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About The Program

  • HTML, CSS and JavaScript (Prework)
  • Advanced JavaScript concepts
  • Server-side Programming with Python
  • Database Management and Configuration
  • Web security
  • Architecture with Python & Postgres
  • Architecture with Node.js & SQL
  • React with Hooks
  • Introduction to TypeScript
  • Hardware and Systems Design
  • Computer Science Fundamentals
  • Data Structures + Algorithms
  • Interview Prep

Look at Our Curriculum in Depth

Rithm’s web development program is a 17-week experience that will support you as you become a confident and creative developer. For the first three months, you’ll be in the classroom full-time learning to code with a small number of other students. We cap our classes at 18 – 20 students so that you’ll have plenty of opportunities to code with experienced programmers. For the final month, you’ll be preparing to enter the competitive job market. Learn more about our Program.

No, we are committed to providing face-to-face full-time instruction, whether online or in person. If you need a part-time option, we recommend you check out our curriculum on Springboard.

We welcome anyone who is within four time zones of San Francisco, CA, to attend remotely. If you are farther away than that, and cannot move closer, we recommend this Springboard program which utilizes our curriculum.

We believe it does not matter what language you learn as a student. We’re more interested in teaching you how to never stop learning. That being said, we chose JavaScript and Python because they are foundational languages that easily facilitate conversations about core programming concepts. We are also in constant conversation with our hiring partners, and we know what kind of developers they want to hire. Right now, JavaScript and Python developers are in demand.

We think around 11 weeks is the perfect length of time to dive deeply into programming concepts. Any longer than that and students tend to lose focus and burn out. We add an additional 3 weeks dedicated to getting students real world experience and another 3 weeks for interview prep so that you’ll have plenty of time and energy to concentrate on finding your first development job while still getting the support you need. Look at our program in detail.

Absolutely! All class exercises are completed in pairs and the entire professional project period is worked on in pairs. We strongly believe pair programming is a fantastic way to level up web development and social engineering skills.

Students & Culture

Rithm strives to cultivate a strong learning community where each individual student is a self-motivated, curious, and persistent learner. Web development is challenging, and your success will be largely determined by your ability to continue to stay engaged with your code despite a seemingly never-ending series of stumbling blocks.

Great programmers come from all walks of life, and we find that the thing that they all have in common is a positive attitude under pressure.

Rithm wants you to succeed. Our rigorous interview process is designed so that if you get in, we believe you have what it takes to finish. If for some reason, though, you fall behind in your coursework in the first 4 weeks, we’ll begin a conversation with you to decide whether or not it’s worth your time, energy, and money to continue. If it makes more sense to part ways, we’ll return your tuition (less your deposit) – no harm, no foul.

We’ve taught students of all ages and backgrounds. It’s common for students to have had exciting lives and careers before transitioning into software development. We’ve taught musicians, Hot Topic employees, Uber drivers, teachers, nurses, woodworkers, lawyers, massage therapists, veterans, scientists, and more!

Our program is intense, but not unmanageable. We don’t hold classes for 12 hours a day or over the weekend. We don’t want you coding into the night—in fact, we wrap up class at 6 pm each day. There are resources and reading materials we’ll ask you to review after class, and we do that so that you’ll be able to maximize the time during the day when you have access to our instructional staff. You’ll have some work to do over the weekend, but you’ll still have time left over to rest and prepare for the next week. 

As a student, you’ll spend a lot of time pair programming, working through our curriculum or on your own projects. Instructors will lecture on concepts and lead the class through code reviews. Periodically, there will be events and guest lectures that students will have the option of attending. 

What's Required

We ask a lot of our students. There are 60-80 hours of prework to be completed before your program starts.

You’ll spend three full months in class; days will be approximately 9:30-6 PST.

After that, you’ll be shifting your focus to the job hunt. During the job prep portion of the course you’ll still be studying at Rithm full-time.

Financially, the commitment is your initial deposit of $3,000, due when you’re admitted to Rithm, plus the balance of your tuition. You can either pay the $21,000 upfront or pay in two or four installments. Note that if you pay in installments, there is a one-time additional financing fee of $500. Take a look at our lending partners who can help you finance your tuition.

