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In May of 2018, Blind (an anonymous community work app) released a survey that revealed that close to 60 percent of employees surveyed considered themselves burned out. With over 11,000 respondents from the biggest tech companies in the game, it verified what those in the trenches were already well-aware of: burnout in tech is ubiquitous.
At Rithm, we believe that one of the best ways to prepare students for jobs as web developers is by giving them opportunities to work on real-world projects. Working on personal projects can be fun, but working in a team or on an existing code base gives students insights into the day-to-day challenges of a developer that they might not otherwise learn. Our 8th cohort is nearing the end of working on these projects, so we spoke with our students Sarah Kaplan and Zac Bennet to get their perspective on the experience.
When we first started Rithm in 2016, we made a bet. We believed that there would be people willing to pay a bit more for an immersive coding program that placed the quality of the education and student experience first.
Two years later, we’ve proven that you can build a successful program that focuses on small class sizes and experienced instructors. Our graduates have gone on to work at top-tier companies like Pinterest and Palantir. 74% of our graduates find work within 90 days, and with a median salary of $110,000 (details here).
But there are still challenges. To date, our biggest difficulty has been making the program as affordable as possible without sacrificing quality. Our pricing has always been $24,000, which unfortunately has made our program inaccessible to many potential students. That’s why we’re excited to announce that starting with our first class next year, we’ll be adding a deferred tuition option. This means that you won’t have to pay any tuition until you find a job as an engineer.
MongoDB is a popular NoSQL database provider. Here at Rithm School we used to teach MongoDB in conjunction with Node.js. Recently, however, we have switched our Node.js curriculum to utilize PostgreSQL. For a taste of what that looks like, check out Joel's blog post or our free online curriculum on relational databases with Node/Express.
Much of the reason for this curriculum change is that relational databases, the SQL language, and ORMs can take a long time to master and are more widely-used across the industry. We decided therefore it would be best if our students could focus on mastering SQL and relational databases (the dominant database tech for the last 40 years) rather than split that time between a completely different technology that has only recently risen in popularity.
But another significant reason that I would like to argue is: MongoDB really isn't that hard to learn and master! If you're comfortable with JavaScript, JSON, and Node.js/Express.js (which all of our graduates are), then teaching yourself MongoDB can be a cakewalk. Especially if you have this blog post! 😉
We are elated to have Alissa Renz join the Rithm instruction team! You can find her teaching and supporting students throughout the course as they take the leap into full-stack web development. Here we learn a little bit more about Alissa, her role on the team and her advice to all aspiring web developers (starting with, "you got this!")
Express is a flexible framework for building server-side JavaScript web servers using Node. We teach it here at Rithm School, and students often enjoy getting a chance to use their JavaScript skills on both the front-end and back-end, using Express to build API servers.
One area that can be confusing for new users is how to handle errors well using Express. Express is so flexible that it's not clear how to make a simple, general purpose strategy for handling different kinds of errors.
To help with this, here is a simple, new-learner-friendly system for making and handling errors in Express.
When lecturing, I'm commonly asked how I move so quickly between windows, between tabs and in applications like Terminal or the browser. In this post, I’d like to briefly highlight four essential tips and tricks for becoming a faster and more productive developer.
A lot of people who decide to come like a program like Rithm's spend a lot of time trying to prepare as much as possible for the technical curriculum. We'll often get e-mails from accepted students before the program starts asking what else they can learn or study so that they'll be ahead of the curve when the program begins.
While that sort of planning and dedication is admirable, there's another aspect to immersive coding programs like ours that gets comparatively less attention, though it's no less important. I'm referring to the emotional weight of a full-time, in-person accelerated program. In this post, I'd like to outline some of the emotional challenges that students face, and provide some tips to help you address those challenges head on.
Until recently, many people thought the sole source of success boiled down to their intelligence (IQ). However, research has been emerging since the late 90’s that there is a definitive link between career success and emotional intelligence (EQ). Intelligence is your ability to learn, which remains the same whether you’re 15 or 50 years old. EQ is not a steadfast metric, it’s a flexible set of skills that can be learned and improved with practice. You may be saying to yourself “but my technical skills will speak for themselves - why should I care about this?”
Last Friday, Rithm School's seventh cohort finished the outcomes section of the course and graduated! 🎉 🎓 This was Rithm's second iteration of our in-house outcomes program, during which we had quite a few industry guest speakers come speak with students. Our guest speakers hailed from a wide range of companies from small startups like Desmos to massive corporations like Netflix. Most had substantial experience interviewing candidates, and all had sound advice to share with our students about the job search process. In this article, I have compiled what I believe to be the top three job search insights based on that experience.