A few scattered thoughts as a Hacker Schooler and college dropout generally interested in alternative education:
- Their curriculum seems very similar to App Academy's (from what I've gathered from friends/acquaintances who have gone there). This isn't a bad thing in any way; I think Rails is a solid foundation for web development, regardless of my personal opinion of it.
- They have a lot of mentors. I wonder how many students they expect to accept, and how many of these mentors are full time?
- I'm glad there's a self-learning curriculum before starting, but I worry about students getting hung up here/whether they'll have easy access to mentors before actually starting.
- The straight tuition cost is somewhat disconcerting. Hacker School gets its money from a hiring fee, while Flatiron School offers a partial refund if you find a job through them. App Academy only charges tuition if you get a job afterwards, and will also refund you part of it if you use their job placement programs. The use of a straight tuition cost makes me wonder if Omaha Code School isn't confident in its ability to place students in jobs, and thus doesn't want to tie their revenue to that. To be fair, Omaha Code School is significantly cheaper than App Academy or Flatiron School, around half the price!
- Does Omaha Code School only plan to work with partner companies in Omaha? While I'm happy to hear Omaha has a growing startup scene, it seems like a potential limiting factor.
Also, FWIW, while I expect there to be a lot of comments saying things like "why Omaha?," I actually think it's super exciting to see this code school concept spreading throughout the country. Hacker School had quite a few midwest migrants, but I think that something closer to home can drastically lower the barrier to entry (especially considering the incredibly difficult cost of SF or NYC).
There are a lot of mentors and almost all of them are very involved with the tech seen in Omaha and the midwest. Some have their businesses, some are recruiters, and some are just very good programmers. To my knowledge, none of them are actually full time.
> Does Omaha Code School only plan to work with partner companies in Omaha?
I doubt it, I can count the number of local companies using Rails one one hand. It's a Java/.Net town. But physical location isn't nearly the limiting factor it used to be.
> I doubt it, I can count the number of local companies using Rails one one hand. It's a Java/.Net town.
Totally true, most of the work in Omaha, Lincoln, and Des Moines is enterprise/government .NET or Java. The web dev shops tend towards PHP and as a guy working at a Ruby shop, I'm pretty sure there are < 5 companies actively using Ruby in Lincoln, not sure about Omaha or Des Moines.
Wow! I don't mean this in a demeaning way, but my tiny city that's pretty "old-school" in tech choices (Brisbane) has more Ruby shops than that.. though they are startups most of the time, so, job security is a bit up in the air. Found that really interesting, thanks :)
- Their curriculum seems very similar to App Academy's (from what I've gathered from friends/acquaintances who have gone there). This isn't a bad thing in any way; I think Rails is a solid foundation for web development, regardless of my personal opinion of it.
- They have a lot of mentors. I wonder how many students they expect to accept, and how many of these mentors are full time?
- I'm glad there's a self-learning curriculum before starting, but I worry about students getting hung up here/whether they'll have easy access to mentors before actually starting.
- The straight tuition cost is somewhat disconcerting. Hacker School gets its money from a hiring fee, while Flatiron School offers a partial refund if you find a job through them. App Academy only charges tuition if you get a job afterwards, and will also refund you part of it if you use their job placement programs. The use of a straight tuition cost makes me wonder if Omaha Code School isn't confident in its ability to place students in jobs, and thus doesn't want to tie their revenue to that. To be fair, Omaha Code School is significantly cheaper than App Academy or Flatiron School, around half the price!
- Does Omaha Code School only plan to work with partner companies in Omaha? While I'm happy to hear Omaha has a growing startup scene, it seems like a potential limiting factor.
Also, FWIW, while I expect there to be a lot of comments saying things like "why Omaha?," I actually think it's super exciting to see this code school concept spreading throughout the country. Hacker School had quite a few midwest migrants, but I think that something closer to home can drastically lower the barrier to entry (especially considering the incredibly difficult cost of SF or NYC).