Hard Choices and How We'll Help You Make Them
I personally can’t even pick ice cream flavors (not being able to sample every single one turns into a stressful situation) so I know the struggle when it comes to making even larger decisions. Like your education (even though I’d say that ice cream is right up there as far as important life-altering choices). When I was deciding where to do my undergraduate career I almost picked a school just because they got more sun than my other choices… luckily there are people out there that want to help you make informed decisions, and Course Report is composed of those people.
They basically do everything they can to give you as much relevant information as possible when trying to find the right tech boot camp. Finding the right school is kind of like dating—you want to find the right fit and to do that it’s good to have all the information. Course Report features reviews, application tips, and interviews with founders, students, and instructors to equip you with all the details you need to make that choice and feel good about it for a long time.
That’s why it’s pretty awesome that LendLayer is partnering with Course Report to increase your access to recourses. We’ll be working with Course Report to get information out there about how to finance your education at a tech bootcamp. We’re here for you.
I had the lovely pleasure of getting to chat via email with Adam, one of the founders of Course Report. Here are some reasons he’s pretty cool:
Where did you go to school or how did you obtain your education?
I went to Georgetown University in DC. I majored in finance and got a minor in computer science which was my first exposure to programming.
What led you here, to founding Course Report?
While at Georgetown I started working at a company called LivingSocial (a deals company ). LivingSocialneeded to hire developers and eventually decided to create an in-house bootcamp program called Hungry Academy. This was around the same time that DevBootcamp was finishing its first or second cohort. Hungry Academy was led by Jeff Casimir who went on to start gSchool and Turing School.
I saw the results of the program first hand and became convinced that the intensive/bootcamp approach could really produce effective entry level devs.
What is Course Report exactly and what kinds of services do you offer?
Course Report is meant to be a resource for prospective students of bootcamps to learn about the space and find a program that is right for them. We do a lot of interviews with students, graduates, teachers, and founders so that applicants can get a feel for the school they are considering.
What is the importance of learning code in today’s work force?
At LivingSocial I ended up managing the user acquisition team which had dedicated engineering resources assigned to me. I found that even having a basic understanding of programming concepts made it much easier to communicate business goals to UX, product managers, and developers. Even the ability to do basic scripting is extremely powerful and be a huge time savor even if you never deploy an app in your life.
If you could do anything differently about your education, would you?
Hmmm - Well I certainly wish that I had more exposure to design & UX concepts. I hope to fill that gap with a part time program via CareerFoundry or another part time program.
Also, though I really enjoyed my CS classes in college I wish I had learned more about practical web development and deploying applications. I learned a ton but I honestly wasn't sure how to get things online & working by the end of the experience.
When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up?
For a while I thought I would become a manager of some big mining operation as I thought that would mean I could work & live abroad.
The LendLayer team is excited to work with more and more awesome people at Course Report to continue the noble mission of getting good information out there about tech bootcamps.
