Overview
Start your coding bootcamp journey
The best coding bootcamps are extremely selective. In this free prep course, you’ll learn the programming fundamentals to ace bootcamp admissions and start your journey toward promising career in tech. Plus, Bootcamp Prep students who apply to Flatiron are fast-tracked through our own admissions process as priority applicants.
Free Course (No Catch)
This full 75+ hour online prep course – a $3,000 value – is 100% free. No credit card required; no trial period or expiration date, so you can set your schedule and learn at your own pace.
On Demand Support
Our on-demand team of Technical Coaches is ready to help you get unstuck when you need help – broadening your understanding by helping you find a solution to a lesson, not solving it for you.
Explore Your Future in Tech
This course is the best way to experience Flatiron’s curriculum, community, and culture firsthand – and to explore whether you’re passionate about pursuing code as a career.
Rapid, Rigorous Education
This course is the most efficient way to get real hands-on experience with the programming fundamentals and interview tactics you’ll need to get into the top coding bootcamps.
Curriculum
Start thinking like a software engineer
Bootcamp Prep students take on the same introductory curriculum and interview prep materials we’ve honed in our immersive programs. You’ll learn programming fundamentals in JavaScript and Ruby. Why two languages? To immediately prepare you to recognize patterns, abstractions, and commonalities between languages and to think like a true software engineer – ready to continue learning new technologies for any job.
JavaScript
Units: Introduction to JavaScript, Functions and Scope, Data Structures and Looping, The DOM, jQuery
JavaScript changed the web from static, text-filled pages into the interactive experience it is today – and, as one of the most popular languages out there, it’s still bringing websites to life in new, exciting ways.
Ruby
Units: Debugging, Variables and Arrays, Methods, Command Line Applications, Logic and Conditionals, Loops and Iteration, Object Orientation
Ruby was designed to make programmers happy. It’s expressive, accessible, and reads like English, allowing new programmers to focus on its underlying logic rather than syntax. Even beginners can start building right away.
Interview Prep
Units: Pre-interview Research, Phone and Video Interviews, Non-Technical Interview Questions, Approaching Code Challenges
Our Interview Prep Curriculum comes straight from the Career Services team behind our near-perfect student employment rate and includes many of the same practices we use to turn our grads into “no-brainer tech hires.”
Our team of on-demand Technical Coaches is standing by, ready to help you break through tough concepts when you get stuck.
Projects
Start building your portfolio
At Flatiron School, students learn by building. Bootcamp Prep students come away from the course with the beginnings of an impressive code portfolio to demonstrate their proficiency to coding bootcamp admissions teams.
Konami Code
Playing off an old gaming cheat code, students learn how to trigger an alert via certain keystrokes.
Built with: JavaScript, jQuery, HTML5
Rock Dodger Game
Students build a full dynamic game from scratch, programming a ship controlled by your arrow keys and animating falling rocks to avoid or else… *boom*.
Built with: Event Listeners, HTML5 DOM Updates, First-Class Functions
Tic Tac Toe with AI
Students first build a two-player game of Tic Tac Toe before creating a simple AI – allowing them to play against the computer.
Built with: Ruby, jQuery
“The best way to learn to code? Start building something today. There’s only so much you can get out of reading and watching videos about these concepts without actually doing some coding yourself. Beyond that, your greatest asset will be loving what you’re learning. Learning to program is hard, but if you’re driven to work at it every day, to put what you’re learning into practice every chance you get, you’ll find the skills becoming second nature.”
Avi Flombaum
Learn.co Features
Bringing the bootcamp online
Learn.co, the proprietary learning platform that powers the Flatiron online experience, is the world’s most sophisticated product for learning code. Students on Learn.co interact with a worldwide community of students and instructors and harness real developer tools to truly learn by doing.
Real-Time Collaboration
Learning is most effective when it’s social. Learn.co makes online learning a more dynamic, human experience with tools to connect, code, and collaborate with fellow students and instructors in real-time – including video study groups, peer-pairing, and the ability to “friend” others in the program.
