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Launch School

Average Rating4.84
92 Reviews
2 Courses
Launch School is an online program for studious beginners whose goal is to become professional developers. The program focuses on fundamentals of programming and software engineering including core problem solving, programming language fundamentals, object-oriented programming, networking, databases, and guides students through a structured path of building up proficiency in software development.  The program consists of two main phases: Core Curriculum and Capstone. ...

92 Launch School Reviews

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  • Ben Semel
    Ben Semel
    Product Engineer
    Verified by GitHub
    Jun 24, 2022
    Overall Experience
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    N/A

    A lot of time and effort, but worth it.

    TL:DR; Launch School takes a lot of time and effort but absolutely prepares you to be a software engineer for a living, both in terms of programming knowledge and mindset. 

    I spent a little over 11 months doing the LS Core Curriculum. Probably could have taken less time- part of this whole learning experience for me was learning how to budget my time and focus effectively without any supervision. If you have no trouble with that it may take less time for you. Prior to LS, I had wo...
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  • Nick Stebbings
    Nick Stebbings
    Full stack developer
    Verified by GitHub
    Jun 09, 2022
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    A rigorous approach to learning that really works

    I have been working as a Full Stack Developer for a couple of months now, and so far feel that Launch School more than prepared me for the realities of working in the industry. I spent about 2 years working through the Core curriculum after discovering excellent reviews and realizing I needed to make a longer term commitment in order to guarantee success. I was transitioning from 7 years working in hospitality in fairly menial and low-paying jobs. This was after a period of mental ill he...
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  • Ryan
    Software Engineer
    Verified by LinkedIn
    Dec 09, 2021
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Slow is fast

    I first thought about the idea of learning to code around 2013. Some might remember the viral moment around that time that CodeAcademy had with their New Year’s resolution of learning to code. I didn’t really try, but I looked around on the Internet as to what this coding thing was all about. I came across truly random and terrible advice. I recall reading this awful blog post by someone saying that they finally learned to code by simply putting themselves in the “sweat locker” as they c...
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  • alican sungur
    alican sungur
    Software Engineer
    Verified by GitHub
    Jun 19, 2021
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance
    N/A

    Great if you are serious about engineering and thinking long-term

    I've completed the Core curriculum earlier this year. Without attending to Capstone program, I was able to find a mid-level job. 

    Core curriculum is a self-paced online course. They dive quite deep into the concepts that you need to know for modern web development. You must not compare this course with a 3-4 month bootcamp. You don't learn frameworks to make toy-applications. It's a serious start to a long software engineering career. As a successful grad, you could le...
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  • Marc'Andria Battesti
    Marc'Andria Battesti
    Verified by GitHub
    Apr 30, 2021
    Overall Experience
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    Curriculum
    Job Assistance
    N/A

    In depth curriculum and rigorous assessments

    If you're like me, you hate learning things without really understanding what's going on under the hood. LaunchSchool has "mastered" the art of mastery-based learning , to make sure you know well enough A and B before moving to a compounding subject AB. This way of learning is gratifying and forces you to deal with gray-areas in your understanding before moving on to the next unit, and they make sure of that with rigorous assessments at each stage of the way.
    Make sure you are not in ...
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  • Cody
    Software Engineer
    Verified by LinkedIn
    Mar 22, 2021
    Overall Experience
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    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Show up, Focus, and Trust the process

        In the summer of 2018 I experienced significant burnout at my job and I was miserable. The only escape from my job that I could foresee was to transition into software engineering as a career, which had only been a hobby at that point. The problem was that there was no clear path to “learn to code” without going back to college or to an expensive coding bootcamp, neither of which I could afford. Despite the plethora of free resources out there, I couldn’t find a clear path to become ...
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  • Julius Zerwick
    Julius Zerwick
    Software Engineer at DigitalOcean • Graduate
    Verified by GitHub
    May 11, 2020
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    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    From Little Experience to Software Engineer II at DigitalOcean

    My journey toward software engineering started in August 2016 after feeling unsatisfied in my job and looking to make a change toward a more fulfilling career. After several months of self-study with online resources that didn’t give a clear outline of how to progress as a developer, I chose to enroll in an online bootcamp to learn Ruby, Rails, and JavaScript in 3 months with guarantees of finding a good “junior role” by the end.

