
Omaha Code School - noahtkoch
http://omahacodeschool.com/
======
programminggeek
I'm from Lincoln and I hope this works out for the people who drop the $6,000
on this training program.

However, I take issue with two things they are promoting,

First, this line, "Now they're employed as web developers making $70-100k."
The Omaha and Lincoln area have a much lower cost of living than SF obviously,
but developer salaries are also much, much lower. An entry level dev is likely
to find something closer to $35,000-50,000. I'd say the salary range in the
midwest is something like $35,000-100,000 depending on where you work,
experience, and so on. Selling devs on the idea that this 12 week course will
get you a $70-100k job in the midwest is at least a bit misleading.

Second, even a very intense 12 week course is a good start, but I don't know
how many employers are going to hire someone with 3 months training. Now, I
don't doubt that the training is FAR more applicable than what they are
teaching at the local universities, but real world project experience counts
for a lot and some lessons you never really learn until you get the experience
of building something.

Also, I really think that the line "Omaha Code School is special" kind of
exudes this weird notion I've seen popping up in the "Silicon Prarie" that
doing tech in the midwest somehow makes you special because you're not doing
it in Boston or SF. I don't really get why they think that, but that vibe
seems to permeate the culture of midwest startup land.

Anyway, I hope this does awesome things, but I am worried they are setting the
wrong expectations for potential students.

~~~
xiaoma
> _" Second, even a very intense 12 week course is a good start, but I don't
> know how many employers are going to hire someone with 3 months training."_

I graduated from Hack Reactor this April, the only school I know of a with
similar number of instruction hours to those quoted here—about 800. Back then,
the school had little brand, but I still got hired by Groupon, and _not_ in a
junior role. I was a liberal arts major.

Since that time, I've seen demand for students of later cohorts grow and grow.
Some have gotten into white hot start-ups like famo.us, Google and Yahoo!
offered interviews to practically the entire current graduating class. One of
my friends who started right after me is leading Keychain Logistic's front-end
development (YC2012). More interestingly is that while we learn Node, Meteor,
Backbone and a lot of other JS-related technologies, a large number of
formerly non-technical students have gone on to take roles that have little to
do with JavaScript. A couple of examples I can think of off the top of my head
are senior Java developer at Pandora and chief data scientist at Node Prime. I
really can't emphasize strongly enough what 800 hours in 12 weeks can do in
the right program.

My biggest concern with what I can see of the Omaha Code School is actually
the low price tag. These schools are not commodities with roughly similar pros
and cons. There is a _huge_ variance in outcomes and if you're going to put
your life on hold for months while spending all your waking time investing in
a new career, it would be madness not to invest in the highest quality program
you can.

~~~
Edmond
From your github stuff it seems you've been programming for much longer than a
few months?...From novice to pro in 12 weeks...not likely.

~~~
xiaoma
I was a novice, but not a total beginner. I knew what variables, loops and
functions were, but didn't know about the chrome debugger or have a good grasp
on client-server programming. I had been trying and failing to get a junior
front-end role for several months after transitioning from a career in foreign
language education. Hack Reactor was literally life changing for me.

My friend Howard, a high school drop-out from London, came into class with
virtually no programming background at all. Here's his github
[https://github.com/cheeseen](https://github.com/cheeseen). He contracts for
Google labs now. Like the school in the post HR now has a pre-course
curriculum (with online help) to get people up to the point where they can
make a simple chat app before the first day of class, so students get a bit
further than my class did.

It really saddens me to see such negative default assumptions, but if you're
that skeptical, you can look through every single graduate of the program up
through class 3, their LinkedIn profiles and their github profiles here:
[http://www.hackreactor.com/engineers/](http://www.hackreactor.com/engineers/).
You really can't find that level of transparency from any other school I know
of.

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pw
I'm very for alternative education, but this trend of for-profit (or, more
accurately, cash-up-front, as I think Hacker Schools is the exception) code
schools is a little unsettlingly. I guess it's because it'd be very easy for
them to prey upon people in the same way that for-profit universities do
("Earn $70k after three short months!").

On the other hand, they're not funded by student loans, so at least they can't
prey on poor people. Still, they can go after someone who's desperate and just
happens to be sitting on some cash.