Real Tools
You can’t learn real skills without real tools. Learn.co utilizes the same tools and workflows that professional developers employ on the job, including a real development environment, a Git-based workflow, and the ubiquitous practice of Test-Driven Development.
Live Curriculum
We ensure that students always get the most relevant technical skills by embracing an open-source curriculum – a living course of study featuring thousands of updates a year to reflect industry trends and student feedback.
Student Reviews
Hear from our Bootcamp Prep students
“I loved the labs, even the hard ones. I got totally obsessed with trying to solve them and if felt so good when I did. They are like small logic puzzles so if you’re the type of person who enjoys solving puzzles or logic problems, you’ll probably get hooked as well. I was also very impressed with the instructors. I got stuck a few times and there is someone available to help until 1am. Everyone I spoke with was super nice, helpful and direct.” Read more
Marianna
Bootcamp Prep student“The lessons were clearly laid out and easy to understand. There was also a ton of support available to me that I utilized, both from fellow learners, as well as Flatiron staff. The lessons and labs directly correlated to the types of labs that were presented to me for [Flatiron’s] technical interview and I am positive they were the key to my success. It also provided me with a good idea about whether or not the Flatiron School was right for me and something I wanted to pursue further.” Read more
Sarah Sweat
Bootcamp Prep student“Finding Bootcamp Prep may be the single greatest thing I ever stumbled upon. It taught me the basics in Ruby and Javascript, did a really thorough job of explaining concepts and taking things at a pace that is really helpful to learning; but most importantly, it helped me discover the joys of coding and opened up the door to a career I’d never thought I’d be pursuing. I’m happy to say, after Bootcamp Prep, I will now be attending Flatiron School full-time before embarking onto an awesome new career.” Read more
Alex B.
Bootcamp Prep student“The Prep course is awesome! The most amazing thing is its real world development feeling. I would strongly encourage to take this course for getting into the world of Software engineering or development. This course is really good for getting selected into any competitive coding bootcamp including Flatiron School.” Read more
Chirantan
Bootcamp Prep student“Some other courses are show-and-tells where you complete an exercise, think you know something, and move on, regardless of if you learned anything. Flatiron really made me think about what I had to code and what tools I would have to use to solve the problem. The course gave me a great sense of why certain problems are approached certain ways. Additionally, the read along lessons had well written, practical analogies and even made me LOL a few times.” Read more
Dan
Bootcamp Prep student
Ready to unlock your future in tech?
Start learning the fundamentals of JavaScript, Ruby, and technical interview prep – for free and on your schedule. Setup is quick and works on virtually any computer so you can be coding in minutes.
FAQ
You have questions; we have answers
-
Is Bootcamp Prep really free?
In short, yes. Our Bootcamp Prep course does not require any credit card information and does not have a time limit. You’ll begin learning to code alongside thousands of fellow students and have full access to 75+ hours of Ruby and JavaScript lessons and labs – as well as on-demand support from our Technical Coaches.
-
Do I need to finish all of Bootcamp Prep to apply to Flatiron School?
While making progress in our free courses is the best way to strengthen your application to our Online Web Developer Program and NYC Software Engineering Immersive, finishing the full Bootcamp Prep course is not required to apply. This free course is meant to help you gauge whether you want to pursue a lifelong programming career, and whether you can successfully learn to code through our teaching techniques and technology.
Our admissions team primarily wants to see consistency in how you’re preparing. You’re encouraged to apply for our Online Web Developer Program or NYC Software Engineering Immersive as soon as you feel ready to commit your time and energy to an immersive program. (Note: It’s important to understand that your initial application and interview is a way to for us to get to know you and for you to get to know us, and includes no technical questions.)
Attend an Event
Join us for a tour, seminar, or info session to see what student life is like at Flatiron.
Download Syllabus
Take a closer look at our full stack web development curriculum.