    However, after finishing the bootcamp in March 2017...
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  • Mark
    Mark
    Jun 25, 2021
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Not worth it. Not practical. Waste of time

    I’m a Javascript grad from LS and this course isn’t worth it at all. There are no projects. Self studying will take less time than LS and there is much better material out there for much cheaper. The study sessions are weird, the instructors can snitch on you to the Owner of LS if you don’t do well in the sessions. My advice would be to get on Udemy or Youtube and you can get the exact same material, with less typos and grammatical mistakes and for much much cheaper.
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    Chris Lee of Launch School

    Founder

    Jun 28, 2021

    Hi Mark,

    I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience at Launch School. I've always maintained that student-school fit is really important and just because it didn't occur here doesn't mean the student can't succeed or that the school is bad. No program can be a good fit for every student. The key, in my opinion, is being able to leave the school immediately if there's not a good fit. 

    We designed Launch School with this primary idea in mind -- that anyone can leave Launch School at any time if it doesn't feel right. I'm wondering why you decided to finish the JavaScript track despite negative feelings? If it was something that we did to make you feel that you had to stay at Launch School, please let me know as I want to improve and that's not the feeling I want people to have. We are against educational entrapment. 

    My goal is to build the most student-centric program and that, imo, centers around be transparent and allowing people to come and go as they please. Most places make it very easy to sign up but impossible to leave. We are the opposite: it's very difficult to pay us money (we require a manual admissions process), but it's very easy to leave (self service to stop anytime). 

    In any case, if you still feel wronged by your experience at Launch School, please send me an email (chris@launchschool.com) and I'll see what I an do to make it right.  
  • Conrad Beach
    Conrad Beach
    Software Developer • Graduate
    Feb 27, 2018
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    A Fantastic Development School

    I finished my time as a student at Launch School in the summer of 2017 and went on to become a full-time web developer at a really great web development consultancy in my area. My time at Launch School was a fantastic experience that gave me an awesome foundation as a developer. If you're interested in becoming a professional web developer, I'd strongly recommend checking out Launch School's program. I learned so much about quality web development, and I gained the skills and knowledge I...
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  • Luke Tower
    Luke Tower
    Software Engineer • Graduate
    Jun 03, 2015
    Overall Experience
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    Curriculum
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    Great Option for Changing Careers

    I attended Tealeaf Academy and finished the three courses they offer teaching web development with Ruby and Rails.

    When I started the course, I had no development experience. I wasn't even "technically savvy".  I was looking to transition from a career in education as an English teacher.  I am now a full-time software engineer.

    The curriculum and support that Tealeaf provides can level up a hungry student's abilities very quickly. T...

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  • Sean
    Sean
    Ruby developer • Graduate
    Jan 24, 2015
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Have gotten 2 great jobs since taking courses

    My background: Computer Science degree, decent HTML knowledge, and had a little bit of experience learning Ruby and Rails on my own.

    If you have a CS degree and want to be a Rails developer you will be a very legit developer if you make it through both Rails courses. The courses are not trivial. I worked about 3 hours a day on assignments 6 days a week for 6 and 8 week sessions.

    After completing the courses and continuing to study and build a couple projects on my own I...

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  • Zachariah Clay
    Zachariah Clay
    Graduate
    Sep 15, 2014
    Overall Experience
    Instructors
    Curriculum
    Job Assistance

    Zachariah Clay Tealeaf Review

    ** First of all, I just finished the second course out of three. I’ve learned more in those first two courses than everything I had learned on my own combined. It was the most rewarding educational experience I have ever had. Now the crazy thing is that as I am about to start the third course, I am not even half-way done with everything there is to learn at Tealeaf! If I learned that much in the first two courses, I can’t imagine what the third one is going to be like. ** I thi...

