online and in-person are completely separate. The first cohort will have 24 students, and an Online Campus Team that is designated to those students. The mentors, teaching assistants, and educators are only interacting with the online students.

  With that being said, we've been talking about adding some interactivity between the in-person Web Development and User Experience Design students in our campuses globally. Skill sharing from one class to the other class further solidifies what they've learned, so we’ve talked about ways to make that happen for the online learners as well. Also, an initial thought came to our minds: "How do we tie this all together and have all of the cohorts globally connecting on projects?" Whether you're on the West Coast or East Coast of North America, or in Europe, etc, you'll be able to connect with that cohort some way or another. Our team is working towards a solution at the moment because the potential is amazing.

  Will the remote learning experience look the same as the in-person student experience?  

  We're going to approach it the exact same way. We want to make sure that every graduate from our full-time program – whether they're tuning in online from thousands of kilometers away or whether they're visiting one of our campuses in the heart of that respective ecosystem in New York, Toronto, Vancouver, etc... – we want to make sure that when they graduate they get the same experience. So we're going to keep the structure consistent, but again, we're constantly validating our assumptions and making sure that we're innovating. I think it makes sense to provide a consistent experience regardless of if you're in person or online so that our hiring partners know what quality to expect

  There's a mix of different content types, lectures, readings, labs, pair programming and it's Monday to Friday from 10am to 6pm for 10 weeks.

  There will be some hurdles and iterations to be done – how are you preparing yourself to that feedback?

  Our online Learning Portal is already live and it’s been used in the field by our in-person students. It’s undergone two and a half years of iterations, like chat functionality, content updates, quizzes, all of that already lives there. The only new addition is adding the video conference functionality and putting it all together with a slick UI.

  We've also been testing out the online Learning Portal internally with different team members from different campuses globally and all is well. With that being said, things are always going to happen as they have in the past, and it's always a very quick fix. BrainStation is part of Konrad Group, a family of businesses that include a leading North American full-service tech consultancy; that means we can respond to things a lot sooner than if we were just focused on education.

  How will you approach job placement for your students who are now looking for jobs outside of your strongest networks where your campuses exist?

  We have been building our networks remotely by developing global hiring partners; since day one we knew we would have locations around the world, as well as the Online campus. We offer career resources such as interview prep, resume building tips, networking advice, and suggest events and Meetups specific to our students’ location. We also work with our students to help build their online presence, whether it be through GitHub, LinkedIn, etc. These are really important tools for getting hired in tech, and we want to make sure our students graduate the program effectively showcasing all that they have accomplished to hiring partners and recruiters.  

  How has your employer network reacted to this new online cohort? Are they excited, concerned, or both?

  We've brought it up with some of our key hiring partners and partners in the ecosystem, and they're excited. When we open up our program with only 24 spots to the entire Eastern Standard Time Zone, I think the caliber of applicants will be really high.

  Our hiring partners have already seen the quality of the students in our in-person classes, so I think they’re excited. There are companies who are forward-thinking when it comes to working remotely, and we have some students who only want to work remotely. There will be companies who align with that.

  Read BrainStation reviews on Course Report and be sure to check out the BrainStation website!

  About The Author

  

  Liz is the cofounder of Course Report, the most complete resource for students considering a coding bootcamp. She loves breakfast tacos and spending time getting to know bootcamp alumni and founders all over the world. Check out Liz & Course Report on Twitter, Quora, and YouTube! 

• Episode 10: January 2017 News Roundup + Podcast

  Imogen Crispe1/31/2017

  Parallax Code AcademyApplication UniversitySMU Coding Boot CampCase Western Reserve University Coding Boot CampUniversity of Arizona Coding Boot Camp10x.org.il10x.org.il2020Shift Cyber Retraining AcademyFrameworkLighthouse LabsFlatiron SchoolBrainStationSpringboardZip Code WilmingtonApp Academy

  Welcome to the January 2017 Course Report monthly coding bootcamp news roundup! Each month, we look at all the happenings from the coding bootcamp world from new bootcamps to fundraising announcements, to interesting trends. This month we applaud initiatives that bring technology to underserved communities, we look at employment trends, and new coding schools and campuses. Plus, we hear a funny story about an honest taxi driver. Read below or listen to our latest Coding Bootcamp News Roundup Podcast.

