7 ms·

Nonprofit in Queens taught people to write apps, incomes rose from $15k to $72k

151 points by blahedo 12y ago

puppetmaster3 12y ago
This is awesome, but they are not making enough. I still get MBA types saying: 'can you build this app for me plz?' I don't think they want it built, else they'd do it.
patio11 12y ago
Awesome, though it might take a bit of air out of the tech-as-a-solution-to-jobs when one hears the qualifier "BTW, they're university-educated CS majors." (At a university with an absolutely terrible career services department, even by the low standards of career services departments.)
- nostromo 12y ago
  My head almost exploded from sloppy statistics reading the article. > Six months after the first Access Code class of 21 students completed the 18 week course, the 15 graduates who accepted job offers have seen their income rise from under $15,000 to an average of $72,190; the other six students are either still in college or have chosen to launch their own startups 1: Those not getting a job were not included in the average. 2: The analysis is comparing student incomes with working incomes. I imagine every college and university could show amazing income growth using these measures.
  - jonnybgood 12y ago
    1. Yes that's what they said. The average included those who accepted job offers. 2. After paying $20,000 a year and/or going in to debt.
    - sp332 12y ago
      The average before and the average after don't measure the same group of people. So you can't use them to compare anything.
    - chris11 12y ago
      I don't think people are charged $20,000. Alexis Ohanian is raising money for the program, and he has a goal of $20,000. That fundraiser also says that the program awards partial and full scholarships. Also, the NY Daily News is saying they are trying to raise $1,000,000 for the program to pay for 100 students. So that would put the cost at around $10,000 per person without scholarships. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/queens-techies-funding-1m-mission-article-1.1761559 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/queens-techies-fu... I didn't see any figures about how much the average student paid though. I would be interested in that figure.
      - jukay 12y ago
        The program is fully scholarship oriented, we intend to serve low income communities so that adults can all backgrounds can enter the tech industry. Our students were from 18-37, most were not in college at the time and didn't know how to code. We also believe it's not just about working at a tech company, we want to empower those through the course to be tech entrepreneurs. Those that aren't working are pursuing their own projects and launching new ventures. The income mobility statistic shows potential for what coding can do to raise income and improve peoples lives, but it's important for us to increase opportunity for people to create their own startups and apps.
    - aaronchriscohen 12y ago
      Tuition is $850. Many paid less. Some paid nothing.
  - cmsmith 12y ago
    Also: People switching car insurance providers saved money. Those who would have spent more money probably chose not to switch.
  - pjscott 12y ago
    I think the rule of thumb is that articles containing statistics are guilty until proven innocent. There are just so many ways to get a wrong answer that fits a convenient narrative, and so few right answers.
  - joyofdata 12y ago
    The infamous - survivorship bias :-o
- frankdenbow 12y ago
  The students in the last class were not CS majors and I doubt that is a requirement to participate in the future ones. The quote makes it sound like this, though.
- wsxcde 12y ago
  > BTW, they're university-educated CS majors Not true, see jukay's comment downthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7631440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7631440
kn0thing 12y ago
I'm donating my 31st birthday to this great org. Donating $150 will get you a signed copy of Without Their Permission and I'll take the highest donor out to lunch in Queens. https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/donating-my-31st-help-c4q-teach-queens-to-code https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/donating-my-31st-help-c4...
ycmike 12y ago
I love reading stories like this.
llamataboot 12y ago
I think this is great! As someone who has a background in teaching youth living in poverty who is now a coder, I've often thought about swinging back around and do bootcamp style courses for older teenagers.
petsounds 12y ago
Just to be clear, these are people with either a BS or a BA in Computer Science, right?
- frankdenbow 12y ago
  No, this is not the case as I know at least 3 past students in this class that did not have a CS background at all.
- gcb0 12y ago
  Nope, this is like everyone doing websites in the 90's during the dotcom bubble. All small business trying to find honest people ended up hiring someone's 12yr old cousin (trhu a spiffy LLC front) and ended up with worst-than-useless websites full of security holes and zero accessibility. Hope those projects are all games and fart apps and not mission critical stuff. and since i have a very hard time thinking of mission critical apps, i think the world will endure.
  - ForHackernews 12y ago
    As somebody's formerly 12 year old cousin: screw you, my broken PHP was STATE OF THE ART for web dev.
    - gcb0 12y ago
      lol. im the same. but we learned, and here we are. most people just cashed checks and screwed, even if unintentionally, lots of folks
- jukay 12y ago