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Launch School Alumni Outcomes

Recent Launch School News

Liz Eggleston
Liz Eggleston
Updated December 26, 2023
Schools and universities may be scrambling to figure out remote learning, but coding bootcamps have essentially been preparing for this since 2013. Online coding bootcamps already use Zoom video, Slack, GitHub, and VS Code Live Share for pair programming, online lectures, and to connect mentors and instructors with students. Of course, you can learn to code online but it doesn t stop there! Maybe you ve needed to learn SQL for a while, or sharpen your data science skills, or ...
Lauren Stewart
Lauren Stewart
Updated October 21, 2020
Sun-Li Beatteay studied Oceanography in college, but after bouncing between jobs as a research tech, a barista, and a firefighter, he was ready to start a new career in tech. After a nudge from his wife who works in tech and some research online, Sun-Li found Launch School , a year-long online software engineering school. Learn how to stay motivated when learning online, whether the longer curriculum was worth it, and how this Launch School grad skipped entry-level to land a software ...
Liz Eggleston
Liz Eggleston
Updated May 10, 2022
Deferred tuition and income share agreements ( ISAs ) are becoming more widely available and can be attractive to students who don t have 20,000 in the bank. ISAs and Deferred Tuition align a school s incentives with those of their students essentially, a school isn't successful unless their students get jobs. Plus, deferred tuition and ISAs remove the barrier of an upfront tuition, expanding accessibility to a wider range of students. However, ISAs exist in a regulatory grey ...
Imogen Crispe
Imogen Crispe
Updated February 18, 2020
For some students, the traditional 12-week, full-time coding bootcamp may not seem like enough time to acquire the skills that employers want. As the coding bootcamp industry has evolved, longer coding bootcamps such as Turing, Galvanize, C4Q, Ada Developers Academy, Learner's Guild, CODE University, Holberton School, Make School, We Think Code, and 42 have emerged with courses ranging from 6 months to 5 years. These schools emphasize computer science concepts, offer ...
Liz Eggleston
Liz Eggleston
Updated December 24, 2014
NOTE This Q&A may be outdated. Tealeaf Academy is now Launch School . Matthew Barram had done some website development for his side-business, but had doubted his ability to be a full-time web developer. Based in Brisbane, Australia and too far from in-person developer bootcamps, Matthew decided on Tealeaf Academy , the online, mentored Ruby on Rails bootcamp. Find out what convinced Matthew of the Tealeaf approach, how Tealeaf manages to create a supportive cohort of ...
Liz Eggleston
Liz Eggleston
Updated August 14, 2014
Online, mentored coding bootcamps offer convenience and structure without forcing you to quit your job or move to a new city. But not all online programs were created equally, so which one is right for you? We'll learn from alumni at each online coding bootcamp, ready to answer your questions about their experience during class, how they found mentorship and community online, and how their careers have skyrocketed afterwards. Which online bootcamp is best for you? Have questions ...
Liz Eggleston
Liz Eggleston
Updated July 12, 2018
NOTE This Q&A may be outdated. Tealeaf Academy is now Launch School . Tealeaf Academy is an online, Rails bootcamp that offers three robust courses in web development for students with varying levels of experience. We talk to Kevin Wang, a cofounder of Tealeaf, about what makes their online program effective and the types of students who excel in their courses. How did Tealeaf start? What s the story behind it? We started about 2 years ago, before there were many coding bootcamps. ...

Launch School Alumni Reviews Summary

Overall Experience
4.8
Instructors
4.9
Curriculum
4.8
Job Assistance
4.8
Write A Review
More Information
Guarantees Job
Job Assistance
Includes Housing
Offers Corporate Training
Accepts GI Bill
FAQs

How much does Launch School cost?

Launch School costs around $199. On the lower end, some Launch School courses like The Capstone Program cost $0.

What courses does Launch School teach?

Launch School offers courses like Core Curriculum, The Capstone Program.

Where does Launch School have campuses?

Launch School teaches students Online in a remote classroom.

Is Launch School worth it?

Launch School hasn't shared alumni outcomes yet, but one way to determine if a bootcamp is worth it is by reading alumni reviews. 92 Launch School alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Launch School on Course Report - you should start there!

Is Launch School legit?

We let alumni answer that question. 92 Launch School alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Launch School and rate their overall experience a 4.84 out of 5.

Does Launch School offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?

Right now, it doesn't look like Launch School offers scholarships or accepts the GI Bill. We're always adding to the list of schools that do offer Exclusive Course Report Scholarships and a list of the bootcamps that accept the GI Bill.

Can I read Launch School reviews?

You can read 92 reviews of Launch School on Course Report! Launch School alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Launch School and rate their overall experience a 4.84 out of 5.

Is Launch School accredited?

While bootcamps must be approved to operate, accreditation is relatively rare. Launch School doesn't yet share information about their accreditation status.

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