syllabus About Launch Academy is a 10-week immersive bootcamp that gives eager learners with little to no coding experience the tools they ll need to add value as a junior contributor to a professional software engineering team. Location: Boston, MA Program Length: 18 weeks 8 weeks pre-work (part-time) 10 weeks on-campus (full time) Graduation Rate: 93% Job Placement Rate: 92% of job-seeking graduates obtained full-time nontemporary jobs in web development. More info here. Class Size: 35-40 Student:Teacher Ratio: 7:1 Tuition: $17,500 Payment Options: Up-front tuition paid directly to Launch Financing through Skills Fund Core Computer Science Concepts Looping, data structures, methods, objectoriented programming (OOP), unit testing, test-driven development (TDD), pair programming Languages/Frameworks Javascript, React JS, jquery, ActiveRecord, SQL, PostgreSQL, HTTP, HTML, CSS, Sinatra, AJAX, Ruby, Rails, and major APIs (Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) Our Approach You re probably familiar with the traditional approach to learning: Go to class and listen to a lecture that introduces a new topic, then spend hours on your own doing homework in order to solidify the concepts taught in class. We turn that modality on its head with a flipped classroom approach to learning. Instead of introducing concepts in a lecture, we give students introductory materials to read/watch as homework, and class time is spent working through challenge problems with instructors and peers. A challenge-based curriculum allows you to take concepts that you ve been introduced to and learn their practical use through coding challenges (i.e., learning through doing). We also teach Test-Driven Development (TDD), something that not a lot of other bootcamps do. Using TDD as a learning tool allows you to gain focus and clarity on what you want your programs to do before you write a line of code. The program is split into two phases: the Ignition phase and the on-campus phase. Segmenting the course into phases serves
two purposes. First, it ensures that every student is able to maintain a high learning velocity throughout the program, and second, it allows students new to programming a chance to assess their aptitude and passion for coding before arriving on campus. The following sections will give you an overview of each phase and the skills you ll be learning. We ll also cover the career services and the lifetime commitment we make to every Launch Academy graduate. Let s get to it. Ignition The breakneck learning pace of the on-campus program wouldn t be possible unless every student arrives on day one with a functional understanding of computer science and programming fundamentals. That s where the Ignition program comes in. Eight weeks before the on-campus portion of the program starts, you ll begin learning essential programming concepts by working through the Ignition curriculum. Ignition will require about 80 to 100 hours of learning over eight weeks. For most people, that means they can still balance a full-time job while working through the curriculum. It s no cakewalk, but if you re committed to learning this stuff you ll do just fine. If you re worried about learning remotely, don t be. Launch Academy Experience Engineers will be available via live chat throughout the Ignition process if you get stuck. You ll also be connected to everyone else in the cohort, allowing you to get help virtually any time. If you get stuck, they re only an instant message away. Here s an overview of what you ll learn during Ignition: Ruby Basics Students learn the basics of interacting with Ruby, a programming language that is both friendly to beginners and widely used in personal and professional codebases. This familiarizes the student not only with the syntax and logic of Ruby, but also the familiar types, phrases, and commonalities of programming writ large. Looping By harnessing loops, students learn how to iterate over data sets and perform operations on each item in a collection. Loops are an entrypoint into understanding how repeatable logic can help simplify applications. Data Structures Now that we can iterate through our data, it is time for the student to learn how that data can be structured, managed, and maintained. Students use their existing skills to work through others data sets, and create their own.
Methods Methods, like functions, allow for small chunks of repeatable logic. Students will learn how to create their own methods, pass in arguments, and produce output. We can also use methods to take in arguments relating to data structures, and even alter their internal state as a result of the method. Object-Oriented Programming Objects represent the combination of data structures and logic into one harmonious package. Students will learn how to create objects using Ruby s class system, and learn about how objects can grow and change as the result of their program. In addition, they will learn about object-oriented programming, the prevailing modern design pattern for many different applications. Javascript Javascript is one of the core languages you ll be working with during your 10 weeks at Launch. We ll take many of the lessons you learned in the Ruby language, and show you how they apply to Javascript. We ll also introduce you to the concept of events and making interactive applications. HTML & CSS HTML is the language that the web pages themselves are written in, and CSS is the language that makes those pages look nice. HTML and CSS are core parts of our curriculum, and are used at every step of the way. On Campus Now that you ve established a strong programming foundation in Ignition, it s time to take your learning to the professional level. During your 10 weeks on campus, you ll eat, sleep, and breathe code. That s not hyperbole most students devote somewhere between 60 and 80 hours per week to the program. It s a grueling pace, but once you don the Green Shirt awarded at graduation, you re ready to take on a career in web development. We re committed to providing the absolute best experience for our students. In order to do that, we re constantly incorporating feedback from students, Hiring Partners, and staff into our curriculum. Here s the wide-angle view of the major topics we ll cover on campus: Javascript Javascript has been an integral part of the web for over 20 years, and has grown in both usefulness and popularity. Students will learn how to make dynamic user interfaces that produce happy users and clean code.