  Hi, I'm the founder of the organization. 85% of the class had never written a line of code before. We believe that there are people in Queens and other underserved communities who can learn to code and also pursue tech entrepreneurship.
  - kapkapkap 12y ago
grannyg00se 12y ago
"We saw lots of people in the City University of New York system who graduated as computer science majors but weren't going into the tech industry...It was a lot of access and network problems, and a lack of technical training." This is really confusing. How do you graduate as a computer science major and lack technical training? And if that's the case, how does such a faculty remain in business?
- jukay 12y ago
  There are CS majors that learn foundational skills but don't learn practical frameworks that companies are looking for. Also, there many other adults from other backgrounds that never have a chance to learn iOS or ruby or code. We want to provide those opportunities and build a new pipeline of technical talent, particularly for underserved communities.
  - w1ntermute 12y ago
    > There are CS majors that learn foundational skills but don't learn practical frameworks that companies are looking for. How many CS majors at more prestigious schools learn iOS or Ruby on Rails through their classes? I think they usually learn on their own or through internships.
    - vishaldpatel 12y ago
      And they have a name-brand degree going for them.
      - null_ptr 12y ago
        > And they have a name-brand degree going for them. And you can bet your ass they know what "version control" is and can pick up some flavor of the month framework without someone needing to hold their hands.
        vishaldpatel 12y ago
cjbarber 12y ago
Also worth mentioning: CodeNow (DC and San Francisco) http://codenow.com/ http://codenow.com/ (currently appears down) CodeCamp (East Palo Alto) http://www.epacoding.com/ http://www.epacoding.com/ For people in the tech industry, helping out programs like these is an awesome way to give back. Fun, engaging, direct, and makes good use of the skills you already have (i.e. in a volunteering teaching position).
- GuzmanMan 12y ago
  It looks like the CodeNow website is http://codenow.org/ http://codenow.org/ They seem to be in New York too!
m_ke 12y ago
Here's a link to their demo day http://youtu.be/AS35Lxv6WRM?t=39m2s http://youtu.be/AS35Lxv6WRM?t=39m2s
dfc 12y ago
> There's a booming tech scene in New York City with over 70,000 open > jobs, but it's always been somewhat insulated from the city itself What is this sentence trying to convey? The part that I do not understand is the "insulated from the city" bit.
- smm2000 12y ago
  People in a booming tech scene are not sleeping on the streets and are insulated (by walls) from the city itself.
  - dfc 12y ago
    I appreciate your response and it is too bad that you were downvoted for trying to help. Whoever downvoted you should have provided their explanation if it was so obvious to them that you were wrong. I think the problem is that we are dealing with bad writing. My problem with your explanation is that it means everybody except the homeless population of the city is "insulated from the city." As far as insightful openings go, this is not my choice for the introduction. This is especially silly if you try and imagine any "booming industry" that would not be "insulated from the city." Once again thanks for your effort and I apologize that someone downvoted you for trying to be a helpful member of the community.
aaronchriscohen 12y ago
If you want to support Coalition for Queens and the next Access Code program, donate now through Crowdtilt: https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/donating-my-31st-help-c4q-teach-queens-to-code https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/donating-my-31st-help-c4...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
pmorici 12y ago
""We saw lots of people in the City University of New York system who graduated as computer science majors but weren't going into the tech industry," says Jukay Hsu, founder of Coalition for Queens" "Not bad, considering 85 percent of the participants had never coded before." How in the heck can you get a degree in CS while also never having any experience coding. They don't need a non-profit they need to reform that CS department or shut it down.
byuu 12y ago
Regardless of the merits of this particular case ... I'm always happy to see people improve their lots in life through education. If someone can learn to program and earn significantly more money, they should go for it. However, I am concerned when people try and paint any given profession as being some kind of gold rush or as easy money. Even if programming were incredibly simple and anyone could pick it up ... if everyone making $15K learned to program, they would drag the median salary of programmers down to $15K due to over-supply. Our profession in particular really needs more quality before it needs more quantity. The moral of stories like this should be, "skilled jobs generally pay better than unskilled jobs", not "computer programming is easy and pays exceptionally well!" And at that point, I doubt that is news to anyone.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  >if everyone making $15K learned to program, they would drag the median salary of programmers down to $15K due to over-supply. That's market competition and productivity gains. If your job is so easy that you fear that they could crank out people by the dozens that are as good at your job as you are, then you're going to have to choose a harder job if you want to make more money than them.

