At the beginning of the week (Sunday) I applied to an online programming school/bootcamp called Lambda School. I discovered it in a video on Joshua Fluke‘s YouTube channel. The idea intrigued me – basically, they offer 5 tracks of study, there’s no upfront cost, and they claim a high (85%) placement rate in software development after completion.

Classes/cohorts start every five weeks and last 9 months. For full-time students, its intense. You attend from 8 AM – 6 PM, Pacific Standard Time on weekdays, which equates to a full-time job. There’s a part-time option as well, which holds classes on evenings, and (I believe) a day out of the weekend. It lasts for 18 months. Some people on Reddit said that they prefer this option, because it gives them more time with the material, but I’ve been itching to move into programming, but I’m not learning well on my own, so I opted for the full-time schedule.

Yesterday, I received an acceptance email from the program. The application consisted of five typed fields in which to enter background information about myself. These were the questions:

• Tell us about your prior education (what schools you have attended, degrees you have achieved, etc).*
• Tell us about your work experience (employers, positions, titles, etc).*
• Which of the following best describes your programming experience?*
• Please tell us in one or two sentences about the most impressive thing that you have built or achieved.*
• Why would you be a good candidate for Lambda School?*

I applied for the full-stack web development track, but I’m also interested in the user experience design track. Since acceptance, I’ve had access to the free pre-coursework material for the full-stack program, which I’m working through. Its a series of online texts and videos (which are also available on YouTube) with quizzes at the end of each unit (all require typed answers, like the initial application). You’re required to complete the material before the class begins.

What I’m looking at, for the pre-course full-stack web development track, consists of HTML, CSS and JavaScript lessons, among general information about a developer’s role and mindset.

This entire emerging environment of online learning is fascinating to me. I’ve used some resources in the past, such as Coursera for learning about music theory and electric bass (see one of my other blogs), but this is my first foray into structured learning for a work-related reason. Lambda’s format seems a lot more interactive than what I’ve seen from resources I’ve used for music-related lessons. Its also a lot faster-paced and intense. Coursera, for example, was based on weekly lessons. Lambda utilizes daily lessons, and Coursera’s materials were only a few hours long, at the most, per week. Lambda’s is much lengthier.

I’ll document my experience with Lambda as I find time to do so. My cohort begins in August. I have to verify the actual date, as different messages gave different start dates (Aug 4th, Aug 5th and Aug 12th). In any event. I have 4-6 weeks left before classes start, and my intent is to prepare with at least a generalized understanding of each of the technologies that the track teaches before I start. Hopefully, this is the first step towards a career-change into development work for me. We’ll see in nine months!