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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. ...
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. The Core Curriculum uses a mastery-based learning pedagogy to teach fundamentals of software development. It takes approximately 1200-1800 hours (8-16+ months) to complete, and students can choose either a Ruby or JavaScript focused track through Core. After that, there is an optional and admissions-based Capstone Program that's focused on helping students acquire career-launching opportunities. The Capstone Program takes 4 months full-time and employs an Income Sharing Agreement where students pay after they get a job offer.
The Core Curriculum is open to everyone, and the only requirement is that people complete Launch School’s free preparatory courses. Students who complete the Capstone Program will receive career guidance, and be exposed to algorithmic thinking that employers demand.
Launch School offers a Deferred Payment Program (DPP). Students pay nothing upfront, and will begin to pay back tuition only once they land a job that pays at least $60,000.
The Core Curriculum represents the "Study" phase of Our Pedagogy (https://launchschool.com/pedagogy) and is where we employ Mastery-based Learning (https://launchschool.com/mastery) and take a bottom-up teaching philosophy to help students build long-term mental representations of progressively more sophisticated and integrated concepts. Everything in the Core Curriculum is deemed fundamental and is mandatory.
Financing
Deposit
N/A
Getting In
Minimum Skill Level
Must be in "Study" phase of learning journey. See launchschool.com/pedagogy
The Capstone Program is an optional, admissions-based, and final phase for students who have completed the Core Curriculum, which is our Mastery-Based Learning courses. The goal of the Capstone Program is to give students an intense finishing experience that results in a career-launching job. Because the end goal of Capstone is very ambitious, it requires in total 4 to 6 months of full-time focus, and possibly even longer. The first 3 months will be classroom instruction Monday-Friday all day; after that, there will be a 1-3 month Career Search process. All participants are selected among our top students from the Mastery-Based courses. It's not uncommon for Capstone participants to call it the hardest thing they've ever done. The projects, graduates, and salaries coming out of Capstone are outstanding and rival those at top-tier universities. See the Results & Outcomes page (https://launchschool.com/results).
Financing
Deposit
N/A
Tuition Plans
Launch School collects a percentage of your first year's salary as a fee when you accept your job offer.
I will start off by saying my Launch School experience has by far exceeded any expectations I had when signing up. I have grown as a person and professional in ways I couldn't even have imagined. It's not just a school for software engineering, but rather a school for equipping its students with a completely overhauled and highly optimized mindset, as well as a 500 pc LS toolset, with a lifetime warranty, for use in constructing your new future. Furthermore, don't be intimidated by the ...
I will start off by saying my Launch School experience has by far exceeded any expectations I had when signing up. I have grown as a person and professional in ways I couldn't even have imagined. It's not just a school for software engineering, but rather a school for equipping its students with a completely overhauled and highly optimized mindset, as well as a 500 pc LS toolset, with a lifetime warranty, for use in constructing your new future. Furthermore, don't be intimidated by the words 'software engineer', that term encompasses many topics. You can always explore any of these topics further and/or focus on one or more as a career. In addition, you will be a more complete and valued developer/engineer as a result of having a mastery of the other fundamentals. Once you truly "learn how to learn" you will notice yourself applying these life-altering principles across all areas of your life. Prior to Launch School, I had been working in front-end web development for close to 8 years. In order to paint a fuller picture, I first have to share a bit of my background. I graduated High School in 1999, technology for the most part wasn't even a blip on my radar. If you were lucky enough to have a cell phone it most definitely wasn't smart, it was $16.53 per minute, $3.49 for sending a text message, and you had the 15-minute monthly plan with no rollover. I'm exaggerating a little, but not much. Anyways, I had taken one business/computer course in 10th grade, and I think we may have used Geocities for an hour or two to create drag and drop web pages with fire gifs and blinking text. Even for those times, it looked horrendous and served no purpose whatsoever. That was the extent of my intro to CompSci, and I was probably fortunate to get that versus other people of my age and complexion. Long story short, I attended Bowling Green State University following high school with the intent to play football and study sports marketing, but 1 week into school my girlfriend at the time let me know she was pregnant. 