151 points by blahedo 12y ago

This is awesome, but they are not making enough. I still get MBA types saying: 'can you build this app for me plz?' I don't think they want it built, else they'd do it.

patio11 12y ago

Awesome, though it might take a bit of air out of the tech-as-a-solution-to-jobs when one hears the qualifier "BTW, they're university-educated CS majors." (At a university with an absolutely terrible career services department, even by the low standards of career services departments.)

nostromo 12y ago
My head almost exploded from sloppy statistics reading the article. > Six months after the first Access Code class of 21 students completed the 18 week course, the 15 graduates who accepted job offers have seen their income rise from under $15,000 to an average of $72,190; the other six students are either still in college or have chosen to launch their own startups 1: Those not getting a job were not included in the average. 2: The analysis is comparing student incomes with working incomes. I imagine every college and university could show amazing income growth using these measures.
- jonnybgood 12y ago
  1. Yes that's what they said. The average included those who accepted job offers. 2. After paying $20,000 a year and/or going in to debt.
  - sp332 12y ago
    The average before and the average after don't measure the same group of people. So you can't use them to compare anything.
  - chris11 12y ago
    I don't think people are charged $20,000. Alexis Ohanian is raising money for the program, and he has a goal of $20,000. That fundraiser also says that the program awards partial and full scholarships. Also, the NY Daily News is saying they are trying to raise $1,000,000 for the program to pay for 100 students. So that would put the cost at around $10,000 per person without scholarships. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/queens-techies-funding-1m-mission-article-1.1761559 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/queens-techies-fu... I didn't see any figures about how much the average student paid though. I would be interested in that figure.
    - jukay 12y ago
      The program is fully scholarship oriented, we intend to serve low income communities so that adults can all backgrounds can enter the tech industry. Our students were from 18-37, most were not in college at the time and didn't know how to code. We also believe it's not just about working at a tech company, we want to empower those through the course to be tech entrepreneurs. Those that aren't working are pursuing their own projects and launching new ventures. The income mobility statistic shows potential for what coding can do to raise income and improve peoples lives, but it's important for us to increase opportunity for people to create their own startups and apps.
  - aaronchriscohen 12y ago
    Tuition is $850. Many paid less. Some paid nothing.
- cmsmith 12y ago
  Also: People switching car insurance providers saved money. Those who would have spent more money probably chose not to switch.
- pjscott 12y ago
  I think the rule of thumb is that articles containing statistics are guilty until proven innocent. There are just so many ways to get a wrong answer that fits a convenient narrative, and so few right answers.
- joyofdata 12y ago
  The infamous - survivorship bias :-o
frankdenbow 12y ago
The students in the last class were not CS majors and I doubt that is a requirement to participate in the future ones. The quote makes it sound like this, though.
wsxcde 12y ago
> BTW, they're university-educated CS majors Not true, see jukay's comment downthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7631440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7631440

kn0thing 12y ago

I'm donating my 31st birthday to this great org. Donating $150 will get you a signed copy of Without Their Permission and I'll take the highest donor out to lunch in Queens. https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/donating-my-31st-help-c4q-teach-queens-to-code https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/donating-my-31st-help-c4...

ycmike 12y ago

I love reading stories like this.

llamataboot 12y ago

I think this is great! As someone who has a background in teaching youth living in poverty who is now a coder, I've often thought about swinging back around and do bootcamp style courses for older teenagers.

petsounds 12y ago

Just to be clear, these are people with either a BS or a BA in Computer Science, right?

frankdenbow 12y ago
No, this is not the case as I know at least 3 past students in this class that did not have a CS background at all.
gcb0 12y ago
Nope, this is like everyone doing websites in the 90's during the dotcom bubble. All small business trying to find honest people ended up hiring someone's 12yr old cousin (trhu a spiffy LLC front) and ended up with worst-than-useless websites full of security holes and zero accessibility. Hope those projects are all games and fart apps and not mission critical stuff. and since i have a very hard time thinking of mission critical apps, i think the world will endure.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  As somebody's formerly 12 year old cousin: screw you, my broken PHP was STATE OF THE ART for web dev.
  - gcb0 12y ago
    lol. im the same. but we learned, and here we are. most people just cashed checks and screwed, even if unintentionally, lots of folks
jukay 12y ago
Hi, I'm the founder of the organization. 85% of the class had never written a line of code before. We believe that there are people in Queens and other underserved communities who can learn to code and also pursue tech entrepreneurship.
- kapkapkap 12y ago

grannyg00se 12y ago

"We saw lots of people in the City University of New York system who graduated as computer science majors but weren't going into the tech industry...It was a lot of access and network problems, and a lack of technical training." This is really confusing. How do you graduate as a computer science major and lack technical training? And if that's the case, how does such a faculty remain in business?

