If the community puts up $12k for Catherine to attend this program (which, to echo other sentiments, seems really expensive for a three month iOS intensive given what's available out there for free, both content and community)...
If that happens, Catherine should -- after she's graduated and is making a nice income (which she will be, as an iOS developer) -- pass it along and give $12k back to help the community somehow. Give it to a program in NYC that's helping give underprivileged kids access to technology, for example.
That would seem fair to me. It does seem a little weird to beg for donations so someone who already seems pretty smart and well-connected can further their career a bit (in an expensive way -- see above) when there are so many ways $12k can be used to really change someone's life. Or many people's lives.
According to a WSJ article[1] a few days ago about Flatiron's $5.5 million funding round, "More than 98% of its students get jobs through the Flatiron School’s placement efforts."
It's hard to criticize someone for asking for help (you have to do what you have to do), but if the Flatiron School is truly this successful at preparing attendees for real-world development and helping close to 100% of them find work after just four months (as opposed to four years), I think it's to be expected that some folks are going to be less empathetic.
Interestingly, despite Flatiron's $12,000 tuition, the WSJ article says "The school’s student acceptance rate is less than 8%." That suggests they're not just accepting anybody who can pay; ostensibly they are filtering for ability/accomplishment. If this is the case, and the placement figures are accurate, there's no reason Flatiron (and programs like it) couldn't make their money on the back-end. Assume that graduates are placed in entry-level positions paying $80,000 on average. A 20% placement fee would earn Flatiron $16,000, $4,000 more per student than tuition. If you assume a class size of 30, and a 98% placement rate, you're looking at an additional $116,000 in revenue per graduating class.
Yes, there's risk with this model, but if these schools are truly capable of placing nearly all of their students in in-demand development jobs after just four months, the risk seems modest. After all, when the market turns, the pool of people willing to pay $12,000 for a four month program is going to dry up anyway.
Ponying up $12k shows some amount of initiative, as does applying, and sticking through the course.
I know we're getting off-topic here--
Generally, I'm all for having more people who are qualified to write code, but I'm opposed to For-Profit Education systems as I believe incentives aren't aligned.
Right now, Flatiron needs to establish itself as credible, and worthy of your tuition and time, by separating itself from the other would-be "L2Code Schools." So it's in their best interest to be highly selective.
But what happens when they hit critical mass? The risk of turning out like the Art Institute, where they no longer care about the quality of applicants, and are instead focused on revenues.
What if they already get a placement fee? That would mean they make money on the front and backend, which if they dropped their tuition fees, would drop their income.
"and he's doing it without her knowledge (presumably)."
My personal opinion is there is an issue if he is publicly doing this without her knowing. But then again. [1]
How many people would want someone to post a picture of them with their names, plans etc out in the wild for this reason.
It's not like she needs a kidney. Or is kidnapped and he needs to take immediate decisive action.
She may very well be the type of person who has previously expressed willingness to be very open of course. But from the story we have no way of knowing this.
[1] Personally again I like the initiative that he is taking. He is taking a risk obviously. But you have to to get ahead. Besides it doesn't matter if the internet doesn't like what he is doing and in fact (streisand wise) that may actually work to his benefit.
Having been in enough relationships, this will probably end up backfiring, the way that all well-meaning gestures tend to.
> How many people would want someone to post a picture of them with their names, plans etc out in the wild for this reason.
They may be young enough to be part of the new generation, that has a lot less expectation of privacy, and is a lot more comfortable with "oversharing" online.
The same way my generation is a lot more comfortable with openly displaying tattoos, and piercings, that previous generations weren't okay with.
I don't think putting up a .com and making it to the front page of Hacker News will make this much of a surprise.
Open source projects need money (hello OpenSSL) and children are dying. Paying for someone's Objective-C/Xcode tuition isn't my number-one priority at this time. Perhaps someone else will swallow the bait.
Wow. Best of luck to both of your but I have to say a dev boot camp for iOS is the last thing I would ever consider spending 12k on even when I was just learning Objective-C.