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• Which Coding Bootcamps Have Been Acquired?

  Liz Eggleston7/24/2017

  Dev BootcampSoftware GuildGalvanizeThe Iron YardDevMountainStarter LeagueBitmakerMobile Makers AcademyNew York Code + Design AcademyHackbright AcademyBrainStationMakerSquare

  Since the first bootcamp acquisition in June 2014, we’ve seen several bootcamps acquired by for-profit universities and even other schools. These acquisitions and consolidations should come as no surprise. With rapid market growth in the bootcamp industry, for-profit education companies are beginning to take note. And as existing coding bootcamps think about expansion, consolidation through acquisition is certainly on the horizon. We’ll keep this chronologically-ordered list updated as bootcamps announce future acquisitions.

  

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• Front End Development vs Back End Development: Where to Start?

  Lauren Stewart6/20/2017

  DESIGNATIONThinkfulGeneral AssemblyFlatiron SchoolBrainStation

  Do you want to be a front end developer or a back end developer? Understanding your career goals at the end of a coding bootcamp can make it easier to narrow down which school is best for you. But this can be a tricky task if you aren’t familiar with these terms. Let’s dig into the difference between front end web development and back end development: which programming languages you’ll learn, which coding schools teach them, and what to expect from a career as a back end or front end web developer!

   

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• Brainstation Web Development Immersive Summer 2015

  Harry Hantel8/25/2015

  BrainStation

  About The Author

  

  Harry is the Community Manager at Course Report, Rockets fan, and writer living in New York City. 

• Guide to Coding Bootcamps in Canada

  Nick Toscano7/21/2017

  HackerYouDecodeMTLBitmakerCodeCore BootcampLighthouse LabsRED AcademyBrainStation

  Canadian bootcamps are working hard to develop the talent needed to keep up with Canada’s growing tech hubs. StartUp Genome ranks Toronto and Vancouver amongst the top 20 startup ecosystems in the world. The Canadian tech economy as a whole is being fueled by thriving companies such as Shopify, HootSuite, Kik, Wattpad, and Erkem. Their success has generated a lot of interest among investors.

  In 2016, $157 million was invested into 418 Canadian companies by angel investors, according to the National Angel Capital Organization 2016 Angel Investing Report.

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• Learn Digital Marketing at These Part-Time Bootcamps

  Harry Hantel6/11/2015

  Digital Professional InstituteMarket CampusBitmakerGeneral AssemblyBrainStation

  Coding bootcamps offer a chance to learning the finer points of building digital products, but what about when the product is finished? Digital marketing has risen to become a fundamental part of most businesses as they try to reach more people, more effectively. These 5 digital marketing programs teach the fundamentals of creating and managing campaigns, as well as the necessary tools to understand what is and isn’t working.

   

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• Learn Product Management At These 5 Bootcamps

  Harry Hantel3/7/2017

  ThoughtKiteStartup InstituteProduct SchoolGeneral AssemblyBrainStation

  

  While coding bootcamps can produce stellar developers, Product Management is another integral part of a company's technical team. It’s an organizational function that entails a combination of marketing, development, and analysis. The ability to get into the nitty gritty of coding is obviously a powerful skill, but product management ensures that the code is maximizing the effectiveness of that power and thus, maximizing profit. These product management bootcamps can turn you into an effective product manager by teaching you skills to contribute meaningfully to the big decisions that guide the lifecycle of of a product.

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• Alumni Spotlight: Jason Cassidy, Brainstation

  Liz Eggleston5/7/2015

  BrainStation

  

  Jason Cassidy is the digital marketing manager at Cara Operations, Canada’s largest full-service restaurant company. He was recently named to Marketing Mag’s "30 under 30," but Jason realized the importance of technical skills in marketing and saw the potential to unlock new opportunities at his company. After attending a marketing seminar at Brainstation, Jason decided to take their 10 week Intro to Web Development course. Now approaching the end of the course, Jason chats with us about his experience and why he’s already planning on taking another Brainstation class.

   

  Tell us about your job at Cara.

  I’m the Digital Marketing Manager at Cara Operations, Canada’s largest full-service restaurant company. I did an undergraduate degree in journalism and political science and a master’s degree in communications with a thesis on content marketing.

   

  What course are you taking at Brainstation and why?