We tell students to budget ~100 hours for the prework, to be completed over the course of four weeks. In addition to completing the free material on the site covering Terminal Basics, Git/GitHub, HTML, CSS, and foundational JavaScript, you’ll also be given several other assignments. These may consist of solving additional JS problems, building a static webpage, creating some fun, interactive games, and/or other similar tasks. After completing these projects, you’ll be ready to step into the Rithm classroom, take full advantage of our instructors’ expertise, and level up quickly.

You’ll need a decent computer that was made in the last three years.

  • It can be an Intel processor, an M1/M2/M3 (MacOS), or an ARM64 (Windows/Linux).
  • It can run MacOS (Big Sur or Monterey), Windows (10 or 11), or Ubuntu Linux (20.04 or newer).
  • It needs to have at least 8GB of RAM and at least 50GB of free hard drive space.
  • If your computer is several years old, it’s probably best to buy a new computer — it’s a good investment in your career.
  • If you’re buying a new computer, you don’t need anything super-powerful (generally, web development doesn’t require amazing specs compared with video editing or gaming). A recent Macbook Air is a fine computer and what many of the staff use.
  • Many students find an external monitor helpful, but this is not at all required.
  • We always tell students that printer is a very helpful accessory — many students have found having printouts of the lecture notes are much better for note-taking than fiddling with their computer during the lecture. Of course, though, that’s optional.

The days here are packed with instructional content and experiential learning. It’s possible to catch up if you miss a day or two due to illness, but it’s challenging to miss much more than that.

We’ve seen students receive job offers before graduation. However, finding your first development position is an arduous process and we recommend that people budget for 3-6 months of full-time job hunting, possibly more when the job market is in a challenging place.

Financing Your Tuition

We have a few different financing options for your tuition. You can either:

  • Pay a $3,000 deposit and remaining $21,000 upfront at once, or split into two or four payments.
  • Pay a $3,000 deposit and remaining $21,000 (plus living expenses, if desired) through a loan.
  • Pay a $3,000 deposit and use an Income Share Agreement to pay the remainder of your tuition after you’ve landed a job.

We work with Ascent Funding to help students finance their tuition. You can learn more about them here.

Tuition for Rithm School is $24,000.

This includes:

Payment

A $3,000 deposit is due upon enrollment. Your remaining tuition can be paid upfront, via a loan, or with an Income Share Agreement.

Your non-refundable deposit of $3,000 is due upon admission to secure your place and receive the prework.

For the remaining balance, you have a few options:

  • Pay the remainder the week before class begins.
  • Pay one installment the week before class begins, and the other on the first day of Week 8.
  • Pay one installment the week before class begins, then three installments monthly after that.
Please note that paying in installments involves a one-time financing fee of $500.

We look at the first four weeks of our course as an indicator of your success at Rithm. And so, if your progress doesn’t keep pace with the curriculum, we’ll start a conversation with you to determine whether or not you should remain a student. If necessary, your time at Rithm will come to an end early and we’ll offer you a full refund (minus your enrollment deposit).

We designed this policy to ensure that every student in the program is thriving. We want to offer students who might struggle with the pace of the course a way out without sacrificing the majority of their tuition. We believe our Separate Ways Clause is beneficial to the students who remain in the class; it’s understood that everyone in the classroom is there because they want to be, are willing to do the work, and are at a comparable skill level.

For students who are paying at least half their tuition up front, we may be able to offer a scholarship.

Since we opened our doors in 2016, we have always offered a rolling partial scholarship based on diversity, financial need, and merit. Once you have been accepted to our program, you may apply for this scholarship. Our scholarship committee will review all applications and you will receive a determination notice with information about any cost adjustment we can offer.

Income Share Agreements

An ISA is a contractual agreement in which a student receives education funding. In exchange, the student agrees to share a fixed percentage of post-graduation income over a defined number of years.

An ISA is completed when the first of these events occurs:

  • Complete the required number of payments
  • Hit the payment cap
  • Payment window ends

ISAs offer an alternative to debt. Debt can create substantial risks to students if they cannot afford their payments during and after education. ISA payments adjust according to levels of income. The minimum income threshold and payment cap ensure students who use the program will not pay if they do not earn a minimum income level, while those who earn a substantial amount of income will not pay above a certain amount.

