0:13

All right . As many of you know , the

0:15

web dev industry has been getting

0:17

a little bit tighter . Entry-level market

0:20

has been getting a little bit rougher , and

0:22

I decided to bring on the CEO of

0:24

Rhythm School to just

0:26

talk about how they've adapted to

0:29

the market . So , ellie , I

0:31

really appreciate you giving your time for this . But

0:33

, yeah , feel free to introduce yourself .

0:35

For sure . Thanks for having me on . I was appreciated . Big

0:38

fan of the transparency you have here , so

0:40

thanks for doing what you do . I'm

0:42

Ellie . I'm the CEO and co-founder , one of the lead

0:44

instructors at Rhythm School . I've been in

0:47

the bootcamp space for almost 10 years

0:49

at this point , previously at Galvanize

0:51

, now Hack Reactor and General Assembly Before that

0:53

. My background is in finance

0:55

, originally with some engineering

0:57

here and there , worked at a startup previously

0:59

and then made my way into teaching . Just

1:02

been very fortunate to be able to do

1:04

this . I'm very passionate about education in this space

1:06

and also dealing with some of the challenges

1:08

that this space has to offer .

1:12

So , looking forward to chat about that . Awesome , let's just

1:14

dive into it . So

1:20

I'm very curious what changes Rhythm School has made to be able to adapt . I've heard a lot of changes

1:22

from different coding boot camps , but

1:25

I truly want to hear

1:28

your changes , most importantly because

1:30

I thought there was one thing that was very

1:32

interesting about your program and that was the

1:34

internship . I thought that was a very powerful

1:36

thing and I think a lot of coding boot camps lack

1:38

the ability to give students

1:41

kind of some professional like

1:43

experience . So I thought

1:45

that was always interesting . But you know , companies

1:47

are tightening up with internships and

1:49

I kind of just want to see how you've adapted

1:52

.

1:52

So , yeah , yeah , for

1:54

sure . It's a great question . I mean , the

1:56

biggest changes we've made have just been upping

1:59

the support as much as possible on the outcomes

2:01

front In terms of the curriculum

2:04

and the content that we teach . We've been

2:06

making small incremental changes and

2:08

introducing typing a little bit earlier

2:10

and , you know , replacing Vite with Create

2:12

React app and things that just make the flow

2:14

of things a bit smoother . But there

2:17

have not been , you know , substantial . We're going to

2:19

drastically change the languages

2:21

and frameworks and stuff that we focus on . The

2:28

support on the outcome side has just been paramount for us . So it's really tough out there and our

2:30

numbers are way worse than what they used to be at

2:32

the peak . You know we have on the website , I think

2:35

, about 55% for the second half of 2022

2:37

. The 2023 numbers

2:39

for the first half it's about 38%

2:42

and for the second half we

2:44

haven't finished all the auditing and it hasn't been the full

2:46

six months . Right now it's about 32% and

2:48

that will probably get closer to 40 . So

2:50

it's been a really , really tough time

2:53

. As you mentioned , the hardest thing is kind of

2:55

just getting your foot in the door . So what

2:57

can we do on the outcomes front to help

2:59

our students stay motivated , also be as

3:01

transparent as possible from the very beginning , and

3:03

those are conversations we have with prospective

3:05

students of . I'm sure you are well aware

3:07

of the market . But I want to give you the reality

3:10

that it's going to be a really long search and

3:13

it's been really tough on our business to be totally transparent . We

3:21

you know our enrollments are down and our admissions is having a harder time and it's really difficult

3:23

for us to still be really , really mindful of accepting students that we think can be successful

3:25

, knowing that it's just a really tough market

3:27

out there . So we've tried to adapt

3:30

as much as possible to support our students as

3:32

much as possible . But , like everyone

3:34

else , it is a really difficult market . So we're kind of

3:36

, you know , in it with everyone else . Like everyone else , it is a really difficult market , so

3:38

we're kind of in it with everyone else .

3:39

Ellie , I'm going to be honest , that is refreshingly

3:42

transparent , and

3:53

I know there's . I understand coding boot camps

3:55

feel the need to compete with this almost um I

3:57

don't want to say dishonest , but um , yeah , this dishonest

3:59

job placement rate

4:02

that reflects 2022

4:04

that's placed on every coding boot camps

4:06

website . They haven't updated it , and

4:09

even the sales people or admissions

4:12

when people are coming in , there's always

4:14

some sort of manipulation

4:16

in how they present the data , and

4:18

I think that's what people want . I think

4:20

they're just and I've noticed this with self-taught

4:22

developers and even CS grads they're so

4:24

sick of being fed BS

4:27

over and over and over . It's okay to say

4:30

that the market is rough , because when you acknowledge

4:32

that you have to take action to overcome

4:35

that adversity , you have to , and

4:42

coding bootcamps that do . They're going to last Cause , like you said , your financials probably taken

4:44

a hit . A lot of coding bootcamps are taking a hit . There are some that are going under , some that

4:46

are getting sued , like it's . I

4:49

think people want that refreshing transparency

4:52

. So , honestly , like I just

4:54

really appreciate that .

4:56

Thanks for saying that . It's really it's taken

4:58

a while to get there and you know

5:00

we've dealt with a lot of the . I've

5:02

spoken to competitors of yours that say XYZ

5:05

placement and we've had , you know , conversation

5:07

. Our VP of education is also extremely

5:09

passionate about this and has had very long conversations

5:11

with prospective students of . I'll pull up

5:13

the report and I'll show you the games that they

5:15

play . And

5:22

you know we're fortunate that we're a relatively small school so the numbers are relatively easy to

5:24

report and we can be transparent about it . But it is tough when you know our numbers are 40%

5:26

and someone else is 60% and if

5:28

you don't really have enough of that drive

5:31

to push forward or enough

5:33

questions to ask about the numbers , one is just

5:35

superior than the other . So it's been a challenge

5:37

for us to stay in that line of

5:39

how can we still be competitive and be

5:41

transparent , but also in an industry

5:43

that , as you were describing , can get

5:46

very sketchy very quickly . That's a very tough

5:48

part about this .

5:49

Yeah , yeah , it is . You

5:51

had mentioned and I just want to clarify

5:53

this with the curriculum you had mentioned . Replace

5:55

V with create react app

5:58

.

