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Hi everyone!
I'm really excited to let you know that from January 2025, we're going to be running a Learn to Code Bootcamp!
Some background
I've been wanting to help total beginners for a long time. As I mentioned in the "2M users but no money in the bank" blog post in September, over 95% of people who try to learn to code give up, which I find unacceptable.
We're building a new platform that will sit alongside Exercism which is going to be dedicated to beginners, which we'll be launching in mid-2025. We've already put a lot of effort into this and I'm really proud of how it's evolving. I'll be talking a lot more about it in the coming months.
But before launching that, we're going to run a 6 month bootcamp, that will use some of the technology we're building. This will allow me to get super-close to students' learning experience, to refine and develop the platform as real people learn from it, and help me understand where students get stuck, and work out how to help them further.
Some details
The bootcamp will be in two parts:
- Learn to code
- Learn front-end web dev
Students can take just the first part (3 months from Jan-March) or the whole course (6 months from Jan-July). I may also just offer the second part later, for existing developers who want to learn some web development skills.
The bootcamp is remote, part-time, and priced as cheaply as possible, with pricing parity available along with discounts for students and those who are currently unemployed.
The whole focus is on learning through doing. Like Exercism, people will learn by coding lots. We're going to start with smaller exercises and evolve into bigger projects. This is how I learnt 3 decades ago, and I strongly feel that learning by doing is the best way for a brain to really build an intuitive and natural understanding of how to do something.
Rather than me regurgitating everything, it's probably best to scroll through the Bootcamp website for all the details!
There are two ways that you can help!
Help by spreading the word
The biggest thing you can do to help is to encourage everyone you know to come and join!
I've written many times about how valuable I think learning to code is for pretty much everyone today. Even if you don't want a career in tech, coding is a great skill to have. It nurtures critical thinking skills, helps you understand how so much of the world worlds, and, with the power of LLMs, it's increasingly easy for people to piece together different little bits of code to do useful things.
We're setting up an affiliate scheme where your friends or followers can get a 20% discount, and you get a 20% "commission" on the sale (which you can choose not to take to support Exercism if you prefer!) If you're interested in this, please let me know.
Lifetime Insiders will also get one free ticket to use for a friend or to give away as they see fit. I'll contact Lifetime Insiders seperately!
Help by mentoring
Exercism works best when the community comes together to make things possible that would be impossible individually!
One of the areas I'd love your help with is in supporting our bootcamp students by answering their questions and helping them get unstuck - similar to the support that happens currently on Discord and the forum, but in a more ordered way.
We're going to be taking a very specific approach to learning, where we introduce concepts in a specific order and let the students internalize the ideas through lots and lots of practice. We'll rely heavily on the Lie to children methodology, to ensure people don't get overwhelmed or drawn into areas that will complicate matters.
If you would be interested in supporting/mentoring total newbies and are happy with the "Lie to Children" approach and working within the framework we're building, then I'd love to hear from you (please email me at bootcamp@exercism.org!).
Conclusion
I'm really, really excited for this. I hope it'll help a ton of people, help us refine a product I've passionate about, and bring a little money into Exercism to keep us afloat. It feels like a win win win.
I'll be talking lots more about it over the next few months, but in the meantime, I'd massively appreciate your support in spreading the word and generating some hype!
Thanks for reading 🙂