2 semesters later I was back home. However, while at BGSU a buddy of mine gave me a proper introduction to computers and emulators. My grades may have been better if not for that NES emulator! After coming back home, I worked menial jobs for a few years before taking a job with a guy who contracted for FedEx Home Delivery back when it first launched. A little less than a year later I owned the route. It was decent money for a person my age, but the burnout and turnover rates were real. It was a stressful job, one poor guy even had a heart attack one morning while arguing with a manager. But, like I said the money was good and at the time it was allowing me to finance a side hustle co-producing a DVD Magazine. Unless you're 30 and up you may have never heard of a DVD Magazine, but they were pretty popular back in the early 2000's. Ultimately, we could see that everything was moving to the web and we wanted to be first. We were trying to build something along the lines of a World Star Hip-Hop before it was the “WOOORRLLDDD STAAARRR” we know now. Unfortunately, none of us knew how to code, nor did we know anybody who could code. Back then, companies were charging up around $100k for what would now be a $10-15k WordPress site. This price point is what ultimately led me to the path I am on today. A long and strenuous journey up several towering mountains, and down into many low valleys, but finally, I HAVE ARRIVED! Launch School is what got me to where I am now, but as I mentioned, I have been in web development for the last 8 years. After striking out in our many attempts to secure development, I ultimately decided to go back to school and learn how to build a website in the summer of 2011. I attended a private institution and graduated with an A.A.S. focused on digital design. While attending school, I realized then, that I wasn't going to get the necessary skill set needed to actually build anything other than a static website, or hack something together using WordPress. Unfortunately, by this point, I was 3 semesters in and $25k down, in what was a 4-semester program. So, I saw it through and finished up, grappling with the knowledge that I had just dropped $30k in what I could have learned at the local community college for $5k, and still didn't know how to program. I share these numbers in part to let you know, "don't live with regret, forgo the debt." So more debt was out of the question in terms of procuring the programming knowledge I would need. This sent me down the spiraling path of tutorial hell. Yes, tutorial hell is just as scary as it sounds. It is an endless cycle of tutorials, death by a thousand cuts style, in which you take millimeter-sized steps in completing a 30k marathon. Eventually, I did bite the bullet a few years into the struggle and enrolled in a PHP certification course at the local community college. I felt more confused after the class than I was going into it. But that's not all, I also purchased around 30 Udemy courses, a $400 course on Coursera, completed several tracks in Treehouse, Freecodecamp, Codeacademy, KahnAcademy, audited several Edx courses, and had various subscriptions to other platforms throughout the years. With all that, I probably learned 30% of what I've learned in just a little over a year at Launch School. To be honest in writing this, I have no clue why, or how, I stuck with it. But damn, am I thankful I did. Finally, I'm going to let you in on why Launch School is so amazing. First, the cost, LS is $200/mo or $2400/yr. At one point during the height of COVID, they were also providing financial assistance to students in need, but I'm not sure if that's still going on. A typical 3-4 month boot camp is $15k on the low-end. Second, integrity, they not only tell you but show you, in their free and extensive prep course, exactly what you're in for. Third, the curriculum is second to none. It is so in-depth and the assessments are like nothing I've ever experienced, the standard they hold you to is almost infuriating at first. That's until you get through it and can look back to appreciate it for what it is. The sense of accomplishment is unreal when you finish a module. Lastly, and this could have been number one, the community, the community of people are diverse, helpful, and super friendly. When you ask a question, it's usually answered within minutes. If you've ever learned online then you know what it's like to wait 2 days, if it ever gets answered, on a submitted question. You're connecting with a network of people. Folks that graduated years ago and are senior engineers are still on Slack providing newbies feedback and advice. The founder and TA's are consistently online providing more resources, articles, advice, study groups, etc. Currently, I have 2 modules left to complete in the CORE Curriculum, and I have a goal in mind to finish by August. It would have been sooner, but due to money getting tight with COVID I had to start my job search somewhat early. As soon as I put open to opportunities on my LinkedIn profile my inbox was flooded with recruiters. Not soon after, I landed a 6 figure job, which was much more than I expected. Prior to accepting the offer, I was telling recruiters/employers I was looking for $75-80k/yr. After a couple of weeks of interviewing, I was turning down offers at that dollar amount. During my interviews, I was complimented several times on my Problem Solving abilities using the techniques provided by LS. The coding challenges were actually much easier than the problem sets Launch School provides. I just want to touch briefly on job assistance, since it is not a direct offering of the CORE Curriculum. I would say it's provided indirectly. As mentioned above, the LS community provides most advice that may be needed, even going as far as to look over a resume or LinkedIn profile. Just the other day, I read an article on what counts as work experience. There have also been several posts on the forums from former grads/students that their current company is hiring. It seems to me once a company gets one grad, they seek out other LS students. For me, providing the tools necessary to nail the technical portion of the interview was all the assistance I needed. I know what you may be thinking, that I had previous experience. This is true and it did help some, but for the most part, the job offers I had didn't really take my past experience into account because I was self-employed and most of my work didn't involve much programming or custom development. Just talking the talk, using technical jargon was not a skill I had over a year ago. Most importantly, prior to Launch School, I most definitely did not have the problem-solving skills necessary to effectively work on a team producing globally scaled applications.