Now blowing 12k on a trip overseas together after a 2 year long distance relationship... that's something that I could get behind.
That said, please please make sure the class sizes are very small and the instructor ratio is like 1:5 max. You will be paying a premium and if they put you in with 30 other people or even 15 (60k/month for them btw) you are just getting ripped off.
For 12k you could hire an experienced iOS dev to teach you this stuff in a couple hours a week. Even if Catherine paid 125/hr (and I bet someone would do it for less for the hell of it) that's still almost 100 hours of 1:1 time. Just food for thought. I'll donate anyway in hopes you take a nice vacation :)
PS. My friends website of as many tech schools as he could find says the rails program @ Flatiron has 32 people to a course - http://schools.techendo.co
Have you exhausted all possible scholarship options? Try a curveball approach at The Flaitron (I'm sure you may have already, though) and anywhere else where educational funding may be available.
I didn't think I'd be able to make it to a WWDC scholarship from the UK until I went past the usual funding bureaucracy at my university and went directly to the head of dpt who was kind enough to authorise a bursary for me.
I don't think money should ever hold people back people skilled and intelligent enough from the educational resources and creative outlets they can use to the full to prosper.
She has been emailing Adam, the president of The Flatiron School about it. There is a $750 discount off the tuition, which she would qualify for, as well as a payment plan where 50% of the tuition is due up front, with the remaining 50% due over 6 months after graduating. I'm not sure if she is 100% eligible for that, but that would certainly make things much easier.
I agree that it is sad that money is what holds people back. It's a cruel system that I can't wait to see ripped to shreds by new & easier access to education.
Easier access to education? $12k for 3 months is not easier access to education. That's just silly.
Start with Paul Hegarty's iOS class on iTunes U, it's free and it's terrific. Do all the assignments (if you get stuck you can find other people who have done them and see what they did but I really recommend doing it yourself.) Sign up for NSScreencast.com and watch 1 or 2 a day, taking notes. Go read as much Ray Wenderlich stuff as you can that's not dated (some of the stuff on his site's kinda old, but no matter.) Then build an app and put it in the app store, it can be lame but you have built so many practice ones it's good to actually get something in the App Store. Go read some stuff at objc.io, some stack overflow, whatever.
You are now an entry-level iOS developer. I just saved you $12,000 and you don't have to beg strangers on the internet for donations. Seriously, $12,000? I guess it's true: the best way to get rich in a gold rush/bubble is selling pickaxes. There are enough great resources out there that you are silly if you do this.
I was saying how $12k for the education is NOT easy.
Thank you for the tips. I will certainly pass them on (as well as read up myself!).
I mentioned this in a reply to you a little lower, but I'm not trying to beg here; I am offering design services, and she is selling hand-sewn stuff on Etsy.
> I don't think money should ever hold people back people skilled and intelligent enough from the educational resources and creative outlets they can use to the full to prosper.
They don't. Skilled and intelligent people with an internet connection have all the educational resources they need at their fingertips. For free.
You really shouldn't underestimate the value of having a skilled person in front of you to have a conversation with (that is why people pay consultants to tell them things they could find online).
Agree. Not to mention the connections that you make by being in close proximity to other like minded individuals.
With respect to consultants the other dimension is the consultant presumably has judgement which they can apply from all the information that they have accumulated over the years. Things that you read online don't have judgement. Although I guess if you want to spend an inordinate amount of time reading absolutely everything you may come somewhat close to being able to triangulate a close approximation. (Actually, no I don't think that is the case with many things..)
I really hate when people ask for help or advice achieving a certain goal and what they get in response is a bunch of yap about how they shouldn't want to do that in the first place.
But I dislike stuff like "The Flatiron School" even more so. I want to help you and Catherine. I remember too well driving junk-yard cars for days straight only to spend a few hours with my long-distance[1] because plane tickets were impossibly out of reach. The others are right though: I'd sooner donate to send you guys on a cruise than essentially give money to the "Flatiron" folks.
