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The difference between a computer science degree versus a coding bootcamp is something I often get asked about. I have put quite a bit of thought into it, since I have a second B.S. in Computer Science via OSU’s online professional CS program and have been teaching at Rithm for nearly 6 months.
Disclaimer: the opinions expressed in this blog are based on my experience with Rithm School and Oregon State University, respectively.
Happy 2018! We're excited to continue training exceptional developers in the coming year.
Part of being a great developer involves continued learning. And there's no better time to make some commitments to your own growth than the new year. With that in mind, here are some ideas for new year's resolutions that can help you become an even better engineer in 2018.
Sean Mangosing is a current student at Rithm School who is making the transition from working as a web designer for a small design firm in Emeryville to full-stack web development. Outside of his rigorous hours at Rithm, you can find Sean spending time with his family at their home in Point Richmond, listening to a wide range of music on Spotify, or getting some good old fashioned line dancing in at a country bar.
We would like to officially announce that starting with our February 2018 cohort, Rithm School will be overseeing our student placements and outcomes in-house with our very own Career Services Manager! We are very excited about this development. However, it means we will no longer be working with Outco to help place our students. This was a decision we arrived at very carefully, and in the name of transparency we would like to share our process and plans with the community.
During my tenure as a tech lead at Emsi, I had the opportunity to screen and interview a few dozen candidates for junior front-end engineering positions, and I looked at quite a few bootcamp grad applications. I want to be candid up front: I had a slight bias towards people with computer science degrees from universities (I also had one myself) over bootcamp graduates. The CS degree indicated they had spent several years thinking about challenging technical problems and could probably pick up frontend skills quickly -- even though the bootcamp grads, in theory, would be better-prepared for immediate frontend / web development type work. I was also concerned that bootcamp grads might be able to make web apps look pretty, but when it came to whiteboarding out a new algorithm (seldom as that might happen on the job), they might be all but useless compared to a CS major.
We have seen the value in providing scholarships to highly motivated web development students over the course of our tenure. The first official scholarship we offered was in late 2016, where we awarded 50% of tuition costs to mission-driven individuals with a positive impact on their community. Since then we have offered many partial scholarships based on merit and need, and one full Diversity Scholarship.
On the tails of our first scholarship, we wanted to honor future women developers alongside Women’s History Month. In March of 2017 we awarded partial scholarships to all women who were accepted to our third cohort. We were thrilled with the results of this scholarship initiative, as it resulted in a classroom comprised of 60% innovative and brilliant women.
At Rithm, we recently released three new online courses on our website: Intermediate React.js, Flask and SQL Fundamentals, and Intermediate Flask. No other coding school that we’re aware of has released so much of its curriculum online at absolutely no cost. We also recently released a course on Udemy that covers a lot of intermediate and advanced material for aspiring web developers.
At the same time, we continue to offer a full-time paid immersive program here in San Francisco. To some, these two activities -- offering free curriculum online along with paid courses in-person -- can seem incompatible. Why charge for classes when so much of the content being taught is free?
It’s November already, can you believe it? The year is almost over, and we all know what that means: the holidays are here! A joyful stretch of ugly sweaters, raucous company parties, big family gatherings and probably way too much food.
Michael Hueter recently made the move from Idaho to sunny San Francisco to join us as a lead instructor here at Rithm School. When he’s not busy acclimating to his new city or working with students, he enjoys hiking, backpacking and playing the bass, guitar and piano.
Adele Landers is a current student at Rithm School who worked as a pharmacist for the past 6 years. She graduated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City as a Doctor of Pharmacy. The first time she dabbled with coding in middle school, she built a website to showcase her pet chickens! Outside of her rigorous hours at Rithm, she enjoys skiing, camping and reading.