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Dev Bootcamp is a 9-week immersive web development program that prepares people to launch a career in software development. Starting April 22, cohorts of 18 students will begin arriving in Chicago every 3 weeks. Each cohort will have 2 instructors, and will spend upwards of 60+ hours/week in our learning space. This means we need a space big enough to hold 54 students, 6 instructors, and a few other people as well. I'm happy to announce that our space is ready, and we'd love to have you see it at our Open House on April 16, immediately following our mentor information night. (Mentors can apply here and RSVP here.)
I'm also happy to announce that our first 4 cohorts have sold out! I'd like to tell you about each of these 72 remarkable people, but for now I'll just stick with some trends and statistics...
We've found that the vast majority of our students are career-changers in their 20's and 30's who already have a bachelor's degree.
Our most common age (the mode) is 26. I find this age interesting because it makes me wonder if its frequency is related the state of the economy when these 26 year olds were graduating from college in 2008-2009.
Our median age is 27, which means half of our students are over the age of 27! This excites me because some of the greatest software developers I know didn't start their careers until they were in their 30's. For what it's worth, I didn't start developing software until I was 26.
Our youngest student is 19, and on the other end, we have a few 52 year olds signed up.
I'm frustrated that only 10% of our students are women. We clearly need to do a better job of encouraging women to apply and lowering barriers to entry. Hoping to share more about these efforts soon.
Over 70% of our students are coming from out-of-state, and some of these are coming from out of the country. That's more than 12 new aspiring software developers moving to Chicago every 3 weeks. Not all of them are planning stay afterward, but Chicago certainly has a great opportunity to woo them!
The people that make the magic happen at Dev Bootcamp are our instructors and a supporting cast of awesome people. We'll have a total of 11 instructors working with us in 2013, which includes Jen Myers, Mike Busch, Abi Noda, Alyssa Diaz, Kevin Solorio, Tanner Welsh, and Myles Byrne. The supporting cast includes:
- yoga instruction by Jen Smith
- improv coaching by Pete Aiello
- therapy from Live Oak
- interior design by Alicia Bird (furniture below)
- custom art by Nate Otto (art above) and Alexis Finch
The people behind the scenes at Dev Bootcamp in Chicago are Elliott Garms and me. We do our best to keep everything moving merrily forward. We focus on ensuring that each of our graduates look back at Dev Bootcamp as a turning point in their lives and the launch pad for their new career in software development. More details on that in a future post.