6:03

I'm sorry if I if I said that incorrectly , but yeah , we are , you know , introducing

6:05

more and more TypeScript into the curriculum and introducing that earlier , introducing ESM modules

6:07

earlier , and with that comes the

6:09

need for some tooling . So we've been

6:11

fortunate to use a starter that is

6:13

powered by Vite and stripped out a lot of the

6:15

abstractions and complexity , just so you can

6:17

get the basics up and running and

6:20

really trying to lean on , you

6:22

know , especially with things like Python , as much of the introducing

6:25

those ideas of typing in a slightly friendlier way

6:27

as opposed to just throwing it all on at the

6:29

end . So those are really the changes that we

6:31

put a lot of investment in . Every

6:33

exercise we have has solutions with tests

6:35

, and that just goes through iteration after iteration of

6:37

just how can we make it better , how can we

6:39

make sure that this point in the exercise , this code

6:41

review that we have , is really hammering

6:43

home the things we want to teach and so on

6:46

. So that's really where a lot of time

6:48

is spent , kind of training and training

6:50

that process .

6:52

Okay , I've

6:54

found a lot of developers

6:57

truly struggle with TypeScript

6:59

too early on . It's a bit heavy

7:02

and I think there's a huge benefit

7:04

in really understanding

7:06

the quirks of JavaScript by going

7:08

through the frustrations of JavaScript

7:10

, and I'm really interested

7:13

in hearing your thought process

7:15

on bringing TypeScript in earlier

7:18

so they could get more comfortable with types

7:20

. Where do you bring it in and

7:22

why do you decide to do that ?

7:24

Yeah , absolutely so . As for the why

7:26

it's everywhere , and whether you're going to use it at

7:29

your job or whether someone in a

7:31

job requirement says so , you're going to see a lot of documentation

7:33

that has it and that part is important , or

7:36

you're just going to use . VS code and hover over something

7:38

and see what is that thing it's doing for me . So

7:40

I think just enough of that baseline is

7:42

important . The hope that we have

7:44

this is a work in progress . We currently

7:47

introduced TypeScript in

7:49

week 10 , and then we

7:51

do data structures and algorithms all

7:53

in TypeScript . So that way you just kind of

7:55

have and with that it's not a

7:57

You're not going to be doing an insane amount of typing . We actually

8:00

give you a lot of the type annotations and you

8:02

kind of work within the frame , because the

8:04

hardest thing in TypeScript is not is this a number

8:06

, is this a string , it's generics and making

8:08

your own custom types , and that's where the learning

8:10

curve just goes through the roof and

8:18

that's where a lot of that kind of frustration hits . So what we hope to be able to do is

8:20

actually cheat a little bit by doing it in Python , and Python typing is a little bit more

8:22

friendly , it's a little bit easier to get up and running

8:25

with , and we don't want to introduce TypeScript

8:27

in the very beginning of our program because we want

8:29

to make sure you get your fundamentals down first . But

8:31

I think the hope is that we can use Python the

8:33

same way that we use Python as just a nicer introduction

8:36

to the backend and a better way to

8:38

learn your fundamentals there and then migrate

8:40

to Node . The hope is we can do that with typing

8:42

as well , so get them some

8:44

reps with typing a little bit earlier and

8:47

then layer on some more of those tougher ideas in

8:49

typing after they've seen just the basics

8:51

for a couple of weeks .

8:56

That's completely reasonable . I'm just

8:58

thinking because , as you know , as I mentor

9:00

individual aspiring developers , I'm

9:02

trying to be able to fit that in in the right location

9:04

. And you're right , typescript can

9:07

be fairly simple to get set up

9:09

with basic types it , but it does

9:11

scale and difficulty and I think that can

9:13

be separate . I think that's a really good idea .

9:15

The tooling is also very difficult . So you know , if you're

9:17

building static websites and now I say , go , layer

9:19

on TypeScript , you can't just throw a ts and everything

9:21

works . So it's also just tough for

9:24

beginners when they can't even make it to the browser

9:26

or they can't make it to the command line because

9:28

the code doesn't even compile . So that

9:30

extra step of hassle I

9:32

think you know you and I have done this a bunch and see a lot of

9:34

the benefits but especially for folks that are newer

9:36

, it's just this extra headache on top of

9:38

the thing that I'm just trying to get to work .

9:41

Sure , absolutely . So you

9:43

focus on . I

9:45

guess , if you had to split the amount of focus

9:48

you had on Nodejs and then

9:50

building something with Python , yeah , for sure I'll

9:52

give you like a high level arc of the curriculum .

9:54

So the first two weeks are front

9:56

end focused and really just

9:59

what we like to call pro coding . So let's

10:01

undo a lot of the habits that you've had from your

10:03

self study and focus on the

10:05

testability of your code , the readability of your code , your

10:07

good variable names , good functions , documentation

10:10

, modularity . We'll teach you know more

10:12

principles with object orientation and just a lot

10:14

of good ideas on program design . We'll also

10:16

introduce big O notation , just

10:18

as kind of a framework as we think about ways

10:21

to make things you know more

10:23

optimized as they scale . We don't hammer that

10:25

home a ton over the course of the next couple of weeks

10:27

. It comes back more in data structures , algorithms

10:29

, but we hammer it in certain projects

10:31

as ways to think about how we can optimize

10:34

. So it's a couple of those core

10:36

CS ideas as well as just good program

10:38

design . And we're doing this all in the land of

10:40

front end . So we'll also talk about making

10:42

network requests and how the web works in HTTP

10:45

and build some slightly larger applications

10:47

with a bunch of JavaScript files

10:49

where you can start to see things like separation

10:51

of concerns and how to put your models here

10:53

and your UI here and so on . We

10:56

then shift gears to Python for three weeks

10:58

and the focus there is

11:00

just learning the fundamentals of backend

11:02

, you know , request responses and working with databases

11:04

. We talk about SQL for a bit and then

11:06

we layer on an ORM with SQL alchemy

11:08

, which is a very , very , very

11:11

tough and abstract tool to use , but

11:13

it's also very commonly used . So give

11:15

it kind of a benefit of the doubt there . And

11:17

the focus with that is a . I

11:19

mean , python is a beautiful language . Knowing

11:22

more than one language is a great

11:24

way to also just diversify the ways that you think

11:26

about code . And Python also

11:28

high level but has some really interesting pieces that

11:30

JavaScript doesn't . So it's a nice way

11:32

to shift gears a bit and , as silly as it

11:34

sounds , it's nice for students to know

11:36

this is Python , that's the back end , this is JavaScript

11:38

, that's the front end . So when you first

11:41

start that kind of this JS file , where

11:47

does it live ? I saw that a lot when we just taught Node and it's , you

11:49

know , just more hassle than it's worth After three weeks of Python . We do

11:51

cover Node for two weeks , but it's relatively

11:53

quick because it's Node with Express and

11:55

you know a lot of these ideas from Python

11:58

with Flask , so it's more of the translation

12:00

to that idea . But the things that we hammer home

12:02

a little bit more than testing architecture

12:05

, talk a lot about TDD , mocking some more kind of

12:07

complex ideas in the testing ecosystem and

12:10

then just let them build a larger scale

12:12

API . So Node is

12:14

more of the we're going to show you this ecosystem

12:16

, we're going to show you some of the differences , we're going to show you how to