If you have been considering a change and have any interest in some type of development, do yourself a favor and enroll in the prep course. It cost you nothing to get started but can provide you everything you've hoped for if you see it through. My only regret is that I didn't find Launch School sooner.
Test Engineer • Graduate • Core Curriculum • Online
Verified by GitHub
Feb 08, 2024
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Now I Know How to Learn
Launch School drilled the fundamentals of software engineering into me. I work on a software development team and can now converse well with software engineers about technical topics I used to struggle with before signing up to Launch School.
Learning the fundamentals so thoroughly has also left me much more confident about, and able to, quickly pick up back-end and front-end frameworks, as well as understanding how fully-fledged web applic...
Launch School drilled the fundamentals of software engineering into me. I work on a software development team and can now converse well with software engineers about technical topics I used to struggle with before signing up to Launch School.
Learning the fundamentals so thoroughly has also left me much more confident about, and able to, quickly pick up back-end and front-end frameworks, as well as understanding how fully-fledged web applications work internally.
The biggest takeaway for me was learning how to learn. I am now confident that I'll be able to learn whatever I want to in the future. The assessment feedback I received was detailed and thorough, and gave me lots of information that I used to improve my learning and technical skills.
All in all, I know I can work through a number of interesting yet difficult technical books and not feel the need to give up. That knowledge and confidence is priceless - and what mastery-based learning leaves you with. I have the Core Curriculum to thank for that (particularly the assessments I failed!).
Launch School has certainly changed the course of my career in tech and has left me empowered. I can take that all the way to retirement (and beyond!)
Software Engineer • Graduate • The Capstone Program • Online
Verified by GitHub
Feb 04, 2024
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A remarkably thoroughly, high quality program
It's been a few years since I graduated from this program, and I've only got good things to say.
A few years in the industry, and my subsequent job experience has given me context on the way the program is taught. As others have mentioned, the core curriculum is a self-paced part of the program, and this has been designed to ensure success for everyone willing to put in the hard-work -- not just the geniuses! New topics are not introduced until you have mastery of pre-requisites (...
It's been a few years since I graduated from this program, and I've only got good things to say.
A few years in the industry, and my subsequent job experience has given me context on the way the program is taught. As others have mentioned, the core curriculum is a self-paced part of the program, and this has been designed to ensure success for everyone willing to put in the hard-work -- not just the geniuses! New topics are not introduced until you have mastery of pre-requisites (it's literally not made accessible, and I think that's a genius pedagogical move). Even within courses, the material is broken down into absorbable, well-written text. There's a lot of early emphasis on learning how to learn, and developing a habit of asking good questions.
There is TA support, and lots of avenues for asking clarifying doubts. The assessments for each course are fairly demanding, but once you're done with them, you walk away with confidence that you've really learned the topic.
Once you've finished the Core Curriculum, if you choose to do Capstone, that flips the script into going to synchronous, discussion-heavy coverage of topics like DS/Algos, System Design and modern full-stack app development. Having a peer group of hard-working, technically sound people facilitates high quality conversations, and their guidance on Capstone projects is remarkably well-geared to what's in demand in the job market.