SQL Databases that hold user data, and persist them, are the focus of the next phase of the program. Students are introduced to relational databases, showing how data can be stored and related to one another for the purpose of an application. Students also pick up the SQL syntax, learning to query for specific pieces of information. Rails Throughout the on-campus portion of the program, you ll continue to build on the Ruby knowledge you gained during Ignition. The popular web framework Rails is built using the Ruby language, and continues to be one of the most popular ways to create, manage, and scale web apps. Rails has lots of moving pieces, and students will be introduced to them piece by piece. Rails puts together everything that the students have learned thus far! HTTP The core protocol of the web, HTTP is the first technology covered at Launch. HTTP governs the way that users (and their data) flow through the web, running from client to server and back again. Students will use popular libraries to get their first web apps running. ReactJS The popular Javascript library React allows programmers to build easily coded, easily tested Javascript components. Students will create their own React components, and learn how to build an entire front end wrapped in the loving embrace of React. Group Projects By week seven, students are split into groups of three to four to build a review site (similar to Yelp) which touches on many aspects of Rails and collaborative development. Pairs of students work on features for the project in parallel and utilize pull requests on GitHub for collaboration and code review. Other aspects of the group project include: Writing acceptance tests w/ capybara gem User authentication and authorization Reading logs to check for slow or large amounts of queries and optimizing Utilizing Amazon s S3 service to store uploaded file in production Deploying to Heroku Searching and paginating large amounts of information Implementing Ajax to improve the user experience API integration w/major provider (Google, Stripe, etc.)
Breakable Toy The last two weeks of the program are dedicated to building an application of your choice. After completing the group project which aims to cover the fundamentals of Rails, students can create applications that target areas of web development that they find particularly interesting or want more practice with. Mentors are available for guidance, but each project should reflect the individual student s capabilities to take a project from the design stage to deployment. Career Services The demand for software developers has never been higher, and the skills you learn at Launch will give you the technical chops to start contributing to a professional development team immediately. But let s take a moment for some real talk: Technical skills on their own don t entitle you to a job. Programming isn t a solo endeavor you ll be part of a team of developers working toward a larger goal. So when employers scout new talent, technical skills are just a qualifier. They re equally as interested in how you ll fit into the company culture as they are in your programming talent. You need to be someone they want to work with for 40 or more hours per week. Our 95% job placement rate is ridiculously high because we take career services really seriously. Throughout your time on campus, you ll regularly work with our dedicated career support staff to make sure you re in the best possible position to land the job of your dreams after you graduate. How extensive is the Career Services program? Glad you asked. Here s the rundown: Meet-n -Greet During your first week on campus, you ll sit down with a career expert for a casual getting-to-know-you interview. If we re going to match you with companies that are a good fit for your personality and workplace values after you graduate, we need to take some time to get to know you. We don t want you to start a new job we want you to start a new career. The only way to do that is to find out what makes you tick. Launcher Profile Our Hiring Partners want to get to know you, too. After your personality assessment, we ll start building your profile on our internal Hiring Partner Portal. As Career Kickoff approaches, Hiring Partners will be invited to view all of our Launcher Profiles so that they can see the talent in every cohort.
Interview Prep Getting an awesome job offer won t happen unless you nail the interview. Programming interviews are a combination of a technical assessment and a personality assessment. You ll be drilled on both so you can walk into every interview with confidence and poise. Resume & Cover Letter Coaching Best practices for resumes and cover letters in the programming industry are a bit different from what you may be used to. We ll go through yours with a fine-tooth comb to make sure they re perfect. Portfolio Review Your code portfolio is probably the single most important part of the career preparation process. Your portfolio is a reflection not only of your technical capability, but also of your passion for programming. Employers want to see that you re regularly contributing to projects and continuing to work and learn independently. We ll make sure you re putting your best foot forward. Social Media Review You probably already know employers are checking your Facebook profile, Twitter updates, and LinkedIn activity for red flags before they interview you, but getting a perfectly polished social media footprint is more difficult and nuanced than you might think. Career Kickoff & Hiring Partner Pitches Career Kickoff is the culmination of everything you ve been working toward during the program. Over the course of two days, you ll be giving presentations and rubbing elbows with dozens of our Hiring Partners who are on campus and ready to snap up the talent coming out of every cohort. We make sure you re ready for the spotlight with daily presentation practice in front of our staff and your peers. By the time you re in front of the Hiring Partners, it ll all be second nature. The Green Shirt We started with a wild idea and a few brave souls back in 2013. Since then, hundreds of incredibly ambitious students have walked through our doors with minimal programming knowledge and walked out ready to take on a career in software development. Hiring Partners have seen the amazing impact our talented graduates have on their software teams, and more join us every day. All of this success simply wouldn t have been possible without the incredible community of graduates, Hiring Partners, and staff behind us. Our community is our foundation. Without it, we wouldn t be where we are today.
The green T-shirt you ll be given when you graduate is a symbol of all of the life-changing work you ve done in the preceding 18 weeks. Launch Academy graduates are the only ones who get The Green Shirt (our co-founders aren t even allowed to have one). Wear it proudly you re a Launcher for the rest of your life. The Green Shirt means you ll have access to curriculum, career support, and an open invitation to come back to speak to current students about your career, become a mentor, or just kick it with us any time. Seriously. You ve got our back, and we ve got yours. Past, Present, and Future Curriculum Our curriculum has gone through countless revisions and re-revisions since our first cohort in 2013. We ve added new material, refined existing material, and dropped some technologies in favor of others. Every single cohort is better than the one before it. As a Launcher, you ll have lifetime access to every single lesson we ve ever made. Every. Single. One. Whether you ve just graduated from Launch or you graduated five years ago, you can log in to our learning management system and review what you learned or learn new technologies that we ve added to the curriculum since you graduated. Career Support We don t cut you off from career support after you graduate and find a job. As you level up in your career, you re welcome to come to us and get the same support you got during your time in the cohort. Help Shape Our Future When you re working as a professional developer, you re going to pick up a ton of helpful insight into the industry. Launch graduates are always welcome to come back to campus to mentor current Launchers, give facilitations, or offer career advice or insight. Just Kick It Not a week goes by without a Launch Academy graduate dropping in. After you graduate, swing by after work and challenge the students and staff to some Smash Bros., join us during Friday Fun Time, or just swing by to say hello. Our doors are always open to alumni. syllabus Ready for the next step? Schedule an Interview