12:18

build APIs with it . But you've

12:20

seen a lot of the concepts . We also

12:22

and this is , you know , a different philosophy

12:25

. There isn't really a big

12:27

winner in the ORM ecosystem in Node

12:29

. So we actually just dropped down to raw SQL

12:31

and just make students write raw SQL

12:34

and understand how that works

12:36

and think about SQL injection and prepared

12:38

statements and transactions and things

12:40

that are actually going to be important when you're just

12:42

working with that at a lower level . So we

12:44

give them reps in the Python and ORM

12:46

ecosystem . We give them reps

13:15

also with just writing raw SQL . So

13:17

trying to hit both of those . So it's a very

13:19

long way to answer your question of three

13:22

weeks of Python and about a week

13:24

or so of Node and the rest of that is really spent just

13:26

building stuff .

13:30

That's really interesting that you found

13:32

it more difficult to learn

13:35

Nodejs and combine it with JavaScript

13:38

on the front end . After

13:40

or before you would actually teach

13:42

that division of backend and frontend with

13:45

a probably a little bit more of a

13:47

traditional language on the

13:49

backend . So many coding bootcamps

13:51

stick with full stack JavaScript

13:53

. Why do you think that is ?

13:55

Time is a big piece . You know we're 17

13:57

weeks . If I was much

14:00

more constrained with time and all I knew

14:02

was JavaScript , it would technically be

14:04

easier to do that . I

14:11

think that you know there was a lot of craze when Node came out , and then it was Mongo and then

14:13

it was JavaScript's going to be everywhere , and I think some people haven't adapted as much there

14:15

. So that's part of it . But

14:17

to your point , I think you're teaching

14:19

front-end fundamentals and you get how things work in

14:21

the DOM and you get to build stuff in the browser , and then

14:23

I throw this entire runtime on you

14:26

that is dealing with server side things

14:28

. Oh , also there's all this async stuff you have to worry

14:30

about , and then you find yourself just

14:32

throwing all sorts of async awaits and not

14:34

understanding just to make web pages appear

14:36

, and we just found it not a particularly

14:38

helpful learning environment .

14:42

Do you think most coding bootcamps , at

14:44

least their students , would see more success

14:47

if they linked in the program ?

14:50

You know , it's really funny you mention that because when I went

14:52

from General Assembly to Galvanize , a

14:55

big thought I had as an instructor

14:57

was at GA I had three months with

14:59

you At Galvanize . At that time it was six months , was

15:05

six months and the thought process was , if I only had three more months , oh , the things we could

15:07

do , the things I could teach you and we could dive super into operating systems and all of

15:09

these really interesting ideas . But

15:11

at the same time there's just a burnout and you can

15:13

only do this at this pace for so long before

15:15

you just kind of reach that . I'm pretty

15:18

burnt out , as I'm sure you've seen with many

15:20

folks . For what we saw it was around

15:22

month four or four and a half at Galvanize

15:24

, where doing that grind

15:26

every single day , that pace , that commitment

15:29

just kind of halted . So

15:31

I do think that there is some value

15:33

in having a slightly longer program . I

15:36

think , unless you are admitting folks who either

15:38

have some previous experience or a lot of pre-existing

15:41

knowledge , it's really hard to do

15:43

in 10 weeks , 12 weeks and such . I

15:45

think there are places that are like we'll teach you four stacks

15:47

in 12 weeks and you know

15:50

, I think your smile kind of tells it all , so it's

15:52

tough to do .

15:54

Yeah , I get to review their portfolios and their projects

15:56

, so I know the results of those programs

15:58

. What about a

16:00

part-time program ? You say they get burned out , but I

16:02

think probably at a full-time pace . So what about maybe

16:05

a nine-month part-time program ?

16:08

I think we get a lot of interest in it and I think it's a really interesting

16:10

offering . Given where the market is and given the

16:12

folks , especially folks that are in really

16:14

solid positions and are just waiting for that moment to

16:17

switch gears but don't want to do it yet

16:19

, it's a very

16:21

reasonable thing to do . I'm

16:24

not sure because I've never really run one or

16:26

taught in one , so I can imagine that

16:28

you can cover more over that

16:30

period of time and burnout might be less . But

16:33

I do worry about someone who is working

16:35

a job nine to five or has kids or other

16:37

obligations and then you're going to layer on a six

16:39

to 9 pm and then six hours on a Saturday , kind

16:42

of thing . It just seems like a

16:44

different class of problems , but I

16:46

think there is . In terms of your overall learning and retention

16:48

, you can stick with it If you can maintain that schedule

16:51

, if you can still keep that pace with your other

16:53

obligations . I can . I can see that working

16:55

. Tell

16:58

me about the additional

17:00

support you're providing on the career side of things

17:03

, cause you said you really upped that

17:05

, first and foremost , we've always had a pretty

17:07

rigorous technical interview process where

17:09

you know you got to do a short coding challenge

17:12

, which is do you know your fundamentals and

17:14

can you do something under a little bit of time pressure ? Those

17:16

problems are relatively easy and we're not trying to throw

17:19

things at people , but it's just the first

17:21

level of are you serious about this and do you have your

17:23

fundamentals down ? After that , when we

17:25

were in person , we did a whiteboarding interview

17:27

, which is very different , but the goal

17:29

was , if I strip away your ability

17:31

to run consolelog , run test , run test , run

17:33

, test , run

17:38

test , can I really assess your problem solving , because that is the thing that is a much more of a predictor