  I’m taking the Intro to Web Development course because I thought Web Development would be a good prerequisite. I specialize in social media marketing and email marketing, so web development seemed like a really crucial pillar. My main goal was to be able to better manage potential developers. The second goal is that I will hopefully open my own digital marketing agency, so having some expertise will help if I ever need to hire developers.

  I also think that having these skills will help me develop creative ideas when I start my own business.

   

  Did you have any programming experience before you started at Brainstation?

  No; Brainstation gave me a 40-hour Codecademy prep course to complete so I did that 6 months before I actually signed up and learned quite a bit from that.

   

  Since you were working while taking the part-time Brainstation course, was your company supportive?

  I was working for a different company when I decided to do the Brainstation course and I actually pitched them to cover the tuition. They didn't see how it would directly apply to my current role, but they were supportive.

   

  What was your pitch to get your employer to cover the course?

  My main angle was to invest in growing my marketing skill set. Most companies just don’t know the full possibilities of digital marketing. They still see it as a skill that you tack onto traditional marketing but they’re realizing there’s so much more there.

  I also pitched it to my brother who owns his own gym and I offered to build his website if he paid for my course. He didn’t have the capital to invest, but I’m thinking of doing an Intermediate Web Development course; since he’s already seen how far I’ve come in the intro course, I might take a second crack at it!

   

  How did you find out about Brainstation?

  Brainstation hosted a social media marketing seminar with Twitter and a couple of other tech firms. I checked out their website and thought it looked cool.

  I researched other bootcamps like Bitmaker Labs and Lighthouse Labs. The prices were very similar and the other schools looked very credible but I felt a personal connection to Brainstation after having been there.

  Brainstation held a contest to win a free class and I won half off, so I went with Brainstation.

   

  What was the student:teacher ratio in your class?

  There are usually 4 instructors for 25 students but only 12 students signed up for my course, therefore they only had 2 instructors. It’s a good ratio.

   

  How often do you meet in person?

  Once a week for 3 hours.

   

  Was your class diverse in terms of background and experience?

  There is a wide range of people. I was working as a digital marketer, another woman works as a full-time copywriter, there was a Bell technician with no experience at all, and a few people who had some prior experience.

   

  Who was the head instructor for your class?

  Rares is the head instructor and Alan facilitates and moderates the class

   

  Did you have assessments or tests in the Brainstation course?

  We got a bit of homework at the beginning of the class, but their whole spiel is that there’s no grades or tests- it’s very welcoming.

   

  What technologies did you focus on at Brainstation?

  We learned HTML 5, CSS 3, pretty much everything about those two. We learned Twitter Bootstrap. We are moving at such a quick pace that we started learning some JavaScript.

  They give us a free membership to Treehouse as part of the course so it was really good to have secondary material. They strongly encourage you to watch these Treehouse videos. So I went home and in the first week consumed about 50 hours’ worth of content.

   

  What types of projects did you work on?

  You have a few minor assignments along the way and then halfway through you’re asked to build a website for a coffee shop. I built one for a gym instead, for my brother’s business. It’s a 6-7 page website that will be fully responsive.There’s a final project in the last 2 weeks, which we present to the class.

   

  Even though you weren’t necessarily looking for a new job, how did Brainstation approach job preparation?

  Brainstation tried to prepare us to actually start selling our services. So were learning how to do wireframes and how to show those to potential clients. They work with high-potential students on getting jobs. They sent a couple of job postings our way and the class’s way.

   

  Do you think that what you’ve learned will help you at your current job in marketing?

  I can now think more in-depth about sites and I’m inspecting everything now and just understanding how they work. I think I’m close to being able to actually save our company a bit of money.

   

  Did you have any feedback for Brainstation and was that feedback taken seriously?

  I’ve been pretty open and honest with them. I thought they needed to be a little tougher on students and push everyone to go home and consume every bit of video content and tutorial information- that will make the class better.

   

  Would you take another Brainstation course?

  Yeah! I started in this course as a way to round out my skill set. Right now I’m enjoying those new skills and seeing if there can be opportunities to do more courses while still working.

   

  To learn more about Brainstation, check out their School Page on Course Report or the Brainstation website. Catch up with Jason Cassidy on Twitter!

