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Hackbright Academy Turns Women Into Developers In 10 Weeks
It’s probably too early to talk about how many of the recent graduates actually get jobs, but co-founder David J. Phillips (who also co-founded location startup Banjo) shared some earlier data. Eight out of 12 students in Hackbright’s first class, were looking for immediate employment, he said, and all eight of them got offers from companies like New Relic, Survey Monkey, Cisco, and Bump.
- douglascalhoun 14y agoCongratulations to David, Christian, Charles, and of course the graduates of Hackbright! I remember visiting your classroom when the Summer cohort was just starting to take those first uncertain steps. Seeing them now, successfully working and growing in their first dev jobs is truly inspiring! From one dev training program to another, keep up the good work! doug at catalystclass.com
- davj 14y agoThanks, Doug!
- lowglow 14y agoCongratulations, David and Christian! I hope your entire class rules the world soon!
- davj 14y agoThanks, Dan!
- shurane 14y agoTraining programmers in 10 short weeks? Albeit these have experience with programming via codecademy, but 10 weeks? That is a fantastic turnaround and sounds a bit too marvelous. How does it work? This is just the first batch, but does it work consistently? This is fascinating. Do the programmers at Hackbright have any particular traits? Ambition, drive, or a ridiculous work ethic? Surrounding themselves with the help of coworkers, or something else? I'm somewhat incredulous at the short time span, but maybe that's enough because of the small class size and perhaps the involved teaching style. And if that's enough to let graduates intern at a company... well. This program definitely looks exciting.
- sliverstorm 14y agoI'm just waiting for the guys who decide, "If Hackbright can train full-fledged programmers in 10 weeks, we can do it in 5"
- nhebb 14y ago5 weeks? That's practically a lifetime! Nothing tops "Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 10 Minutes": http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Minutes-2nd/dp/0672324253 http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Minutes-2nd/dp/067...
- runarb 14y agoAgree. With Sams all you need is about an hour, and you could know all this: "Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes" - http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Minutes-Edition/dp/0672325675/ref=pd_sim_b_3 http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Minutes-Edition/dp... "Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes" - http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-PHP-Minutes/dp/0672327627/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&qid=1355130819&sr=8-21&keywords=Sams+Teach+Yourself+10+minutes http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-PHP-Minutes/dp/067... "Sams Teach Yourself UNIX in 10 Minutes" - http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Minutes-Yourself/dp/0672315238/ref=sr_1_54?ie=UTF8&qid=1355130867&sr=8-54&keywords=Sams+Teach+Yourself+10+minutes http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Minutes-Yourself/d... "Sams Teach Yourself AJAX in 10 Minutes" - http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-AJAX-Minutes/dp/0672328682/ref=sr_1_24?ie=UTF8&qid=1355130819&sr=8-24&keywords=Sams+Teach+Yourself+10+minutes http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-AJAX-Minutes/dp/06... "Sams Teach Yourself HTML in 10 Minutes" - http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Minutes-Edition/dp/067232878X/ref=sr_1_35?ie=UTF8&qid=1355130849&sr=8-35&keywords=Sams+Teach+Yourself+10+minutes http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-Minutes-Edition/dp... "Sams Teach Yourself CSS in 10 Minutes" - http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-CSS-Minutes/dp/0672327457/ref=sr_1_39?ie=UTF8&qid=1355130849&sr=8-39&keywords=Sams+Teach+Yourself+10+minutes http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-CSS-Minutes/dp/067... "Sams Teach Yourself Regular Expressions in 10 Minutes" - http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Regular-Expressions-Minutes/dp/0672325667/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1355130791&sr=8-12&keywords=Sams+Teach+Yourself+10+minutes http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Regular-Expressions-Min... "Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft SQL Server T-SQL in 10 Minutes" - http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Microsoft-Server-Minutes/dp/0672328674/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1355130819&sr=8-18&keywords=Sams+Teach+Yourself+10+minutes http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Microsoft-Server-Minute... No need for 5 year at the university to get a computer science master.
- meaty 14y ago10 weeks is not enough time to learn any skill. I wish people would stop these boot camps with ridiculous claims. We've had a couple of victims of these schemes apply to us and we've had to rather sadly tell them 'no way' and explain why. A lot of them have come from business and arts backgrounds and think it's an easy way to make quick cash (hint: it isn't - writing software is hard and laborious and pays crap for the first couple of years, if you can stomach it that long).
- davj 14y agoThanks for your feedback. This is not a boot camp. Have you ever committed 100% of your time to learning a new skill over a short period of time?
