So You Want To Take A Bootcamp?

You're driven, you're passionate, you're eager to get your hands on a keyboard and start crafting the next killer app that will take the world by storm. You teach yourself things for fun, you are usually the smartest person in any room you're in, your friends tell you that you should really do something technological. You face problems and view them as challenges, not obstacles. You thrive under pressure, basking in the opportunity to prove that you're capable. You learn by doing, aren't afraid to ask for help, and get lost in tasks that are creative and productive. You want to be a developer, and you believe Lighthouse Labs is the place to make that goal a reality.

But enough about you. Let's talk about the program you've chosen. You've chosen to go the bootcamp route, which means that you're going to participate in an educational model that is built very differently from the ones you experienced in high school and/or university. Lighthouse Labs practices a flipped, immersive model of education that puts the emphasis on the development of practical skills through building real-world applications using an incremental and cumulative collection of tools and best practices. Lectures take up a maximum of two and a half hours in any given day, with another eight to ten hours being spent each day working in a lab setting.

You can expect to introduce yourself to new concepts through readings and exercises, getting your knowledge bolstered and backfilled with lectures throughout the week. These lectures will be delivered by world-class developers who have a passion for taking the knowledge, skills, and experience that they have gathered in their development careers and breaking it down into understandable blocks of information. Your lab time will be supported by a talented group of mentors which Lighthouse has taken the time to bring in to assist you. All will be active developers in your community, able to offer their insights into the best way to approach each and every challenge you may be facing.

For 12 weeks, you'll show up early and leave late, spending all the in-between hours building projects that can go in your portfolio after you graduate. You will build applications you can show off and be proud of, using up-to-date technologies and techniques. You'll be able to demonstrate how spiffy you can make something look and how well you can make it work. And most importantly, you'll be able to lift the proverbial hood and prove an encyclopedic knowledge of the inner workings.

We have a philosophy of education here at Lighthouse Labs. We believe that you need to know the mechanics of the major libraries and frameworks, and understand their inner workings, before you start applying them and using them to build applications. We'll always show you the hard way to do something first, and then give you an easier way, so that you appreciate why the easier way is actually easier and better for your app. You can say that we'll teach you why wheels are round and what tires do before giving you Formula 1 hubs with racing slicks.

Using the popular languages of JavaScript and Ruby, we're going to take you all the way from the basic programming fundamentals that are part of all software development up to the point that you have the skills and knowledge you need to build real-time big data applications that can be deployed on multiple platforms. Along the way, you'll learn important concepts that include debugging, refactoring, and optimization. We will make sure you are ready to enter the work force with the confidence that you can contribute from the first day of the bootcamp.

You may have heard of the Stone Soup story, where a family in a village is boiling water and rocks to feed themselves. Each family in the village begins to bring ingredients, contributing what they can until the community is able to produce a rich, luxurious pot of soup that all can share. Lighthouse Labs believes in this philosophy. Each student, each mentor, each staff member and each instructor are going to contribute something to your education. And each of our graduates will go forth into the developer community and add a new ingredient, something that improves and enriches.

This is because in the developer community that you are joining, you are entering a segment of society where you are given merit based on what you contribute, instead of what you consume. Our culture is an open and friendly culture, where we don't judge based on gender, age, or background. Instead, the quality of the code and the software products you produce earns you the respect you expect to fulfill you in your career.

Sound exciting? Try coding for yourself!

Join The Classroom
Which skills will you learn next?