Dev League Adds Coding Prep Course for Beginners

DevLeague, Hawaii’s first and only coding bootcamp, is launching an introductory offering to help would-be students ensure that they have the basic skills needed to enter and succeed in the program.

DevLeague was founded in 2013 by local entrepreneurs and friends Jason Sewell and Russel Cheng. Modeled after popular and successful programming bootcamp programs that have sprouted up across the mainland, DevLeague offers a “super intense” 12-week program packed with 11-hour days, six days a week, after which graduates will be ready for full-time development work.

With full-stack developers in high demand, it’s an attractive prospect. But Dev League does expect applicants have some web programming skills.

“We don’t have any prerequisites to apply, but to actually get accepted and to come into the program, you do have to have a certain base knowledge and get through our coding challenge, our entrance exam,” said Dev League co-founder and instructor Jason Sewell on our Wednesday radio show. “A lot of people struggle with it — they’re on their own trying to figure this out, it’s very hard — and for a lot of people, that’s where they drop off.”

Sewell and Cheng are addressing this surmountable hurdle by creating a four-week introductory program called Dev League Prep.

“It made sense for us to kind of start helping people more up front because there’s so much interest,” Sewell said.

The Dev League Prep curriculum is heavy on the basics of the web — HTML, CSS, and especially JavaScript – as well as the basics of programming in general, like using logic to solve problems, using variables, control flow, and other core concepts. The objective is to lay the groundwork for students to become web developers, even if they don’t continue with Dev League.

“For people that are considering coming into the program, they can get help, exposure, and some real hands on training… and figure out if it’s for them,” Sewell explained. “And if it’s not, at least they still come away knowing something more about programming, about how programming works, and about applications on the web.”

And having Dev League Prep as part of the pipeline also benefits everyone in the main, intensive program.

“It allows us to start a little bit faster and a little bit farther down the road, and that directly leads to the outcome of how far people are when they finish the program,” he said.

But Sewell insists that the most important part of getting started isn’t tied to a single programming tool.

“Step one is really just taking the initiative, [saying] that it’s something that you really want to do,” he said. “So much of what we talk about is motiviation and hard work and we really drive that home all the time.

“People are probably capable of so much more than they think they may be, and that’s why we see so much of that drop off up front, because they beat themselves up,” he explained. “We know different: if you have the motivation to do it, we’ll help you learn.”

The first four-week, 48-hour Dev League Prep class starts on Tuesday, Sept. 8. The inaugural run comes with a special introductory price of $525. And if students complete the course and enroll in the full 12-week Dev League coding bootcamp, the cost of Dev League Prep will be applied toward the $10,000 tuition (for which financial assistance, scholarships, and payment plans are also available).

For more information on Dev League and the new Dev League Prep program, you can visit DevLeague.com, visit the Dev League page on Facebook., or follow @DevLeagueHawaii on Twitter.

You can listen to the interview with Sewell here:

Photos courtesy Dev League on Facebook.