As a neurodivergent person, the structure and organisation of the program set me up for success in a way that I hadn't yet found, despite attending well-regarded conventional institutions. If you're willing to work hard, this is the best way to learn to code, and then become a professional software engineer.
Software Engineer • Graduate • The Capstone Program • Online
Verified by GitHub
Jan 31, 2024
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Life Changing Experience
When I completed the Launch School and Capstone program in 2023, I faced a challenging job market in the tech industry. Despite this, I can confidently say that this experience was instrumental in my successful transition into the field. The program's bottom-up approach, emphasizing core programming concepts, was not only crucial for excelling in interviews but also invaluable in my daily role as a software engineer. This strong foundation enabled me to quickly understand and excel in co...
When I completed the Launch School and Capstone program in 2023, I faced a challenging job market in the tech industry. Despite this, I can confidently say that this experience was instrumental in my successful transition into the field. The program's bottom-up approach, emphasizing core programming concepts, was not only crucial for excelling in interviews but also invaluable in my daily role as a software engineer. This strong foundation enabled me to quickly understand and excel in complex, integrated concepts at work, marking a significant departure from my previous career.
The Capstone program played a vital role in bridging the gap between academic knowledge and practical skills. Having been employed as a software engineer for the past year, I realize the program was akin to an introduction to the realities of a software engineering job. Engaging in tangible projects and producing concrete results, I not only developed technical expertise but also gained confidence. This experience significantly enhanced my resume, making me a more attractive candidate to future employers.
A distinctive aspect of my educational journey was the project work I undertook with my team, which provided real-world team experience and taught me valuable lessons I continue to apply. The Capstone program stands out from other bootcamps because it allowed me to discuss challenges I faced while working with an engineering team. The team experience at Capstone effectively simulates the environment of a startup, developing and delivering a unique product.
Transitioning to a significant role in the tech industry, I can vouch for the life-changing impact of the Launch School and Capstone program. This wasn't just a job shift, but a substantial career leap, facilitated by a meticulously crafted curriculum and a supportive network. In my current role and in any future positions, I would confidently recommend Capstone graduates for any role in my company, knowing well the comprehensive preparation and skills they bring. Launch School and Capstone didn't just teach me how to code; they paved the way for a transformative career journey.
Full Stack Engineer • Graduate • The Capstone Program • Online
Verified by LinkedIn
Jan 23, 2024
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Challenging But As Advertised
I am extremely grateful I stumbled across Launch School's website while I was ten pages deep into a random Reddit thread reviewing coding programs. Launch School has changed my life, and I don't want anyone else to miss the opportunity. TLDR;1 . Launch School is not easy, but you have a great community of staff and students who want you to succeed.2. Launch School, for me, was a lifestyle. I dedicate...
I am extremely grateful I stumbled across Launch School's website while I was ten pages deep into a random Reddit thread reviewing coding programs. Launch School has changed my life, and I don't want anyone else to miss the opportunity. TLDR;1 . Launch School is not easy, but you have a great community of staff and students who want you to succeed.2. Launch School, for me, was a lifestyle. I dedicated ~20+ hrs a week to my studies. 3. Launch School is an investment. You will be paying ~$200/month Despite all of this, it was 100% worth it. I increased my salary 6x going through the Capstone program. I have savings. I have disposable income. I found my thing. If you are a motivated, self disciplined person, you can land a role in tech.The Core Curriculum is a great place to start, and many folks can get jobs upon completing this stage. I would encourage people to seriously consider the Capstone program as well. You will get an amazing "on-the-job" simulaiton that will prepare you for those coveted mid/senior level roles.
Senior Software Engineer • Graduate • The Capstone Program • Online
Verified by LinkedIn
Oct 15, 2023
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The Core & Capstone Experience
The combination of the Core curriculum and Capstone is a very thoughtfully designed system, and one of the most fun and rewarding journeys I’ve been on as a student. The focus on fundamentals in Core provides an effective set of tools to define and solve problems, while also helping you gain a high degree of familiarity with programming languages and their unique characteristics. There is plenty of practice, a great community and TA sessions to help you overcome any difficulties, and the...