I know that seems entirely unhelpful. Sorry.
[1] I did marry her in the end and that sweet suffering has become part of our collective mythology, now imparted to our own wide-eyed children. Succeed or fail, you're doing the awesome part right now.
Have you heard of Hacker School in NY? Not only is it free, I think they offer $5k grants for female programmers who need living expenses. Generally the candidates for Hacker School and DBC/Flatiron don't overlap much, but if she's a programmer who's just moving to a new language, it might be worth looking in to.
She applied to Hacker School back in December, but unfortunately she was not accepted. I didn't know about that $5k grant though, that is pretty amazing!
1) What is the educational value of a course at Flatiron School - is there any accreditation?
2) What are the other options: graduate program at good program (Stanford, UW Seattle, Berkeley, or if NYC, why not check out the NYU digital arts program or the new Cornell initiative that Bloomberg has been touting)? Internship or entry level job into Google or another organization that has good mentorship? Granted, these may be even harder to get into, since competition is w/ CS majors from stanford/mit...
Just my thoughts musing out loud, not actually in the CS field, but it's interesting to ask - what's a good steppingstone for a young person just out of college into a CS-related job?
You may want to look into our program (http://appacademy.io). Students only pay us if they find jobs as developers after the program. In that case, the fee is 18% of your first year salary, payable over the first 6 months after you start working.
It's web focused, not iOS focused, but we do have a strong emphasis on fundamentals, and grads have often picked up iOS on the job within a few months.
How is this begging? You don't have to donate, you can hire him as a designer. And he's offering a discount. If you A) need a designer B) want to help him and his girlfriend out, that's an added bonus.
People "donate" on Kickstarter when they pledge money to a project without pledging enough for a full reward, but we don't consider that begging. It's patronage. Not everything has to be black and white where if you give $5 here that means you're a bad person because there's someone less fortunate out there who could have used the money. If you think it's not worth it, then donate elsewhere.
This culture of begging is really starting to get to me. I'm all for helping non-profits, and those that cannot help themselves. Student loans if it's that important, guy.
I used Upstart.com to fund thoughtbots Rails program. I highly suggest looking in to that. Also, youre an awesome boyfriend. Good luck, dude. Wife that girl up.
I'm a big fan of wifing the right person when you find them but ... your implication is that you live your lives in ways designed to make each other fulfilled and happy. Never stop doing that. It's that important. Good luck from a happily married man (almost 27 years). Now I need to deliver tea in bed.
Hi Cody - good luck with the fundraising. Wouldn't it be ironic if you and Catherine ended up developing a site/app to help thousands of others worldwide to fund their college courses?
Kickstarter for education - perhaps it exists already?....
Funny story: she set up that Etsy a couple days before visiting her family in Florida, and actually lugged her sewing machine on the plane just so she was able to take any orders while away. Just to give a glimpse of how great she is, hah.
$12k, 4 months! Wow. Sucks to be in college nowadays.
This guy (along with being boyfriend-of-the-year apparently) has the right idea.
Ignore these people. Debt === slavery! You are doing the right thing.
(Only #3 of his approach is begging. #1 & #2 are advertising)
People get really angered at begging lately it seems..
p.s.. I'd say to give back to the "community", just make an app like watsi or something, and not spend your life's work finding more efficient ways to find people to f--k within a 10 mile radius..
It's not college. It's "hacker school". Lots of these out there advertising that they'll take you from zero skill to web/mobile developer in 3-4 months.
If it's a good investment in her career she should just go get a loan. Alternatively, if she has a passion for programming and the skills you say she does she can take 12 weeks of her own time and learn to be an entry-level iOS developer for a lot less than $12k.
Begging is unseemly, and the whole "you can be a programmer in 3 months just give me $12k" thing is also kind of uncool.
I don't think you read the page clearly. She's already a programmer; she's trying to accelerate her learning process. Which frankly is worth the $12k, but getting an uncollateralized loan for that kind of thing can be difficult.