17:40

of your success than can I regurgitate the second argument of splice

17:42

or whatever that may be . So , as

17:45

we've shifted to online , that whiteboarding has become

17:47

. You open up your text editor , I give

17:49

you a prompt and you write some code , but you can't

17:51

run it and if it doesn't work , we'll talk about it and you'll

17:53

be the computer and you'll step through your code and I'll see your debugging

17:56

process . As part of our interview , we also

17:58

give you a bunch of code , some of which has

18:00

bugs , some of which is not implemented . And

18:02

it's that skill set of can you read code , can

18:04

you understand what other people are doing , can you communicate

18:06

your thoughts while you're doing that , because

18:09

for us , that's what we believe is a much stronger

18:11

predictor than do you know some topic

18:13

and can you just . You know spew , you know leak

18:15

code , easy problems or whatever that might be

18:17

. So we've always really , I

18:19

would say , been serious on the technical front and it's

18:22

why you know , it's why our business is having a harder time

18:24

, because there are less people out there that are

18:26

passing that bar and getting in there . But

18:28

if we change that , then

18:30

you know what are we doing this for . To be totally honest

18:32

, on the behavioral side , we've

18:35

added a behavioral interview to start , and

18:37

that's been done by Sophie , who is

18:39

our director of career services , previously

18:50

from Hack Reactor . She's fantastic at what she does . But it's really important from the very

18:52

beginning for us , a , to have a conversation about what this program is going to look like , but , b , to make

18:54

sure that , behaviorally , you are the right person for our program . And

18:56

it's not us being exclusive

18:58

by any means , but it's us being selective where

19:01

we can make sure that we are doing right

19:03

by you . We have this kind of phrase ethical

19:05

admissions that we talk about . So it starts

19:07

from the very beginning introducing outcomes

19:09

earlier to have an honest conversation , and

19:12

then throughout the course of the program , it's a

19:14

little bit more support for folks that need technical

19:17

interview prep , it's more support for folks

19:19

that need one-on-one coaching . So just making ourselves

19:21

more available , making sure we have more

19:23

resources to help those folks that are struggling

19:25

, doing as much as we can from the

19:27

technical education side of just maintaining community

19:30

. A lot of the challenges in the job search are

19:32

when students get burnt out and ghost

19:34

and don't come back , and really trying to keep

19:36

them in the fold is where we've tried to invest a lot of

19:38

our time .

19:41

I really like your application process

19:43

. I've heard good things about it in the past

19:45

. It still sounds like

19:47

you're maintaining those standards , which I'm sure

19:50

is very difficult to decide

19:52

to continue to do during this market

19:54

it is .

19:56

Definitely .

19:57

Yeah

20:00

, I

20:08

must have talked to close to a thousand students who were led into programs , like

20:10

one-on-one conversations , who were led in , and I would do , maybe I do a little

20:12

bit of a code review , I would do a portfolio review

20:15

, I'd do a resume review and I'd kind of see where they

20:17

were at . But I would , I

20:19

would hear these arguments , um

20:22

, especially when I would challenge

20:24

the quality of software engineers coming out of

20:26

programs . This admission

20:29

process needs to be more rigorous

20:31

, it needs to be you want

20:33

people to be able to pursue education

20:35

. You want to try to make education as

20:38

accessible as possible , but

20:40

giving someone a free

20:42

in when they are not prepared to complete the

20:45

program , just to give you $10,000 to $20,000

20:47

, is literally setting them

20:49

up for failure and a huge burden

20:52

on their shoulders and they give up . Now

20:54

they're severely in debt . The number

20:56

of people that I have talked to that come out of coding

20:58

boot camps with this philosophy of just let anyone

21:01

in it just feels incredibly

21:03

unethical . Anyone

21:08

in it just feels incredibly unethical and it's just sad to see so many people

21:11

start this and end with like $20,000 worth of debt . They quit their

21:13

job . They have no like they're just burned out . They have nothing

21:15

left in them to pursue this path . It's

21:17

so incredibly sad . I

21:20

think it's way more ethical to

21:22

have a rigorous assessment to

21:25

make sure they're actually going to be successful in this program

21:27

and be successful in this career . That's a really

21:29

hard thing to do because you don't make more

21:31

profit off of it necessarily , and

21:34

that's I mean it's tough from a financial

21:36

standpoint . You probably get a little

21:38

bit of pushback with that , but I think

21:40

it's one of the most ethical things coding bootcamps can

21:42

do and they should do .

21:45

I mean a lot of thoughts there . I completely

21:47

agree . I think we

21:49

started this company with an ethos of for-profit

21:52

. Education doesn't scale and the

21:54

theory with that being , this is

21:56

not a software business that you can spin up

21:58

and throw 10 more servers and now you can handle

22:00

all the incoming traffic . Your class

22:02

is 20 , you have four instructors . Your class

22:04

is 60 , you have four instructors . Your quality

22:07

just can't continue . So

22:10

we sought to start this business as being a little bit

22:12

more of the boutique in the market and we

22:15

got a lot of flack for it to start of . You know places

22:18

that were admitting students that had little background

22:20

and were charging much less than we were and were getting

22:22

their foot in the door and all that stuff was working . I

22:24

think we're fortunate that in

22:26

this time we can be more transparent and

22:29

just kind of lean into the fact that we've always kept

22:31

the class size at 20 and we've always tried to keep that admissions

22:33

bar a little bit higher . That being said

22:35

, like we're still going to make plenty of mistakes , I mean our

22:37

outcomes are far from where we'd like there to

22:39

be and students that we admitted that

22:41

we really thought could be successful have

22:43

not been successful yet or

22:45

are still kind of in that job search and

22:48

that sucks . That's the stuff that

22:50

makes it hard to sleep at night doing this kind of work

22:52

. So we feel like we're doing good , but

22:54

it's just a really tough time

22:56

right now .

23:01

How many talk

23:04

about your career services . So they're

23:06

at the end , they finished your program Because

23:09

I'm sure , like you know , this seems

23:11

like it probably eats at you a little bit and

23:13

your career services are probably talking

23:16

to these people weekly or at least monthly

23:18

, trying to kind of just keep

23:20

them going . I don't know if you guys communicate

23:22

or like offer practice interviews

23:25

or anything like that , but I feel like career

23:28

advisors at the end of a program . I

23:30

see them get burned out so often , I

23:32

see them quit so often and

23:35

it's sad to see because they're so passionate about actually

23:38

bettering people's lives , at

23:40

least the ones I've talked to . So I

23:42

kind of just want to hear what you're doing with career

23:44

services and how that's going with Rhythm .