The combination of the Core curriculum and Capstone is a very thoughtfully designed system, and one of the most fun and rewarding journeys I’ve been on as a student. The focus on fundamentals in Core provides an effective set of tools to define and solve problems, while also helping you gain a high degree of familiarity with programming languages and their unique characteristics. There is plenty of practice, a great community and TA sessions to help you overcome any difficulties, and the self-paced nature offers a lot of flexibility and freedom so that you can genuinely enjoy the process of learning. The rigorous approach offers a deeper look at what you are learning and why - for example, learning the fundamentals of a language before using complex tooling and libraries, or properly understanding databases before jumping into using an ORM. To supplement this, Capstone offers a thorough transition into exploring and dealing with industry-standard software engineering problems. Working together with a team for months on a challenging issue exposes you to many different aspects of software engineering work such as debugging, estimations, and picking up relevant knowledge very quickly. It also gives you the opportunity to understand and deal with uncertainty, vaguely defined problems, and teamwork issues - these are important skills that will set you apart from many other engineers. The exploratory process of the program allows you to come in contact with a wide variety of tools, architectures, and patterns that are commonly used in both small and large software companies and teams. Due to its constant updates and real world feedback, you can trust that you are learning about highly relevant concepts. It is rare to find a place where you can team up with people who possess a shared sense of commitment, timelines, and expectations, along with a competency in software engineering that can enable you to tackle and solve meaningful problems. 6 months into my job as a software engineer on a platform team, I’m able to grasp and contribute to architecture discussions, systems design decisions, and implementation details. Additionally, Launch School’s focus on the clarity and precision of language pays dividends when communicating with teams and engineers across an organization, or writing effective documentation. Most importantly, Launch School has introduced me to great engineers who are also great people, and helped me gain the skills and temperament to be a capable and reliable software engineer. After you land a job, you also get to join a very experienced and engaged alumni network! Launch School is the best option available for anyone looking to transition into the field, and your trust will be rewarded not just with tangible results, but a great community and a memorable experience.
Software Engineer • Graduate • The Capstone Program • Online
Verified by LinkedIn
Oct 15, 2023
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From Mid-Life Career Transition to Six-Figure SWE Job
As someone making a mid-life career transition, Launch School gave me the tools to do what I thought would have been impossible a few years ago: land a mid-level software engineering role with a six-figure salary, while having no prior experience in a tech-related field or even a related degree. For me the stakes were pretty high coming into this career transition: I have two kids and was coming from a career where the pay was already high, so I really needed to be able to skip the entry...
As someone making a mid-life career transition, Launch School gave me the tools to do what I thought would have been impossible a few years ago: land a mid-level software engineering role with a six-figure salary, while having no prior experience in a tech-related field or even a related degree. For me the stakes were pretty high coming into this career transition: I have two kids and was coming from a career where the pay was already high, so I really needed to be able to skip the entry-level junior roles to make the transition to software engineering worthwhile. And that's exactly what Capstone and the entire Launch School experience prepared me for.
What I love about Launch School is that the approach doesn't focus just on getting a job but rather on launching a rewarding, long-term career in software engineering. And that to me is probably the most significant difference between Launch School and a traditional bootcamp where the bar is simply to get the proverbial foot in the door: as a Capstone graduate you are truly positioned to compete for mid- to senior-level roles if you put in the work and that's what you want.
But make no mistake: it's a long, difficult (yet highly rewarding) journey to get through Capstone and the Core Curriculum that comes before it. It took me 3 years (including a 7-month break) from first enrolling into Core to securing a job after completing Capstone. Could I have gotten a job 1-2 years earlier had I gone to a traditional bootcamp instead? Possibly. Would it have been worth it? Absolutely not. Capstone put me in a position to start my career 3-5 years ahead of where I would have landed had I attended a traditional bootcamp, with a salary $50K+ higher. So while the path to a career in software engineering took longer through Launch School, my starting point is higher with way more upside potential— and not just because of the higher salary, but because of the knowledge, skills and experience acquired along the way that enabled me to land that job in the first place.
So all in all, I am incredibly grateful to Launch School: for the high quality curriculum, for the low-risk cost structure, for every staff member invested in my success along the way, and for putting me on a path to a life-changing career. For anyone who is serious about making the transition to a career in software engineering and has the time and resources to do it, I would recommend Launch School without hesitation.