- meaty 14y agoNo, I believe learning a skill is an investment, which is why I take my time (sometimes years) and study for a long time before I even put pen to paper. My latest learning exercise was postgresql. I've done a proper engineering evaluation on it which has taken a whole year, but i tell you, i know it inside out now. I am confident i can handle any edge case or problem. Can your 10 week old developers even handle a simple edge case failure efficiently? That's where the skills are important or there is a roadblock every 30 minutes in this industry.
- kaonashi 14y agoWhat does a proper engineering evaluation entail?
- meaty 14y agoIn my case, a simplified view: reading the documentation, building a list of scenarios based on proposed functions and associated risks, testing each one and documenting it in a concise manor. Then building something serious, testing it, breaking it predictably and unpredictably and reworking conclusions from above. Also doing research on best practices, bad practices, performance reducing functions and hints/tips, integration paths etc. When I reliably can answer most stackoverflow questions on the subject, I am then confident that I know what I'm doing and then will sell my skills.
- smsm42 14y agoI wonder what's special in this training program that makes it more suitable for women?
- davj 14y agoHackbright may not be for everyone. We have received positive feedback regarding the composition and community surrounding our classes. We create a positive and productive environment to maximize the effectiveness of the program. The quality of instruction is high - and with a strong, supportive community, we have seen some success so far.
- smsm42 14y agoWe create a positive and productive environment to maximize the effectiveness of the program - this is very generic. Of course everybody would try to create productive environment and maximize the effectiveness - did you ever encounter an education establishment that tries to create negative and unproductive environment and minimizes the effectiveness of their effort? The question is how you do it - and how it is specifically fit to women. This is the interesting topic. I understand if you don't want to reveal trade secrets, etc. but there must be something beyond genetic platitudes that can be said about it. Why Hackbright may not be for everyone? So far what you explained is certainly for everyone - everyone would want high quality instruction in a positive environment and a supportive community. So what is different?
- plinkplonk 14y agoInteresting that these guys train in Python/Django rather than Ruby/Rails, like the other 'bootcamps' do.
- MichelleGlauser 14y agoI'm a graduate of the most recent class. I've done a bit of rails, and I now understand why some programmers look at Rails and scorn the "magic." I think the point of technology is to make things easier for people, and since Rails makes it really easy for just anyone to make a site within minutes, that's great--for someone who doesn't want or need to go into anymore depth of understanding about what's going on behind the scaffolding. I'm glad we did Python--it's a good basis language.
- alexholehouse 14y agoNot necessarily a response to this article, but more generally about "learning" (complex) things such as programming languages, the impact of impressionist art, particle physics etc. With all these things, I would argue, that you through a kind of 3rd order polynomial experience of time vs. your confidence in your own knowledge. At first you know nothing, and you're aware you know nothing. After some short amount of time you've learnt a huge amount, relative to what you did know, so you feel like you have a good grasp on the topic. But, over more time, you begin to realize how much you actually don't know (which may reflect everyone, or just reflect yourself, the latter meaning you can learn from others, the former meaning you better get your thinking cap on). Hopefully then over EVEN more time you begin to slowly increase your knowledge base, but this time from a more informed perspective. The point is, I guess, that it's hard to assess your own knowledge of a topic at this very moment in time unless you've spent a decent amount of time getting your head around it's true complexities (where both, "a decent amount of time" and the true complexity of the topic will vary HUGELY from case to case).
- jerrya 14y agoIs this even legal? My understanding from the article at techcrunch and the hackbright about page suggests hackbright is charging tuition ($7500) for participation in the program. It's late for me, so maybe I am forgetting something, but what is the legal basis for being able to discriminate on the basis of sex for an educational program, especially from an organization that doesn't appear to be a non-profit, or accredited in any manner. Seems like a great program. I know some young men that would benefit from such a program, the intensive environment, the location within the heart of the SF Bay hiring region, the networking, etc.
- hayksaakian 14y agoIt doesn't seem like they're offering any degree or claiming to, simply giving training for a fee is fair game.
- zedshaw 14y agoThere's quite a few same-sex educational organizations around. I think you're confusing this with equal opportunity employment, which only applies to certain sized companies or ones that take Federal money.
- jerrya 14y agoWell, I think I am comparing it to any company selling any product, of which very few seem allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex.
- smsm42 14y agoSome definitely are. I don't think there are many male waiters in Hooters, are there?