• Learn iOS at These Mobile Developer Bootcamps

  Harry Hantel6/19/2017

  CareerFoundryCoding DojoC4Q Access CodeDevMountainCode FellowsCode FellowsMake SchoolLighthouse LabsTurnToTechThinkfulGeneral AssemblyFlatiron SchoolBrainStation

  Apple’s newest, beginner-oriented programming language Swift has made developing for the iPhone a possibility for new and experienced developers alike. iOS developers earn over $100,000 on average, so it's a perfect time to learn to program for the iPhone. With the help of one of these iOS bootcamps, you could find yourself developing mobile apps utilizing Objective-C, Cocoa Touch, and Swift. 

   

  Continue Reading →

• Interview with Jay Field, Facilitator at Brainstation

  Liz Eggleston3/7/2014

  BrainStation

  Brainstation is a part-time school in Toronto that facilitates small class sizes and hands-on, project-based learning. Jay Field joined the Brainstation team after working in marketing and business development, and he shares Brainstation's teaching philosophy, their plans for expansion into back-end & mobile courses, and how he feels about recent attention from regulatory agencies. 

  Oh, did we mention he's also a student in the first cohort? 

   

  What brought you to BrainStation?

  I was learning personally, through Codecademy, Codeschool, Treehouse, when I was able to link up with the BrainStation team. I have a background in business development, community building and marketing, so I came on to assist in that respect. Through that I was able to contribute in the hiring process to bring on our amazing educator team. I'm actually one of our students in the first cohort!

   

  BrainStation has a good amount of classes now- Front-end, Back-end, Mobile, Data Science. Which class did you start with?

  The Front-end class is the first cohort, which is now in Week 6.

   

  And it’s a part time commitment. What is the general time commitment that students are signing up for?

  For me personally, I had approached the concept of using something like Course Report to find an intensive, immersive bootcamp in Canada or the States. I couldn’t make the time or money commitment at that point, so there was no real option in Toronto for someone like myself, who had a 9-5 job and wanted to dabble in coding. We aim to provide that opportunity. Our student base is interested to the point where they want to take a part-time course. We have some entrepreneurs in our course working on their own projects, and young professionals, looking to be better at what they do. Technology is everywhere, so having a background in web development is useful in marketing, finance etc. We teach on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:30-9:30pm for 12 weeks. So there’s 72 hours of in-class learning.

  Someone working in finance may wake up at 6am, go to work, commute to our class, and be here until 10pm. That’s a long day, so we’re pretty understanding. When they come to class, it’s just project building. We’ll have a 30-minute overview of the material and the curriculum is based on their individual goals (versus an end goal for the class). So the time commitment depends on the individual, but we have students spending upwards of 15 hours/week, and others spending 5-10 hours outside of class. Overall, it’s 15-20 hours of work per week, with 6 of those hours being in-class.

   

  What’s the cohort size for this first course?

  It’s 18 students. Our standard is a 6:1 student to TA ratio. In this first cohort, we’re trying to make sure everything runs seamlessly, so we have higher than 6:1. Our cofounders are all in the classroom as well.

   

  What are you looking for in potential students? Do applicants need to have programming or technical background?

  It depends on the course. What we envision is that the front-end program is the most beginner friendly. It’s the intro to web development- you dive into HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Responsive Design, SEO and Analytics. It’s not necessarily the fully immersive bootcamp where the goal is to get a job.

  That being said, we do aim to facilitate hiring if a student wants that. We're finding that students that came in with an original intent to get a promotion at work or authentically manage their technically team better are more interested than they thought they'd be. It’s cool to see them wanting to shift.

  The backend or mobile program is a bit more technical. It would be perfect for someone who has taken our front-end course or someone with coding experience. All of our programs begin before you get to class. We have a 50+ hour prep course laid out for you to complete before day one begins.For the mobile course, you need to be able to pick up Objective C, so you will want to have programmed before.

  Did you get a lot of applications for your first cohort?

  We did. We cap our cohorts at 24. We didn’t necessarily turn people down, but we had genuine conversations with them about the course. It’s not your typical “night class.” It’s going to be intense and quick. We chose 18 solid students who have been able to commit, and that’s been awesome.

   

  Do you have a refund policy in place in case a student doesn’t realize the pace until it’s too late?

  We have a $500 deposit, which is nonrefundable and holds your seat in the class. We had one student who was given a full refund, Andrew, because he was given a promotion at work and he wasn’t able to continue. We’re not looking to make this difficult- obviously we want to fill the cohort as a business so that we can provide the best experience possible, but life happens. That’s one thing I’m learning as a cofounder and a student, since I’m in their shoes.

