We’re excited to announce that Flatiron School is working with Citi to connect women with up to $1 million in total scholarship funding to attend our in-person or online Software Engineering or Data Science career change courses. This scholarship opportunity is offered through Flatiron School’s Women Take Tech initiative, which has already awarded over $3 million in scholarships to over 500 women to learn to code.Women applying to our career change programs between Aug. 7 and Nov. 7, 2018 may be eligible for a $2,000 scholarship as part of the Women Take Tech initiative.
“Education is one of the most powerful investments a woman will make. Across the country, women are increasingly interested in learning technical skills like coding that will open the door to their future career,” said Kristi Riordan, Flatiron School Chief Operating Officer. “We are thrilled to work with Citi to create more opportunities for women to launch their career in tech and achieve their future goals.”
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At Flatiron School, we’re committed to promoting gender parity and empowering women to enter tech. That thinking is why Citi is a natural partner for our Women Take Tech initiative. In 2014, Yolande Piazza, CEO of Citi FinTech, founded the “FUTURE | Women in I.T.” program. “FUTURE | Women in I.T.” has empowered over 30,000 middle school and high school girls across the country to follow their passion and pursue careers in tech. “We’re working to bridge the gender gap in technology by helping to educate, excite and empower our younger generation of girls to learn about careers in technology through our FUTURE | Women in I.T. program,” said Piazza. “I’m excited about Citi’s collaboration with Flatiron School, because it’s one more step Citi is taking to ensure that women are driving progress in the digital age.”Citi’s support of Women Take Tech represents one of many ways the organization is thinking about developing its talent pipeline. Earlier this year, Citi Ventures announced the launch of Citi University Partnerships in Innovation and Discovery (CUPID), a new program that engages and embeds students from leading universities in innovation efforts across Citi. “I believe that investment in women with a desire to pursue careers in tech is critical for our communities across the globe. Be it younger women, who may choose not to pursue traditional four year degrees, or those who are looking to switch careers and re-define their paths in a later stage of life, investment in each of them is equally important,” said Yasaman Hadjibashi, Citi’s Global Consumer Technology Head of Data and Analytics. “With the current debate on what our future work skillsets should ideally be composed of, I care deeply about helping to remove as many barriers as possible for women looking to build their hard technical skills and grow successful long-term careers in this space. It doesn’t matter if they sit on my team at Citi or across the globe at another company.”We encourage all women to apply. Our alumni are a great example that, no matter your background, anyone can become a programmer.Before starting her own career in code, Hannah Nordgren had a career in fashion as a technical designer. She did that for around eight years before becoming burned out. She went to beauty school in Los Angeles and and worked in a salon for five years. At 36, she had one more career move in her and jumped to coding.
Hannah’s journey to code began in college where some people suggested she become a front-end web developer. Years later, she had a friend who was a programmer and she was ready to become a software engineer. Hannah had reservations, but a scholarship offer from Flatiron School sealed the deal. After 15 weeks, Hannah was now a fully trained software engineer. “It took only four to five weeks to get a job after graduation, and I’ve been in tech ever since,” Hannah said. “I love what I do, the creativity of it, and see myself here for the rest of my career. I even enjoy doing it on my off hours.” Even though tech can be a male-dominated industry, there are plenty of opportunities for women to succeed. “I’ve found it to be so rewarding,” Hannah said. “That’s in large part due to the companies I’ve worked for and places like Flatiron School that move mountains to make all students feel welcome. Everyone should try it.”