23:47

It's really hard . I have a ton , a ton , a

23:49

ton of respect for the work that Sophie does

23:51

, because you know I take

23:53

on a tremendous amount of emotional labor in 17

23:55

weeks with these students and you

23:57

feel responsible for their progress

24:00

. You feel responsible for their outcome . You feel responsible

24:02

for you were the one that admitted them and

24:04

now they're kind of , you know , under your purview

24:06

and you got to do right by them , I think

24:09

, the part where we loop in career

24:11

services or the things that we can do

24:13

on that front . We've also extended the program

24:15

length by one week , so we were a 16-week

24:17

program . We added a 17th week where

24:19

the last three weeks are completely focused

24:22

on interview prep . So the 15th

24:24

week let me get that right is strictly technical

24:27

interview prep . So we're going to talk about whiteboarding and take

24:29

homes and coding challenges and

24:31

basically how to you know , talk about

24:33

your technical portfolio , talk about the projects you've built , get

24:36

your resume in good shape from a technical front

24:38

, do some technical phone screens , and

24:40

the last two weeks are completely dedicated

24:42

to the job search as a whole . So

24:44

what we've tried to do on the career services side is

24:47

actually just make sure that all your job search assets

24:49

are done way before

24:51

you finish the program really end of week 16

24:54

, 17 at the absolute worst

24:56

, because we saw a lot of students who would

24:58

finish the program and then on Monday say , oh

25:00

, my resume is not ready , so let me go spend a couple

25:02

of days doing that . And then , oh , I haven't done anything

25:05

with Flask in two weeks , so I'll go build something there

25:07

. And that spiral is

25:09

really , really brutal of then coming

25:11

back a month later with I forgot everything about data

25:14

structures , algorithms , or I haven't applied

25:16

anywhere , or so on . So really

25:18

try to invest a lot in the momentum starts

25:20

in week 15 or 16 . You

25:23

can job search for a little bit while we hold your hand

25:25

, while you're with community , while you have people doing stand-ups

25:27

every day , and try to get that to continue

25:29

, because it's really challenging

25:31

for our career services people to

25:34

find people who have not been in touch for

25:36

a while and loop them in . We're a lot more successful

25:38

when we build a really awesome culture in the classroom

25:40

and that continues into the job search

25:42

, where students are building with each other , going

25:45

to hackathons together , having stand-ups together , mock

25:47

interviewing each other with problems , or so on

25:49

. So it's really trying to invest in not only

25:51

the work career services does but building community

25:54

and camaraderie so that that continues in

25:56

month three , month five , when things

25:58

are tougher , and so on . So I think it's kind

26:00

of been where we've tried to invest .

26:05

I like that idea of building up momentum

26:08

, especially getting them started

26:10

with a job search while they still have that support

26:12

, because I think a lot of coding bootcamps will

26:14

wait and they'll say , no , focus

26:17

on the technical . And I like

26:19

that switch and I think that

26:21

can work given

26:23

that the workload isn't too much .

26:26

We've really seen both . We've seen , you know , I worked at

26:28

places where career services came in in week four

26:30

and started talking about the job search and

26:32

then all the students who are just trying

26:34

to build a crud app and something

26:37

are like , oh my God , I need to think about the job search

26:39

. So it really is a fine line . We've definitely kind

26:41

of pushed back and forth of can it be week 12?

26:43

, can it be week 14? , can it be week 15 ? And

26:45

I think once you are out of the curriculum

26:48

phase and once you are ready

26:50

to start , you know , maybe the later stages

26:52

of the project period , that's where you

26:54

know get your head into job search . Because especially

26:57

now you mentioned the job search to a

26:59

student in week one and two there's anxiety

27:01

in this market . It's just exponentially

27:03

more so definitely a tug

27:06

of war there .

27:07

That's fair . So

27:09

, like I said when we started , I

27:12

mentioned your

27:14

policy and your focus on internships and

27:17

getting a little bit of professional experience . What

27:19

has that evolved into ?

27:22

So the intention of that was originally

27:24

how can we get our students working

27:27

on a large scale code base , just so

27:29

that they can get used to what

27:31

it looks like when you got more than five or 10 folders

27:34

, or what it looks like when you have a more complicated dev environment

27:36

to set up ? And we tried to play around with

27:38

lots of things , whether it's let's go

27:40

do open source or let's go do some volunteer

27:43

work or let's go find a large project and

27:45

it's been really really , really tough to nail

27:47

that down because we're kind of at a back

27:50

and forth with . There's the marketing

27:52

around it where students come in and are like in three

27:54

weeks I'm going to contribute to a large code

27:56

base at a company . But I think

27:58

we both know that in the real world

28:00

it usually takes a lot of time to get up

28:03

to speed on a code base and make valuable contributions

28:05

, and there's a whole code review

28:07

process . So it's not like you're just pushing code on day

28:09

one and you've , you know , added some gigantic

28:11

feature . What we've been able to do

28:13

, fortunately , is work with two

28:16

, three companies consistently , where

28:18

the instructors are also familiar with the

28:20

code base , which is another big challenge of

28:22

you know how can we help the students when we're

28:24

experiencing a new code base every three

28:26

to six months ? So we got that down to

28:28

two or three companies that we work with relatively

28:30

consistently . These are smaller startups

28:33

that have the engineering resources to

28:35

help our students give code reviews

28:37

, help us when we have questions , but

28:39

also large enough code bases where the

28:41

students will take a couple days just to try

28:43

to figure out what's going on . So the

28:45

challenge that we have on the marketing front is students

28:48

think that they're going to build all these things

28:50

and get all this work done . What

28:53

we know honestly is you're probably

28:55

not going to get a tremendous amount of work done . But

28:58

are you going to be able in

29:00

interviews , to combat one of the biggest

29:02

stigmas against coding bootcamp grads ? They

29:04

can't get up to speed quickly , they haven't written

29:06

serious code , they haven't really gone through a code review process

29:08

. What did they know of modular , testable

29:10

you know , et cetera ? That's the stuff that

29:12

we're really trying to combat against . So how

29:14

can you tell a story of a large

29:16

code base that you worked on , features

29:19

that you added to code review processes that you

29:21

went to and also just staying

29:23

in line with being a professional software

29:25

engineer ? So

29:33

it's always a bit of a challenge from the marketing side and kind of bringing down the student expectation

29:35

of when we get to this point . I'm going to tell you what it's really going to be like . It's going to be a lot of learning a particular new technology

29:37

or getting up to speed on something . What's been hard for

29:39

us and what we've really just , I'd say , gotten much better

29:41

at , is having a sustainable

29:43

list of projects where they're well-scoped

29:46

enough , we know the engineering team well enough and we can

29:48

kind of help curate the right set of issues

29:50

that students can get enough done so

29:52

that they have something to talk about but also have

29:54

something more realistic where you know it's mimicking

29:57

what the real world is offering .

