The following is a guest post by David Baker and originally appeared on his blog. David is currently a student at The Flatiron School. You can follow him on twitter here.
The views expressed herein do not reflect those of The Flatiron School, only those of one of our awesome students. To see more reviews from our students, check out our Career Karma page!
Flatiron School is a twelve week, full time, intensive program for passionate people who want to learn to build awesome things with code. The goal of the program is to give you the equivalent skillset and experience of an entry-level Ruby developer. As part of the inaugural class, here’s 10 reasons why YOU should apply.
10. Program or be programmed
Do we direct technology, or do we let ourselves be directed by it and those who have mastered it? “Choose the former,” writes Douglas Rushkoff, “and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.”
9. Nerds are the new cool
If you haven’t noticed, the internet is kind of a big deal… and it’s just getting started. In the past 15 years the internet has connected the entire world. Imagine what it will do in the next 15 years. It is no longer acceptable to not be a nerd.
8. Never stop learning
Whether you’re just out of college or twenty years into your career, it’s critical to learn new skills. Software Engineering is constantly ranked among the highest paid professions, and new developers are more in demand now than ever.
7. Coding is not as hard as you think
There’s nothing wrong with being a social media expert, WordPress consultant, or HTML “programmer” — but to make the most impact in technology you need to understand how to actually write code. You can do it in 12 short weeks.
6. New York City
The capital of the world, and city that never sleeps, NYC is also home to a huge technology hub. Luckily for those involved in the tech community here, it still “feels” small in the sense that everyone is extremely warm and welcoming – which is not always the case with the rest of the city.
5. World class instructors
Dean Avi Flombaum has successfully taught over 300 students how to code. President Adam Enbar has researched innovations in higher education at Charles River Ventures. Combine them with top-tier guest lecturers from awesome NYC startups and the education here is second to none.
4. Work in pairs and teams with 20 awesome people
No disrespect to Nate’s sweat lodge, but learning to code in isolation sucks. New online resources are popping up everywhere, but as my fellow classmate Adam Jonas described yesterday, most are boring, and even the best ones are inconsistent. Programming is something that needs to be done with other people.
3. Make 19 amazing new friends
At the risk of sounding cliché, learning to code, like everything else, is all about the people. The diversity of backgrounds in the 20 students brings unique perspectives and points of view. Our initial class ranges from a lawyer to a professional poker player.
2. Be defined by what you create
“When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create.” – Why the Lucky Stiff
1. Learn how to love programming
As our insightful teacher Avi said on the first day, “There’s a joy to programming. That’s the reason why we’re here… to experience the act of falling in love with programming.”
