We’re thrilled to announce that we are renewing our partnership with New York City to launch a new iteration of the NYC Web Development Fellowship. And for this round, we’re excited to be partnering with some amazing companies in New York, like Kickstarter, Buzzfeed, AppNexus, Betaworks, and Microsoft (more TBA) to help us execute on this amazing program.
The new NYC Web Development Fellowship is an 8-month program designed to help 18-26 year old New Yorkers without a 4-year degree and no prior coding experience, get the skills necessary to kick off careers as web developers. This program is special to us—not only because of it’s incredible success, but because of the deeply exciting and inspiring stories behind it.
From Diversity, Creativity
An original goal of the Fellowship was to foster opportunities for low-income New Yorkers and underserved groups in technology. In practice, these eligibility requirements resulted in classes that shattered tech industry stereotypes. More than half of Fellowship graduates are women, 40 percent of them are minorities, and all of them came to code from different backgrounds and occupations. They were musicians, baristas, full time moms and dads, bartenders, artists, activists, and so much more. We saw that from these backgrounds came collaboration, friendships, and work that showed talent well beyond experience. As the program grows and evolves, we hope our grads will continue to make the New York City tech industry an even better place, not only with their talent and passion, but also with their individual perspectives.
From Novice to New Career
Learning a new skill is one thing, but being able to apply that skill in a work environment is another, far more challenging endeavor. Fellows didn’t just walk away with programming chops—they walked away with new careers. Ninety-six percent of our first class was placed within 6 months of graduation and 63 percent of the second class accepted paid development work within just two months. They now work at companies like Kickstarter, Etsy, Intel, The Wall St. Journal, Barkbox, Venmo, and 2U.
Even more important than these numbers are real people, like Jahmil, who was featured in The New York Times, and now has a full-time web development job at Fox, Christine who went from front desk work to front-end engineering at Intel and Lavoisier, a rapper turned developer with a passion for teaching kids code.
The Future: A Catapult of Economic Mobility
We’ve been working with NYC to make the 2015 Fellowship even more impactful. We’re growing the Fellowship to 64 students and adjusting the eligibility requirements. For this class, we will be focusing exclusively on students between ages 18 and 26 who have not received a college degree. From the day we opened our doors at Flatiron School, one of our goals has been to give people an alternative path to traditional higher education. While college can be an incredible experience for many people, it’s just not right for everyone. Because they can’t afford it. Or because they learn differently. Or because they’ve found their passion and want to dive deeply into that rather than explore things broadly. This program will be a life changing second chance for everyone involved, and we can’t wait to meet them.
Apprenticeships—Learning from Masters of the Craft
Among the many improvements we’ve made to the program, every Fellow will follow the 5-month on-campus program with a 12-week paid apprenticeship. We’re thrilled to announce that some of the best technology companies in New York (several of whom have already hired Flatiron School graduates full-time) will host at least two apprentices each. This will give the Fellows a chance to gain hands on work experience while working with some of the most innovative companies in the country. We couldn’t be more excited with the partners already committed and are excited to announce more soon:
Both the Bloomberg and DeBlasio administrations have made enormous strides in workforce development in the innovation sector and in making technology accessible to all New Yorkers. The Fellowship is just one of so many amazing initiatives made possible by Workforce1 and the NYC Department of Small Business Services—and we are so excited to see it happen once again.
If you’re interested in getting involved, either by applying for a fellowship, or partnering with us to hire, mentor, or work with the Fellows, visit the main website for the NYC Web Development Fellowship or email nycworkforce1@flatironschool.com.