30:00

I like that way of thinking . Does

30:03

every student have a

30:05

one-on-one opportunity to get that internship

30:07

experience with another company ?

30:09

No , there are some situations

30:11

where and this has actually been quite helpful for us we

30:19

have a very , very large LMS that we built . It's a very large Django application . Majority of it is written

30:21

by our VP of Education , who is an extremely experienced Django developer , and

30:23

we've worked on that as a

30:25

tool for students to have during the project period

30:27

. It is very large software in a very

30:29

real world that we use internally , also that

30:31

we white label to other companies who are interested

30:34

in our curriculum and our LMS

30:36

, but it's something that we can really

30:38

curate and control . So we

30:40

had , you know , for example , two

30:42

or so years ago we had an opportunity to work with Slack and

30:45

we were working on a you know their bolt product and it was this

30:47

open source TypeScript application

30:49

to get things up and running with one

30:51

of their bots and it seemed incredible

30:53

on paper but we worked on it

30:55

for three weeks and barely heard from their

30:57

engineers . We had PRs that were waiting

30:59

for days , didn't get feedback and

31:01

it was not a great experience for the students , but

31:03

it was the I did something with Slack For

31:06

us . I'd much rather you work

31:08

on the LMS that we have build

31:11

really meaningful features on a very

31:13

large code base , very well-tested code base , very well-documented

31:16

code base , so that you know what it's like

31:18

getting up to speed , building things in

31:20

that kind of production ecosystem . So

31:22

, depending on the project , depending on the time

31:24

, depending on the staff member that's managing it

31:27

sometimes it's internal tools and

31:29

other companies , sometimes it's companies . Sometimes

31:31

, especially with smaller classes , it's just internal

31:33

tooling that we can do .

31:37

I think that's a really interesting alternative and

31:40

coding boot camps have often shied

31:42

away from getting non-teachers

31:46

assistance , from contributing to the

31:48

internal tools . It's

31:51

difficult and it takes a while to ramp people up and

31:54

you know , I've managed . I

31:56

used to host a meetup in Chicago for people

31:59

that just needed help becoming

32:01

a developer and I tried

32:03

to create this project and

32:06

I tried to bring in as many people as possible

32:08

and be the project manager and come up with all

32:10

these features and I was

32:12

overwhelmed . I feel like it's a really

32:14

difficult process to come up

32:17

with all these features and the right features

32:19

to be able to give everyone kind of a fair amount

32:21

of work , even to , you know , just

32:23

just learn a little bit more

32:25

. I guess professional

32:28

architecture

32:30

, something just to get them past their personal

32:33

projects where they're just getting the code of

32:35

work and teaching a little bit of architecture and organizational

32:37

patterns . But I was overwhelmed

32:39

Is your

32:42

learning application that

32:44

big where you can accommodate

32:46

some of the other students and actually

32:48

give each of them features ?

32:50

Yeah , very much . So . It's a very large Django application

32:52

which lends itself nicely to . You

32:54

and I can work on some features for admissions

32:57

and reporting . You and I can work on some features

32:59

for uploading lectures

33:01

and calculating metrics or

33:03

building dashboards around lecture views and so

33:05

on , and you and I can build funnels for

33:07

sending confirmation emails , and you and I can work

33:10

on referral workflows and such . So it's

33:12

not something that 16 students could work on by any

33:14

means . It caps out around that 10 or

33:16

12 number and you got to then at that point have

33:18

multiple instructors managing it . It's

33:20

also just a . It's a big reason why this doesn't work

33:22

if you have a class of more than 20 , 25

33:25

and so on . So it works because

33:27

of the small class size , but at the same

33:29

time , we've also been very thoughtful when building

33:31

it of what are some things that students can

33:33

do that are very , very , very small , low-hanging

33:35

fruit . Sometimes that also is hey

33:37

, this you know , we've got I don't know 95%

33:39

test coverage . Let's go ahead and write some tests

33:41

for this last piece . The students will then learn

33:44

a bit about that code-based through writing tests , as

33:46

you would at most places , and then go ahead and

33:48

layer some things on , but a lot of it kind

33:50

of like you mentioned . It's why it's much easier

33:52

for us to use internal tools versus a

33:54

company that then says , oh , we're interested , or

33:57

a startup that is not technical , that says

33:59

, cool , we'll take three weeks of free labor and

34:01

there's no code quality , there's no control

34:03

. So it's really trying to be diligent about

34:05

that piece , which is the personal projects

34:07

are great , but when you have to write

34:10

code where there's actually a stakeholder

34:12

, there's actually a customer , there's actually mission

34:14

critical pieces that if it doesn't work you're

34:16

in trouble . It's just a whole different world

34:18

and it's really trying to expose them to that kind of

34:20

stuff , as opposed to the trying

34:22

to convince someone that you worked at a company for three

34:24

weeks and now you are a senior

34:27

engineer or whatever you want to use there .

34:36

Sure Titles , uh , tossed out quite a

34:38

bit for new developers , um , people

34:55

. So I have a good sense of the culture of aspiring developers . I've talked

34:57

to so many and there is a growing hatred , like a true

34:59

hatred , for the coding bootcamp industry in general , and it's just

35:01

, it's regret . It's like a lot of coding bootcamps I

35:03

think incorrectly are labeled as scams and

35:06

I think it stems from

35:09

people kind of just forced to

35:11

going through their own route

35:13

. There are a lot of self-taught developers that don't have a lot of money

35:15

right now and they want to shit on CS grads

35:17

, they want to shit on coding bootcamp grads , but

35:19

a lot of it is also coding bootcamp grads

35:21

who have been screwed over by coding bootcamps and

35:24

they have

35:26

a lot of anger . You

35:28

know , understandably , but there is a growing

35:31

culture of true hatred and distrust

35:33

for the coding bootcamp industry and

35:36

I'm curious because I feel like

35:38

you're someone that you know keeps your finger on the pulse

35:40

. I'm curious if you've picked

35:44

up on this culture and

35:46

what you just think about the coding bootcamp industry

35:48

in general .