jukay 12y ago
There are CS majors that learn foundational skills but don't learn practical frameworks that companies are looking for. Also, there many other adults from other backgrounds that never have a chance to learn iOS or ruby or code. We want to provide those opportunities and build a new pipeline of technical talent, particularly for underserved communities.
- w1ntermute 12y ago
  > There are CS majors that learn foundational skills but don't learn practical frameworks that companies are looking for. How many CS majors at more prestigious schools learn iOS or Ruby on Rails through their classes? I think they usually learn on their own or through internships.
  - vishaldpatel 12y ago
    And they have a name-brand degree going for them.
    - null_ptr 12y ago
      > And they have a name-brand degree going for them. And you can bet your ass they know what "version control" is and can pick up some flavor of the month framework without someone needing to hold their hands.
      - vishaldpatel 12y ago

cjbarber 12y ago

Also worth mentioning: CodeNow (DC and San Francisco) http://codenow.com/ http://codenow.com/ (currently appears down) CodeCamp (East Palo Alto) http://www.epacoding.com/ http://www.epacoding.com/ For people in the tech industry, helping out programs like these is an awesome way to give back. Fun, engaging, direct, and makes good use of the skills you already have (i.e. in a volunteering teaching position).

GuzmanMan 12y ago
It looks like the CodeNow website is http://codenow.org/ http://codenow.org/ They seem to be in New York too!

m_ke 12y ago

Here's a link to their demo day http://youtu.be/AS35Lxv6WRM?t=39m2s http://youtu.be/AS35Lxv6WRM?t=39m2s

dfc 12y ago

> There's a booming tech scene in New York City with over 70,000 open > jobs, but it's always been somewhat insulated from the city itself What is this sentence trying to convey? The part that I do not understand is the "insulated from the city" bit.

smm2000 12y ago
People in a booming tech scene are not sleeping on the streets and are insulated (by walls) from the city itself.
- dfc 12y ago
  I appreciate your response and it is too bad that you were downvoted for trying to help. Whoever downvoted you should have provided their explanation if it was so obvious to them that you were wrong. I think the problem is that we are dealing with bad writing. My problem with your explanation is that it means everybody except the homeless population of the city is "insulated from the city." As far as insightful openings go, this is not my choice for the introduction. This is especially silly if you try and imagine any "booming industry" that would not be "insulated from the city." Once again thanks for your effort and I apologize that someone downvoted you for trying to be a helpful member of the community.

aaronchriscohen 12y ago

If you want to support Coalition for Queens and the next Access Code program, donate now through Crowdtilt: https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/donating-my-31st-help-c4q-teach-queens-to-code https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/donating-my-31st-help-c4...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

pmorici 12y ago

""We saw lots of people in the City University of New York system who graduated as computer science majors but weren't going into the tech industry," says Jukay Hsu, founder of Coalition for Queens" "Not bad, considering 85 percent of the participants had never coded before." How in the heck can you get a degree in CS while also never having any experience coding. They don't need a non-profit they need to reform that CS department or shut it down.

byuu 12y ago

Regardless of the merits of this particular case ... I'm always happy to see people improve their lots in life through education. If someone can learn to program and earn significantly more money, they should go for it. However, I am concerned when people try and paint any given profession as being some kind of gold rush or as easy money. Even if programming were incredibly simple and anyone could pick it up ... if everyone making $15K learned to program, they would drag the median salary of programmers down to $15K due to over-supply. Our profession in particular really needs more quality before it needs more quantity. The moral of stories like this should be, "skilled jobs generally pay better than unskilled jobs", not "computer programming is easy and pays exceptionally well!" And at that point, I doubt that is news to anyone.

pessimizer 12y ago
>if everyone making $15K learned to program, they would drag the median salary of programmers down to $15K due to over-supply. That's market competition and productivity gains. If your job is so easy that you fear that they could crank out people by the dozens that are as good at your job as you are, then you're going to have to choose a harder job if you want to make more money than them.