~~~
jurassic
App Academy also has no upfront payment. I hope that in the long run App
Academy and Hacker School will be able to differentiate themselves from the
hoard of somewhat scammy cash-up-front programs that seem to be popping up
everywhere and churning out grads of dubious quality. By delaying payment and
tying their compensation to student success, AA+HS are able to be very
selective about who they admit which sets up a positive feedback in terms of
student outcome and program reputation.

Some big red flags, in my opinion, about Omaha School web page as it currently
stands:

\-- Who is actually teaching this class from the crowd of mentors depicted?
Are they competent/qualified and have they been respected/successful in their
career up to this point? Why are they doing this? The "Who We Are" is
currently just pictures and twitter links, which doesn't inspire confidence.

\-- I see absolutely no information about outcomes for _program grads_.
Industry average salaries doesn't mean squat, because people doing this
bootcamp don't have the profile of the average junior dev with a CS degree and
the knowledge/experience that entails. What is the average salary of a program
grad and what kind of places are they working? What percent drop out? What
percent are kicked out because they can't learn at the pace required? (Kicking
people out occasionally is good and indicates there is some combination of
rigor/expectation/structure.)

\-- The application asks nothing of the applicant and emphasizes how low their
expectations are. This signals desperation to me. And what's with the weird
age buckets?

~~~
examancer
2 of your 3 red flags can be almost immediately dismissed.

A quick search into the mentors will reveal that many of them are indeed
highly respected members of their community and skilled developers. Some of
the skilled developers have also worked in or built startups and have
experience with doing much more than development.

Also, its pretty clear this will be the program's inaugural class, so
providing outcomes from program grads is obviously not possible. The fact that
this is the inaugural class might give some cause for concern, but they are
very up front about that.

Your criticisms about the application seem valid, though minor.

I am in no way affiliated with the school, though I have met a few of the
mentors before.

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avolcano
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).

~~~
subliminalbrad
> 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.

~~~
programminggeek
> 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.

~~~
girvo
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 :)

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alaskamiller
Code schools are the auto tech schools of our generation.

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craftsman
I was born and raised in Omaha, and spent most of my career there (now live in
the Rockies). This is a great thing for the city and it looks like they have a
great group of mentors. Good luck to everyone running this and participating
in the program.

I think other comments that Omaha is / has been an enterprise Java and .NET
scene are accurate, but perhaps this program will help shift things for the
better. Let's hope.

Looks great!

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crb002
Why Omaha, and why $6000? DesMoines @startupcity with a commitment to pay 10%
post tax earnings for the next two years on pay over $50k would be much
better. @startupcity is looking for a new round of funding.

~~~
nevermindme123
As far as I can tell, DesMoines Startup City is a startup incubator. That's
quite a bit different than a coding school that turns non-programmers into
programmers.

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sorensen
Being from Omaha, this is pretty exciting. I'm glad to see some interest in
the city and hope this continues to be something that helps Nebraska as a
whole grow to be a better climate for developers.

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bruceb
There seems not to be testimonials from former students?

Why Omaha? Not saying bad just not a place that you would think of normally.

Location might be good for some as renting there will be 1/3? of the price of
SF

~~~
BrainScraps
I'll do a proper testimonial later that's ready for the site, but I was a
member of Sumeet's WDI (San Francisco) class and I can say that he's not only
a talented instructor, but he's also hard-working and compassionate one as
well. When you're spending that much time with someone, for 12 weeks, you find
out a lot about them. The more I learn about Sumeet, the more I admire him.

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bfell
When I scanned the headlines, I misread this as Obama Code School, I guess
that's where the healthcare.gov developers went...

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jaryd
That prospective schedule is ambitious (as I'm sure it has to be with the goal
of taking novices to junior dev), I'd strive to build in some time for
exercise. Three months of intensive coding without a physical outlet could
easily lend itself to some unhealthy lifestyle choices. Might as well try to
instill balance at the same as good coding habits.

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Python4Life
Application Error

An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please
try again in a few moments.

If you are the application owner, check your logs for details. \--- So much
for a code school

~~~
avolcano
Oh, c'mon, don't act like this reflects poorly on them. This hit Hacker News
at midnight on Friday, I seriously doubt they self-submitted or expected it at
all. For all we know, this could just be a demo site still running on a single
Heroku instance they were waiting to scale up.

------
pw
And...the site is down.