35:50

I want to at one 10

35:52

minute glance at the subreddit for

35:54

coding bootcamps and you will get everything you

35:56

need to know about how people are feeling . So yeah

35:59

, I mean for profit , education gets

36:02

really scummy really quickly and

36:04

this is kind of the reckoning for

36:06

our industry and it's

36:09

really tough . It's really tough trying to combat

36:12

that stigma while also acknowledging that

36:14

because there is a truth , there

36:16

are lots of unemployed bootcamp grads out there

36:18

, some of whom that are went to rhythm

36:20

, so it's not like we're perfect by any means , but

36:23

at the same time it's

36:25

something we're well aware of . The same time

36:28

it's it's something we're well aware of

36:30

and I think there have been

36:33

a lot , of , a lot of

36:35

places that have and you know I'm curious about your thoughts here but a lot

36:37

of the taglines of the . Anybody can learn to code and I've always

36:39

had a really hard time with that because the

36:41

second you start fighting that it's a you know well how

36:44

dare you . But there's also a reason

36:46

you know I'm not a heart surgeon or a jazz

36:49

flautist or whatever it is because

36:51

this is really hard and this takes a lot of time

36:53

and it takes a certain kind of person who really

36:56

wants to do this to be successful

36:58

and we were very fortunate that in

37:00

the hiring market there was a shortage

37:02

a long , long time ago and there have been

37:04

booms of sword and money was cheap and VC funding

37:07

was all over the place and you could get

37:09

a six figure job if you were somewhat decent , and then maybe

37:11

you figure it out , or now you are unemployed

37:13

and back into that vicious cycle . So

37:16

it's just a really

37:18

, really difficult time and we have our finger

37:20

on the pulse . I think my hope is

37:22

that over time , as some

37:24

of the bad actors or more

37:27

challenging situations fade out and

37:29

less boot camps exist or less

37:32

demand for boot camps exist , we

37:34

can go back to a place where we're still staying

37:36

small , we're still doing our thing and

37:38

a bit of that stigma kind of goes away . But

37:41

it's always been there . There's always been the knock

37:43

against coding boot camp grads , you know , even since

37:45

dev boot camp in the early days . But

37:47

there's a lot more more , and rightfully

37:49

so . So our fingers on the pulse

37:51

, but I think we're leaning into

37:54

it and just acknowledging it as much as we can , because I

37:57

can't fight that there's a lot of truth behind it .

38:02

I think two things are going to happen . One

38:04

, there are a lot of people

38:07

. When the pandemic

38:09

hit , there were a lot of people that really

38:11

questioned their careers and

38:13

they wanted a change and I

38:15

understand that , and they wanted a better life . And

38:18

they were misled with a misconception

38:21

that anyone can code . Anyone can learn to

38:23

code . I actually believe , you know

38:25

, aside from like a severe learning

38:27

disability disability like there are going to be exceptions

38:29

to this but anyone can learn to code if

38:31

you truly love it , if you have that curiosity

38:34

because , like you said , it's lengthy and

38:36

you're going to hit so many roadblocks and like

38:38

, do you have what it takes a drive to push

38:40

past those roadblocks ? Eventually you will land

38:43

that position . If you really do love it , you just keep

38:45

pushing forward . But I think

38:47

a lot of people just want more money

38:49

and they went into this industry

38:51

and there are a lot of content creators and

38:53

there are a lot of coding boot camps that sold this dream

38:56

that it was a get

38:58

rich quick scheme and it's not . And

39:00

I think a lot of people are facing a brutal reality

39:02

. Especially with the market getting rougher , they're

39:05

facing that even more . I think a lot of people

39:07

are just going to quit and

39:13

so I think a lot of people that weren't really serious about this they might find another

39:15

area in tech which is great Like I would love for them to have a better life but they

39:17

will quit and they'll leave and

39:19

I think the market will start to

39:21

self-correct . The intro market

39:23

will self-correct in time for a few reasons , but I think

39:25

that's going to be one reason and

39:27

that's okay . If it's not for you , it's

39:30

not for you . But

39:32

also , like you said , a lot of coding

39:34

bootcamps , a

39:36

lot of them that really tried to scale and

39:39

they try to push as many people as possible into their remote

39:41

programs with in , like

39:43

you know , 50 people per class size

39:45

and they haven't really thoroughly tested

39:47

it or stress tested it and

39:49

they just everyone came out with like a low

39:51

quality education . Like those coding boot

39:53

camps that truly try to scale during the pandemic

39:56

, I think they're the ones that are hurting the most

39:58

and I

40:00

it sucks for the students . But I am truly

40:02

glad to see those coding boot camps going under , because

40:04

the coding boot camp space used to be about providing an alternative education to people that

40:06

couldn't get a cs degree . That's what it used to be about providing an alternative education

40:09

to people that couldn't get a CS degree . That's what it used

40:11

to be about and empowering people and like

40:13

there are bad actors that just truly

40:16

ruined it . Uh , but I I do

40:18

think it's going to self-correct and I but I do

40:20

think that trust for coding bootcamps

40:22

it's going to take a while to recover .

40:24

Yeah , I completely agree on that . I think you can . You

40:27

can learn a lot about a coding bootcamp from whether

40:29

the founders or co-founders are people who

40:31

have been in the classroom or just behind

40:33

a desk , and that tells you a lot about

40:35

the boot camp . And you do not

40:37

get to meet or see your teacher

40:50

or teachers or the people who are going to be educating

40:52

you when you're forking over five-figure amounts

40:54

of money over multiple months is

40:57

just madness . So

40:59

the best thing that we can do is hand

41:01

over more control to the customer

41:03

and let the customer make

41:06

the smart decision , because with

41:08

the market and you know , with the more angry

41:10

customer comes a wiser customer

41:12

. So to your point , I do

41:14

hope that as there is more negativity

41:17

and as that kind of continues , the people

41:19

who really do want to do this , or the people who are serious

41:21

about it , can kind of look at

41:23

that negativity and realize what are the real questions

41:25

they need to ask . And when am I getting these kinds

41:27

of messages that clearly don't work , that

41:30

I should not be listening to ?