Software Engineer • Graduate • The Capstone Program • Online
Verified by LinkedIn
Jun 26, 2022
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Genuine, rigorous, and effective
I ran across Launch School after about a year of trying to teach myself coding with low-cost online resources. I was working full-time, and my efforts up to that point had not been too successful. But the moment I started reading Launch School materials was the moment my studies started building towards something bigger. “This process will take longer than you want it to, but if you take your time and do things the right way, it will be worth it.” It was a message I didn’t...
I ran across Launch School after about a year of trying to teach myself coding with low-cost online resources. I was working full-time, and my efforts up to that point had not been too successful. But the moment I started reading Launch School materials was the moment my studies started building towards something bigger. “This process will take longer than you want it to, but if you take your time and do things the right way, it will be worth it.” It was a message I didn’t really want to hear after I had already put a year into the effort, but a message I knew that I needed to hear anyway. No other course I had tried was stating this truth so clearly and honestly. I knew up front that the first two or three months of Launch School would cover material that I already knew well, and I would feel a bit frustrated at first about “starting over”. Nevertheless, I jumped in right away, with the realistic expectation that it might take another two years or more before I could accept a job offer.
Friends and family were incredulous when I shared my excitement about this program, but there was no reason for me not to be hopeful. The pedagogy–starting from the ground up, building mastery of fundamentals, verifying the knowledge of students before allowing them to continue, and slowly building confidence through that verification–made all the sense in the world to me. And Launch School had the results to back up their claims, not only with numbers, but with real people. Engineers with credentials, people who had been through the process and were now working for amazing companies, were hanging around in the chat channels, answering questions and talking about their work. I trusted the process from the beginning because I was convinced that everything about Launch School was genuine.
To make a long story short, the process worked. The Core Curriculum taught me the fundamental concepts I needed, and at my own part-time pace. Capstone extended and integrated that knowledge by cultivating it in a dedicated, full-time, team-based environment. Working every day with other students, and with program graduates as mentors, I was able to learn interviewing skills and contribute to the development of an amazing product. I began to feel proficient. Capstone prepared me so well for the hiring process that, once I finally started interviewing, I was full of confidence, and there were no surprises. I knew I belonged in those hiring pools because Capstone had given me the preparation I needed.
After finishing Capstone, I secured a job as a Senior Software Engineer within six weeks, with essentially the Capstone average salary–a higher salary that I had originally hoped for. Now it’s been a year since I graduated. I’m at a company where I love to work, and I’m able to jump into any task or project that interests me and find my way thanks to my strong background in the fundamentals. I work at a company that supports continuing education, gives me a voice in what projects I work on, and has a clear path to promotion and career development. My family is able to buy a new house. And honestly, this is all thanks to Launch School. I was nowhere close to making this kind of progress after a year of self-study. But after less than two years in Launch School, I had everything that I needed to get a great job as an engineer and build a lifelong career. The same has been true for many others, and I would recommend Launch School, the Core Curriculum and Capstone, as an excellent choice for anyone who is interested in starting a career in software engineering.
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...
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 worked at an academic research lab where I coded in Matlab- most of my knowledge was gained through basically flailing at stuff until it worked, which is to say I had some practical experience but didn't have a ton of knowledge of what I was actually doing. LS gives you all the info you need, but in a way that's agnostic to language- you learn about the concept itself, and the concept is illustrated through code. This makes it way easier down the line to apply these concepts to different languages, and I have personal experience with this- I did the Javascript path but my first contract work I got while doing the program was TypeScript, and my job now is the ASP.NET framework, so primarily C#. I haven't written a single line of vanilla JS professionally, and that hasn't been an issue.
A big point of emphasis at LS is mentality and committing to the process- you will need to take this to heart if you want to do this program. It takes a long time to complete and it's pretty much entirely self-driven. The flipside of that is now that I have a software engineering job where I get paid twice as much as my previous work and I actually enjoy what I do (and I have a boss giving me assignments), I have no shortage of motivation to get up and go to work. One thing they emphasize is that you will spend your entire career learning, learning, learning- that definitely seems to be the consensus among professional software engineers that I've worked with thus far, and keeping the mentality of a forever learner has helped me a lot with picking up new info and staying humble. Software engineering is a field that is constantly evolving with new languages, new features, etc- get used to being humble (learner's mentality) and taking time to learn new stuff. You will never know everything. "The only thing I know is that I know nothing at all." (When you get a job after finishing the program, this is not the quote to give your boss if you cause a production outage.)
