Our Cohort 32 grads left the nest last week and are on the job hunt with their Rails + React skills. Cohort 32 is graduating as one of our strongest, most consistent groups yet. Each and every student was relentless in their pursuit of knowledge. They set a high bar for themselves on their final Breakable Toy Projects, with several students building apps with concepts I’ve never seen in my 6 years here at Launch Academy. Perhaps the greatest difficulty we have seen students face is managing integrations with popular services like Twitter and Spotify using Oauth2. For fresh Launchers, the authorization workflow is a lot to manage in addition to still learning the ropes of Devise authentication and other integrations with third-party APIs. Nevertheless, this cohort’s ability to stay organized via story management on Trello, and their ability to pivot when faced with insurmountable challenges, means they’ve come away with some of the most polished final projects yet.
Curriculum Updates
We continue to make refinements in both our Node and Rails curricula. For our Rails curriculum, we’ve refined and upgraded challenges and articles to use some of the latest patterns, and to adjust for new versions of our core technologies. For our Node curriculum, we’ve been working out the kinks from our first Node JS cohort, improving and refining our curriculum on working with Knex/Objection JS and Cypress in particular. We’ve also each been leveling up our skills to best serve students by working on either new projects with consulting clients, or on new internal apps. Our team has really hit its stride in its ability to deliver an exceptional bootcamp experience.
Announcement: Launch Academy Returns to In-Person Programming
In other news, we have been waiting for over a year to announce that the Boston Immersive program will be returning to in-person instruction full-time! While we will still be taking precautionary measures throughout the space and in accordance with all regulations set by the state, the prevalence of vaccinations and the low infection rate of COVID-19 will allow us to return to the onsite instruction that Launch Academy is known for. Measures such as mask wearing will still be required in the space, particularly for unvaccinated individuals and vaccinated individuals as guidance continues to be given by the state and CDC. We are still a ways out from holding any large in-person gatherings, but we are excited to be working more closely with students in the space again. The program will remain open to any individuals who wish to study remotely, particularly as we have seen consistent success with our online instruction over the past year. This hybrid approach should allow us to reach new audiences and experiment with new modes of learning while also providing the signature bootcamp experience that Launch Academy is known for.During our next cohort, we plan to roll out some new projects, events, and program experiences. The summer of 2021 will involve embodying our core value of “Learn from Experimentation” more than ever, and I can’t wait to update you all! —Nick Alberts, Boston Experience Manager