Fuck the haters. Keep it up! You should use twitter to reach out to writers at Mashable, Fast Company, etc and tell them this story. This story has feel-good written all over it.
Thank you! I'm gonna try and reach out to some tech bloggers and see what happens. Official accounts of Mashable, Fast Company, etc seem to just tweet their articles, with no @replies ever.
If you're a programmer and you have 3 months of time to work at this full-time you can accelerate your learning process without paying $12k. I laid out a free plan in a post above. I know it works because that's what I did.
Right, because what works for one person works for everyone?
It's great that you were able to do that, and it grew up doing this work myself in a time in which you didn't have a lot of options BUT to be self taught. But I know I certainly would have benefitted from a program like this 15-20 years ago, when I learned a lot of things the hard way and much more slowly.,
every candidate I talk to about this gets the same spiel: you don't have to pay to learn this material. It's available online for free. But learning in a guided way will get you over the speed bumps a lot faster.. moreover, the best value from these programs isn't even the education: it's the network. Connecting with peers, mentors, and instructors is a benefit that pays dividends throughout a career, and this is often something students are completely up equipped to achieve on their own.
I think the advantage of these programs is the external motivation. Not everyone who wants to learn programming is internally motivated or disciplined enough to do it on their own.
It could be that they love programming but they learn best in the competitive interactive environment offered by a place like The Flatiron School. There is more than one way to learn programming and the ways are not hierarchical, one may work best for one person, but would fail miserably for another.
She currently is paying off a student loan from her 2 years at UCF. She is putting a as much hours she can into learning, but working two jobs to make ends meet means a lot less time to get some serious time in. That is not stopping her, though, she is somehow finding time to program, sew and bake (her big 3).
I definitely do not want to come off as begging. I am offering design services to secure some money for her tuition, and she is sewing some things to sell on Etsy to raise money as well. Donations are for those with hearts of gold.
She has heard some good things about The Flatiron School. It's actually closer to a full-time job, rather than just a class.
I think the point is that if she's already willing/able to dedicate herself to 12 weeks of unpaid time, and she's motivated, then that should be enough to teach herself off the internet. What these critics here don't get is that some very smart and talented people don't learn this way, or aren't confident enough that they could commit themselves to 3 months of unpaid, self-guided learning.
Naturally, as with all things HN, there is an insinuation that anyone who is incapable of doing things the way an intellectually-advanced-but-socially-deficient 17 y/o boy would, must not be intelligent.
>Naturally, as with all things HN, there is an insinuation that anyone who is incapable of doing things the way an intellectually-advanced-but-socially-deficient 17 y/o boy would, must not be intelligent.
No, that's not true at all. The resources are out there and he's already said she's got a passion and talent for programming. You can take an iOS class from Stanford for free on iTunes U from a brilliant teacher who used to be a VP at NextStep for gods sake. Or you can pay $12k to some "hacker school" bros.
It's actually closer to a full-time job, except instead of them paying you you pay them $12,000. Makes no sense. Is that what they tell you to get your money? Wait, this really doesn't add up, she's a programmer but she's working 2 jobs to make ends meet?
I laid out a self-study plan above that worked great for me, it's all common sense and its mostly free. Now if she's not skilled enough to put the pieces together with the resources I mentioned then I'm very skeptical that working super duper hard for a few months (even with great mentors) would get her up to speed. That's not how learning software development works. Your brain is not built that way. LOL "hacker schools"
If that happens, Catherine should -- after she's graduated and is making a nice income (which she will be, as an iOS developer) -- pass it along and give $12k back to help the community somehow. Give it to a program in NYC that's helping give underprivileged kids access to technology, for example.
That would seem fair to me. It does seem a little weird to beg for donations so someone who already seems pretty smart and well-connected can further their career a bit (in an expensive way -- see above) when there are so many ways $12k can be used to really change someone's life. Or many people's lives.