Additionally, the LS community is awesome- generally, everyone is humble and looking to get better. It's very easy to get help/get a study partner/practice interview questions/find someone to do a project with/whatever else. Instructors answer questions helpfully and quickly, and give useful feedback on assignments you complete throughout the course. You're not going to be spoonfed, but I would not hesitate to say I really enjoyed learning from LS instructors when I asked them questions.
I would definitely recommend this program to anyone looking to become a software engineer and willing to put in the time and effort. (Also, as of the writing of this review, it's $200/month- I spent $2400 to completely pivot careers. Compared to what I was making at my old job, I'll make that back in 2~ pay periods. Not bad)
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...
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 health in my late-teens & early twenties which meant I had to leave university without a degree. I was actually travelling, manually setting up a travel blog, when I realized that I enjoyed the coding aspect and started to look for a learning course. After trying the free introductory material and enjoying the no-frills but comprehensive approach, I was inspired to continue - although slightly apprehensive at the thought of building a new career in my 30s. I spent the next 3.5 years travelling around New Zealand, working sometimes in my camper van, sometimes in libraries, co-working spaces or rented accommodation. I had to stop several times to save more money for studies, mostly working in cafes. I studied mostly part time but did manage period of full time study, crucially for the first month or two when I was able to establish good habits that stuck with me. After a year of study I started to realize I was becoming very competent and didn't really have any doubt (just a bit of impatience) that I would be able to find work. Following the example of some other students who had got jobs after Core without doing Capstone (something I could not easily due to time-zone/location), I decided to focus on making one standout project to display my skills. This involved learning many new libraries and a couple of new frameworks but the process was relatively straight-forward with my new powers of just-in-time learning. A few months before my temporary visa in New Zealand expired, I landed a job at a small software engineering firm. The firm pays above average for my experience level and location here in NZ. They are now helping me get a longer term visa. The combination of these things will be very life-changing and it truly does feel just in time! I have already noticed that my skills are enough to execute my position competently and I am also able to help out/answer questions from more experienced developers. For a slower but more guaranteed route to success in software I don't hesitate to recommend Launch School to others"
Before Launch School, I got part-way through The Odin Project and Free Code Camp, and was frustrated that things just weren't clicking for me. I now realize that I wasn't learning in the best way, and part of what makes Launch School's curriculum so great is that they have an emphasis on improving your learning process. In addition, they teach the fundamentals from the ground up so you don't feel lost. Each part of the curriculum builds things up slowly so you have a full understanding ...
Before Launch School, I got part-way through The Odin Project and Free Code Camp, and was frustrated that things just weren't clicking for me. I now realize that I wasn't learning in the best way, and part of what makes Launch School's curriculum so great is that they have an emphasis on improving your learning process. In addition, they teach the fundamentals from the ground up so you don't feel lost. Each part of the curriculum builds things up slowly so you have a full understanding of how things work and how to fix bugs in your code. Another thing that Launch School does that is missing in other classes is teaching you how to figure things out for yourself. Anyone can follow a tutorial, but employers are looking for people who can look at a problem and figure out what they need to learn in order to solve it. Launch School gives you the tools to do that, while providing a supportive community of classmates and teachers who are there to answer questions when you need help. I also liked the exam format, which was challenging but gave me confidence that I really understood the material. Finally, the goal is to get a job after this and I found that the Core Curriculum gave me the foundation to do so. I built a couple of projects and a personal portfolio website with the knowledge and skills I gained from Core Curriculum, and was able to get a job within 6 weeks of starting to apply. I even had a few recruiters reach out to me based on the quality of my projects! I have been in my current position for 3 months now and have gotten excellent feedback from my manager and fellow developers. I have been given some assignments that required me to learn new things quickly, and I felt confident in my ability to do so because of what I learned at Launch School. If you want to have a good career as a software developer, I highly recommend enrolling in Launch School!