- jerrya 14y agoThat's employment discrimination, not discrimination of who your customers are. The case of Hooters vs. the EEOC is discussed here: http://blogs.findlaw.com/free_enterprise/2009/04/can-men-be-hooters-girls-when-can-businesses-hire-only-women.html http://blogs.findlaw.com/free_enterprise/2009/04/can-men-be-... Perhaps a better comparison would be to women only gyms. If you google "are women only gyms legal" you'll come up with a slew of articles suggesting women only gyms are probably not legal, up until the various state legislatures pass specific laws making them legal. I am not a lawyer, I have no good idea if hackbright is operating legally or not, but I wouldn't be surprised to find what they are doing is not legal.
- eLobato 14y agoWill sound like an asshole to many people, but: Hackbright Academy Turns Men Into Developers In 10 Weeks Hackbright Academy Turns Blacks Into Developers In 10 Weeks Hackbright Academy Turns Whites Into Developers In 10 Weeks Do we really need MORE discrimination? If I go ahead and try to join in, they will say "sorry, no men accepted"? That sounds equally as bad to me as "sorry, no woman accepted" or "sorry, no latinos accepted". Can anybody explain? I honestly hope the girls will get the skills they're looking for in 10 weeks, and I support that, but I truly don't get why do they have to discriminate against. Maybe so they get media coverage?
- tommorris 14y ago> Can anybody explain? Yes, historically, some groups have been discriminated at and put at a social and economic disadvantage on the basis of intrinsic factors. Putting right an unequal playing field looks unfair only if you don't see that it is an unequal playing field.
- eLobato 14y agoThe fact that black people were treated bad in the past wouldn't justify if you were treated as an slave just to compensate for what your ancestors did. I don't see why this is unequal nowadays for women or other minorities but it IS unequal to men (don't think anyone can't see that fact). Equality should be the goal, not being treated differently depending on your gender.
- tommorris 14y ago> I don't see why this is unequal nowadays for women or other minorities In the United States, women's median income is still 77% of men's median income. (And, yes, before you bring up all the various stupid talking points, that figure accounts for all the various factors like taking time out of a career to raise kids etc. etc. US government statistics account for all those kinds of differences and still show a gender pay gap that is closing very, very slowly.) According to a 2003 study, white workers earn approximately 14% more than black workers in the United States across all sectors. Only six of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are black, only 20 are women. Prisons in the United States hold six million people, a 772% increase from 1970 to 2009. The War on Drugs has heavily targeted minority black communities. 40% of the prison population is black despite only making up 12% of the national population. We've seen the story countless times before: shitty schools, no economic opportunities, so crime becomes the only option and prison the only solution. If you don't think there is a heavily racialized component to how the prison system works in the United States, you don't understand the prison system in the United States. And despite all the stories about "the pink dollar", gay men get paid less than their heterosexual counterparts. In the United Kingdom, according to figures by the Office of National Statistics, women are paid 14.9% less than men. Tell me again how men and women are equal and how we are living in a post-racial, post-discriminatory society where we are all equal.
- belorn 14y agoWomen only courses and equality in education don't normally mix well with me. The whole subject is however rather interesting, being a very political subject but also one where experiments and statistics tend to go against common opinion. Okey, this is from a Swedish perspective, as that is the only perspective I got. Anyway, the Swedish state educational overseeing body has made several attempts to improve equality in education, normally marked at getting more women and colored people in white men dominated areas. The biggest attempt, which was started in the 1990s, were a rather simple rule. It said "If a student applying for a class would be a minority in a the class thanks to race or sex, that student shall receive a small bonus in the application". No judgment call was used in the applying of the bonus, but in 2007 it ended, and the primary reason it ended was because the target group (women and colored people) was not in the group actually normally receiving the bonus. Rather, 95% of the time, it was a white male, applying to a class where he would be a minority in. This is actually not that extremely surprising if one consider that 2/3 of the students in Sweden are women. It also not that surprising given that every areas of education except engineering and one form of math (abstract-math past 3rd year university), have women as the dominating group. Classes are rather clustered in women and men density. The state overseeing body for education did suggest after reviewing the program that maybe they should start some men-only courses in areas which are highly dominated by women students. That suggestion however got turn down rather immediately, as it was viewed ludicrously impossible. Maybe there is some pedagogical value of women-only and men-only classes. There clearly are anecdotal evidence on it, and the numbers do tell that men are more willing to attempt entering a woman dominated class, than a women trying to enter a men dominated class. But as a method to get more equality in education and encouraging a 50/50 setup, based on the Swedish attempts I must say it does not work as intended. To reach that goal, I think further studies of what actually work is needed. Something great this academy could do is to create a research study on the effects, with an control group, and maybe even a men-only class to match.
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- stuartmemo 14y agoI'm pretty sure they're still women after they become developers.