  • Eligible students must be permanent resident of the United States.
  • Eligible students must not have any other active Income Share Agreements.
  • Unfortunately, we are unable to offer Income Share Agreements to residents of Colorado and West Virginia.
  • Eligible students must pass a hard credit check.

Monthly payments are calculated by applying your income share to your total monthly earned income. You will receive a monthly bill for this amount, and you can make your payments online.

This depends on how much you borrow in the ISA (you can borrow between $2,500 and $21,000), as well as your future income. You will never pay more than 1.5x the amount you borrowed. For example, if you borrowed $21,000, you would never pay more than $31,500.

The minimum income threshold for this ISA is $40,000. If your income falls below $40,000, your payments will pause. Your payments will resume when your income increases above the threshold.

Since this is not a loan, ISAs do not have any interest. You simply pay a flat percentage of your salary.

You’ll pay a percentage of your gross salary (before taxes).

Yes. You may satisfy your ISA at any time by paying the payment cap minus any payments you’ve already made.

If you leave our course within the first four weeks of class, we will be able to cancel your ISA. If you leave after that point, you will be responsible for paying the remainder of your ISA.

You are required to pay the agreed upon percentage of your income for the prescribed term of the contract. The amount you pay is not tied to the value of the tuition benefit you received.

Upon admission, you will be invited to apply via email to complete your application. The application will only take a few minutes to complete, and your account will be up and running within one week.

Absolutely not. There are no requirements stipulating the nature or type of employment that students choose after graduation.

Application

If you’re ready for an intensive educational experience that will catapult you into the world of software development…submit an application here to Rithm! 

It’s that easy. You’ll be prompted to schedule a chat with us, and you’ll get an email with some next steps.

The process has multiple steps:

  • Fill out an application online, and book a time to chat with us.
  • Once you submit the application, you’ll be sent an email with instructions on how to complete a short coding challenge to make sure you’re comfortable with the fundamentals of JavaScript.
  • Have a brief phone conversation with someone on the team — we want to get to know you!
  • Optional: Attend our free Private Prep course!
  • Take our two-part final interview with a member of our career services team and one of our veteran instructors. We want to know what your career has been like, where you want it to go moving forward, and how you think about solving problems!

Covid’s made things complicated, but we love to meet potential candidates! Come join us for any of our online events before or after you apply. During the application process, you’ll have a chance to chat with our admissions team and with one or more of our instructors, so you’ll get a good sense of who we are at Rithm. The best way to try out Rithm is with our free Private Prep course – it’s four nights of core programming fundamentals with our instructors. You’ll learn with others in a small-class environment, just like you will in the full-time course.

The prework is essential to your success at Rithm. The first day of class starts with intermediate level material. If your prework isn’t finished beforehand, we sadly will have to revoke your admission to Rithm, and you won’t be allowed to begin the program.

Outcomes and Regulatory Information

Rithm School is licensed to operate by the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education. You can find more information below:

Graduation rates are determined by the number of students who finish our program. We don’t play games with our numbers by only counting grads who pass a final exam or who we deem to be “job ready.” This number accounts for any enrolled student who completes the program.
 
Learn more about our reporting standards here.

Our job placement rate reflects grads who accept a full time, part time, short term, or freelance role in the field, as well as grads who begin an in-field entrepreneurial venture.

 

Learn more about our reporting standards here.

Yes, we have hired several former students as Teaching Assistants and Software Engineers. These are full time, long term positions, not short term contracts. Teaching Assistants/Software Engineers are responsible for providing additional 1:1 guidance and lab support for our students, while expert Instructors teach and lead all classes. They also support certain areas (admissions, marketing, community management) with engineering solutions to improve those processes. We find that having former students on staff is a beneficial resource for current students. Unlike many bootcamps, we never hire students directly as lead instructors—we believe that a certain level of hands-on engineering experience is needed in order to deliver high-quality content effectively.

Almost all of our graduates have switched careers to a technical field including Software Engineering, Web Development, Technical Product Management, and Sales Engineering.

 

Learn more about what titles are considered in-field here.

Our outcomes numbers are collected via direct communication with students. They are reported according to TRACE standards, and then audited by a third party. We aren’t interested in gaming our numbers—we want you to have the true information you need to decide if Rithm is right for you.

500 Sansome St, Ste 300
San Francisco, CA 94111
© 2023 Rithm School. All rights reserved.

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