App Academy: Free nine week iOS course | Hacker News Reader

App Academy: Free nine week iOS course

hashmaplabs.com

62 pointsruggeri40 comments

Looks interesting, but there are a few lingering questions remain:

1) Where will the academy be located at? Do you already have the logistics covered? If so, could you share some of these details? (Location/Photos of area/etc)

2) You mention that the Summer program is free to build up excitement for the fall session, but later you mention you will try to help find the developer a position. Are you acting as a recruiter, taking a % of the first year salary?

3) Could you go over in a little more detail the schedule of the class? You mention starting in ruby and moving over to Objective C and iOS, but don't really delve any deeper. You mention that "No programming experience [is] required", so I'd imagine there would be quite a few weeks of basic stuff.

Hey! Great questions all!

1) We haven’t picked a place yet; but we’re talking to places in East Bay. The likeliest location we’ve seen is in downtown Berkeley off BART.

2) We’re trying to do both. If we place the student at a company we’ve partnered with, we’d collect a fee from that company. But the long-term success of the program is going to be measured by the percentage of students who are ready for and get jobs afterward. We’d want our students to talk to all companies, not just ones we’ve partnered with.

3) We do have a curriculum planned and are running a small trial class in advance of the summer session. We’ll have students working on Ruby basics in advance of the course, and we’ll run a web-based kickoff class to help them prep a few weeks before the official start date. In addition to that, we’ve budgeted three weeks of class time with Ruby and Obj-C to get them up-to-speed with programming fundamentals. We’ve based that timing off of other programs. We’ll jump into iOS then.

Love the idea, and I just applied. But dismayed to read point #2, especially as I ticked 'no' for the last question.

Does this mean that I won't be considered as a likely candidate if I'm just an entrepreneur, or someone who really wants to put these newfound skills to use but doesn't yet know how? If that's the case, some additional details as to admission criteria would be welcome in the FAQ.

We definitely want a mix of people to get the class balance right. Without entrepreneurial folks the group would lack spark.

Hi Ned - would you all consider offering a free scholarship for the Fall course as well? I think for those who are already employed, the July 23rd start date is a very quick turnaround to quit or take a leave of absence. It would be much better to have more time to prepare.

I teach an intensive "Programming for Bioinformatics" course that, in just about a week, goes from "here's the terminal" to having people comfortable (if not completely proficient) with programming. From there, it's possible to dive into deeper stuff.

Do you have link? is it in college or open to the public?

All our materials are online at: http://intro-prog-bioinfo-2011.wikispaces.com/ (for different years of the course, just change the 2011 to whatever. The current year has not yet been written.

The enrollment is typically about 60% grad students and 40% post-docs in the various Biology departments at UC Berkeley. We'd like to increase the number of people we can support, but at the moment are limited by the instructors time (we are grad students ourselves, and supposedly primarily research focused).

If no programming experience required, What are the other prerequisites for this course? Can anyone without a collage degree join ? Do you think person with zero programming experience with just 9 weeks of study get $80k salary ?

http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/10/dev-boot-camp-is-a-ruby-suc... - "Startups Court Dev Bootcamp’s Ruby Grads: 88% Have Offers At Average Of $79K"

All the good stuff is on the west coast.. I'd murder a unicorn to have this available in Philadelphia.

I hear you. I was about to say exactly the same thing 'cos I'm in Philly, too.

Maybe we should talk? My contact is in my profile.

we do an online version of Devbootcamp/App Academy. http://bloc.io if you're interested

This is great. Especially with services like Parse out there, I could see how a sufficiently motivated/creative person could start from zero programming experience and become a skilled iOS developer in the course of a summer.

For the fall session, is the $1,000 discount* for female candidates legal?

*http://www.hashmaplabs.com/app_academy/program

I'm interested to know why age is one of the required fields. Will there be any preference given to people who are either "old enough" or "young enough?"

Making something like that required without disclosing why it's being asked seems like an invitation for people to supply false information in hopes of not being passed over for an arbitrary reason like their age.

Hmm; good point. We put it in there pro forma. Age isn't very important to us; feel free to put 0 in. We'll take the field off when we get a chance :-)

Thanks for the reply. I put my age in anyway :) The application form was actually fun to fill out, it got me thinking about my motivations for wanting to join the class, and a bit of looking at oneself is always a useful thing to do.

It might still be relevant. Aren't there still some issues with collecting personal information from minors, given some of the absurd "think of the children" internet laws that were pushed though?

This looks great. I applied. Will you guys help with housing or perhaps providing it would be great. You know what would be awesome? If you are finding spaces, why don't you find a hacker house and then people can live as well as learn together. This way all the participants won't have to spend money on rent and try to find an apartment?

This is a great idea. I'm 21 and currently live on the east coast and I am thinking of applying. However with limited income I am wondering how I would find temporary housing for the course. In my area at least it's very hard to find a 2 month lease and living out of a hotel doesn't sound very financially practical.

I agree. Hope the look at my comment as it benefits both us and appacademy.

I'm about to apply and I'm definitely down for the idea of finding living space with others that would be attending.

Its very important for me because I can't afford expensive rent. And I am sure its the same with others.

We're definitely hoping that students will put together a hacker house, if that's something they are interested in.

I meant that instead of you guys finding office space, you can just hold the lab in a hacker house?

Looks interesting!

I'm an experienced programmer (15+ years), but have only a limited exposure to IOS programming. I was planning on learning on my own, but your course seems pretty helpful.

But do you recommend this only for beginning programmers?

We're looking for people with all ranges of experience! For students new to programming, we'll cover much of the basics before the class, so you hopefully won't be bored when the class proper begins.

Man, I'd love to do this. Can't afford to take off work, don't have 9 weeks vacation, a new kid and a wife that wouldn't appreciate it.

I know, I'm merely making excuses, but... this would be fun and worthwhile.

Sounds great. Any thought being given into an online course using some kind of conferencing for student interaction.

I wish I was able to take 9 weeks off. This looks awesome.

We've been thinking about how to make some of the curriculum available online as well. If you're interested, sign up for our mailing list and we'll keep you updated.

That said, we believe that you will benefit significantly from the class experience, so do join us if possible.

Thanks! I'd definitely be interested in the online curriculum. Especially since I'm in Boston and working full time.

That would be so awesome for people not located anywhere near SF (like me). Hopefully this happens!

This looks so cool! I can't wait to sign up.

This is an awesome opportunity!

I agree. I'd bail out of my decent, relatively well-paying job and take my chances with the future if I got in on this.

The model isn't without precedent. For example, lots of paramedic companies run training programs at a loss, eg REMSA.

Congrats on the launch! I wish I had 9 weeks to do nothing but learn about IOS.

suggestion: tell everyone to buy a macbook air. Affordable and unixy.

mac os, since os x leopard, isn't just 'unixy', infact it is a 100% POSIX compliant certified UNIX operating system!

gnu/linux is what one would call 'unixy' =)

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