Fullstack Engineer at Mozilla (Firefox Desktop) • Graduate • The Capstone Program • Online
Verified by LinkedIn
Mar 12, 2022
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If you put in the work, Launch School can change your career (and life) trajectory
Completing Launch School's Core Curriculum and Capstone program was one of the best decisions I've made in my life. Launch School helped me build strong programming fundamentals, and Capstone taught me essential software engineering skills. Those two things allowed me to land an excellent software engineering position at Mozilla working on the Firefox browser.
The fundamentals Launch School teaches are table stakes for interviews for good engineering roles. You need to be able to ...
Completing Launch School's Core Curriculum and Capstone program was one of the best decisions I've made in my life. Launch School helped me build strong programming fundamentals, and Capstone taught me essential software engineering skills. Those two things allowed me to land an excellent software engineering position at Mozilla working on the Firefox browser.
The fundamentals Launch School teaches are table stakes for interviews for good engineering roles. You need to be able to break a problem down in a PEDAC-like way and clearly explain your approach. And you'll need to do this within a time limit and under pressure. In my job hunt, I encountered many interviews that were remarkably similar to Launch School live-coding assessments. There's no way I would have been as successful in real-life interviews if it weren't for those Launch School assessments.
In Capstone, you pivot from just programming to the larger world of software engineering. It's a big jump, but you'll definitely get the structure and support you need to pull it off. Capstone is heavily optimized to help you land the best software engineering role you possibly can - that's its only goal. So the curriculum is constantly being updated to reflect what students are seeing in their job hunts. (The two times I shared experiences from my job search, within a day, a Capstone staff member had updated the curriculum to incorporate those experiences.) You'll also have access to a large collection of real coding challenges students have gotten in recent interviews.
And then the Capstone project! This is a large-scale, technically challenging project that you'll complete as part of a fully remote team. For me, the benefit was two-fold: 1) I grew tremendously as a software engineer by working on this project, and 2) the project played really well in interviews. It showed my interviewers I was able to understand a problem domain, have deep technical discussions and consider engineering tradeoffs. I also drew heavily from my project to answer behavioral questions and to prove I had solid experience working as part of a remote team.
I could go on for days about Launch School. But I'll just say that, if you put in the work, Launch School absolutely delivers on its promise of a career-launching software engineering job.
Mastery based learning that prepares you learn anything else
When I found Launch School in my search for an avenue to enter Software Engineering, I was honestly a little annoyed. The slow path to mastery? What a devastatingly honest slogan. I'd rather something flashy, thanks.
But after sitting with it for awhile, with the experience and background of an educator myself, I knew it was the truth. In order to master something, you have to give yourself time. You need to learn from someone who knows more than you, can see the path fur...
When I found Launch School in my search for an avenue to enter Software Engineering, I was honestly a little annoyed. The slow path to mastery? What a devastatingly honest slogan. I'd rather something flashy, thanks.
But after sitting with it for awhile, with the experience and background of an educator myself, I knew it was the truth. In order to master something, you have to give yourself time. You need to learn from someone who knows more than you, can see the path further than you, and has your long-term best interest in mind. The more I looked into the pedagogy, curriculum, and goals, the more I came to trust. Once I decided, I dove headlong.
The end result? After I completed the Core curriculum and Capstone, I landed a Software Engineering role at a well-known tech company making over 3x my teacher salary; and it only took me 4 weeks to find it. I even had to turn down other great offers! And don't even get me started on how awesome my co-workers are.
What was my secret? I trusted Launch School and did what they said. Literally, that's it. The thing about mastery is it's not complicated — but it does take time, discipline, consistency, and really good guidance. The Core Curriculum sets you up to subsequently learn absolutely anything. Though you're drinking from a firehouse in Capstone, it was still incredibly doable because our foundation was ridiculously secure.
In addition to changing my life through my career, Launch School changed me as a person. I'm now a problem-solver. Instead of getting frustrated, I get curious. Instead of giving up because "whatever it doesn't work," I look closer, investigate, and figure it out. Even my loved ones have noticed. Launch School has made me a better overall person because it's given me the confidence, the paradigm, and the experience to know that I can actually learn to do anything.
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 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?
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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