   

  Of your 18 person class, how many are male vs. female?

  7 out of 18 are female. We offer a $500 automatic scholarship for women. The co-founders and our educators are passionate about getting more women into technology, and it seems that they want to also. Toronto is holding it down for the ladies! If you’ve been part of the Canadian Armed Forces or are in the US Military, we offer an automatic $500 scholarship as well.

   

  Can you give us a quick run down of the curriculum in the Front-End course?

  The topics we cover are mainly HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. On top of that, we go through UX, responsive design, typographies, popular APIs like Facebook and Twitter. Alex is one of our cofounders and also a lead educator in the classroom, and he’s made the curriculum very adaptive. We just had project week in Week 5, and now they’re shifting the curriculum based on where students are. We don’t want to get into one set curriculum- the whole point is that it’s agile. We also have some very high potential students who are constantly asking for more work. The students will come back and say, “I spent 25 hours on Sublime Text this week.” For students who can commit that amount of time, we’ll have work for you, but we don’t want to intimidate students who can’t dedicate that amount of time.

  As a student, I would be expected to do three chapters of reading, then I need to do some exercises (~5 hours) in Treehouse and Codeschool. Everyone has a personal project that we also work on. We have one student, Oliver, who has a men’s e-commerce brand. That’s really cool, because you can see that he’s so committed to building his website. We try to give projects that can be implemented into what an entrepreneur’s goals are.

   

  How are you helping students find jobs? Are you doing interview training, building a portfolio etc?

  Throughout these 12 weeks, they’re pushing everything to Github, so at the end, they’ll have a portfolio of projects. That’s sweet. We have some students who are content with their jobs, but want to enhance their learning and maybe freelance on the side. The extreme case is that a student wants us to open their eyes to the companies who are hiring in Toronto.

  The most interesting thing is when you get someone who is now a “switch-hitter”- they have an accounting background but they know how to code, so they can work for an accounting-based software company like Wave. Or someone in Marketing who can now handle a technical team. The doors open up.

  Because we’re part-time, we don’t need our own location, so we run our classes out of a coworking environment and rent out the space at night. We're running our courses out of 2 co-working spaces; Project: RHINO and The Fueling Station, as well as an accelerator, Extreme Startups.

  These spaces have small startup companies as well as more mature businesses, which is cool because in Toronto, the startup scene is something that you need to be exposed to. Coming out of university, startups weren’t a publicized option for me- the typical options are business, doctor, lawyer. This opens up their eyes to possibilities that they never knew existed. Salesforce, Pivotal Labs, Wave Accounting, Shopify, 500px, the list goes on of awesome companies that I wasn't exposed to until I began coding.

   

  If you place a student with a company, does BrainStation get a recruiting fee or does the student get a refund?

  I know that’s how a lot of the bootcamps operate. That is not how we’re going to operate. If we’re able to help students make a positive shift in their lives, that’s great. You can tell from our marketing that we don’t focus on selling the concept of getting a job. We want to focus on the education. It’s not something that will make or break our business, and we don’t expect to generate any revenue from that.

   

  Is there a demand for developers in Toronto like there is in New York and San Francisco?

  Yes! For every 7 technical jobs in Toronto, there’s only 1 qualified individual available to fill the job. The gap is there, hence all of these coding bootcamps popping up.

   

  Are you feeling pressured to get accredited or work with regulatory agencies in Canada?

  No sweat there. Since we're part-time and professional development focused, we're in the clear. We approached the Ministry of Ontario Education, in our province, just to be proactive. Last May Bitmaker Labs went through the same issues that Californian boocamps are going through now, it's brutal. Clearly Bitmaker was making a positive impact on Toronto's economy and filling the gaps that exist. Two of our founders were on the founding team at Bitmaker, which is why we were proactive right away. I get why the regulations are in place- to protect consumers- but there’s a fine line between protecting consumers and harming the economy and innovation. All of the bootcamps I've talked to in Canada are legit and there's room for all of them. Be sure to check out my Open Letter to Technology Educators, it was recently published in Techvibes. 

   

  Does Brainstation sound like the school you've been looking for? Check out their website or their School Page on Course Report!