41:32

I like that and

41:35

I think your students that do sign up are

41:37

those people . And you're right

41:39

, there's a big difference between

41:42

, because I think it's so

41:44

easy to vent on social media , it's so easy

41:46

to vent on social media . It's so easy to vent

41:48

on Reddit and really distract yourself from

41:51

actually being self-critical

41:53

about your path . Do I really want to do this

41:55

and how do I make this work and how do I shut

41:57

off this noise to be able to do it ? The people that truly

42:00

want to do this will figure that out and

42:02

it's going to be rough in the beginning , but they

42:04

, they will . Um

42:06

, I think I want to

42:08

wrap up with this Um , who

42:12

is successful in your program and

42:15

who is probably going to take

42:17

a very long time to be successful ? Who's struggling

42:20

a lot more ? Are there personality traits

42:23

? Are there actions

42:25

that they're taking or not taking

42:27

? Who's successful and who's not successful ?

42:30

Great question . We get this many times , obviously from prospective

42:33

students . I think , to lean into something

42:35

you said earlier , it's curiosity

42:37

. It's the when my code

42:39

doesn't work , do I fix it

42:41

and move on . Or do I ask gtbg

42:43

or Claude or whatever and move on . Or

42:46

do I try to figure it out and

42:48

then ask why didn't that work ? Or

42:51

when I use some library , do

42:53

I ask myself how does this work

42:55

? And then get to that fork in the road of I

42:57

probably can figure this out , or this

42:59

is something React is doing and I'm just not there yet and

43:01

I'm going to move on . So curiosity

43:04

is a huge part of it . That's a really

43:06

good tell of . Is this something you want to do ? Is

43:08

this something you're interested in ? Or is it just I

43:10

wrote the code , the code works and now I'm done , because

43:12

this process is it's always evolutionary

43:14

. You're always going to take code and refactor it or think

43:17

about how to better design it or share it with other

43:19

people and talk to them about it . So the

43:21

curiosity piece is super , super important . Some

43:24

folks are stronger problem solvers out of the gate

43:26

than others . Some of that is their background , some of that

43:28

is just their general aptitude . I think that

43:31

is something that can be improved with

43:33

time , but I do think that some folks are better

43:35

at problem solving than others , and I think that is

43:37

a part of it and that's what our interview also aims

43:39

to suss out . At

43:42

the same time you know this as well as I do the

43:44

job search is equally , if not

43:46

sometimes more , behavioral than technical . So

43:49

are there folks that have either existing

43:51

networks , are there folks who have job

43:53

searched before , have been in careers before

43:55

and know this process ? We see this

43:57

challenge with folks that have not really had much

44:00

time in industry , in any industry

44:02

of sort graduating a bootcamp

44:04

and searching for a job . This is their first job

44:06

and that's really challenging

44:08

for a lot of folks , because not only is this a

44:10

job in a new industry , but this is the first time you are job

44:13

seeking . So do you know what to expect

44:15

? So there definitely is a skew , for

44:17

if you have some experience in some

44:19

industry you've demonstrated some aptitude

44:21

in a different industry that can often

44:23

translate to showing your abilities

44:26

in software engineering . Curiosity

44:28

, and then it sounds cheesy , but grit

44:30

, it's just really the number one

44:32

thing . It's , you know whether you have a STEM background

44:34

or whether you just work retail

44:36

for a couple of years . It doesn't matter if

44:38

you are the person who is going to sit

44:41

down with that code and bang your head against the wall for

44:43

a long time and go through that kind

44:45

of tough learning process to really understand

44:47

what things are doing , because

44:49

that's just the way that you accelerate and that's the way you

44:51

do better . So curiosity , grit

44:53

and the ability to know how to job

44:56

search and having an existing network is

44:58

always helpful , but knowing how to make new ones

45:00

is equally as valuable .

45:03

That's all really good advice , even to

45:05

people outside the coding bootcamp industry , and

45:08

I think a lot of people that have just dealt with

45:10

a lot of shit in their life , that have overcome that

45:12

that adversity , like a lot of them

45:14

, are going to have a higher success

45:16

rate as software engineers because that grit

45:19

is so important . You just you

45:21

talk to some aspiring developers

45:23

who will just give

45:25

up so much more easily

45:27

than some other people and it's

45:30

really hard to convince

45:32

them to keep going long term

45:35

. It has to come internally and I think

45:37

it comes from solving problems in your life and

45:39

dealing with a lot of crap in your life and getting

45:41

through it and having that confidence that you can get through

45:43

it . Grit is underestimated

45:46

. That needs to be highlighted

45:48

more . I think one

45:51

thing I got to give you guys credit for

45:53

him . So , like when I

45:55

review coding boot camps , like

45:57

I'm an asshole . I'm an

45:59

asshole because I want students to

46:02

. It's for the students . I quite

46:04

frankly , I don't give a shit about the coding boot camps . If , like

46:06

, any coding boot camp goes under because

46:10

of like just producing a

46:12

bunch of lower quality education , that's

46:14

fine . I'm not married to any coding boot camp

46:16

and I know I'm an asshole and I know I

46:18

pissed off staff , I know I pissed off CEOs and

46:21

I noticed a very

46:24

interesting thing A

46:26

lot of the coding boot camps who

46:29

are producing

46:31

or continue to produce quality students

46:33

and adapt to this market to be able to be successful

46:36

are not coding boot camps

46:38

who were so sensitive to my criticism

46:40

that they

46:42

just would not take

46:45

any of my suggestions or any of their students'

46:47

suggestions in my podcast episodes

46:50

. Because I know all of them have seen my podcast

46:52

episodes and some handled it better

46:54

than others and , like I said , like

46:56

I can be a jerk about it , but it's always

46:58

for the students and I think one thing and I was

47:01

fairly critical of rhythm and one thing you guys did very

47:03

well you did not take it personally at

47:06

all , um , you handled it very well

47:08

, um , because we're very kind . I remember

47:10

talking to someone that that reached

47:12

out , but it just gave me a good signal

47:15

that you guys actually

47:17

care about improving because you have to be able to

47:19

um . I mean like

47:21

you're getting a lot more crap from

47:24

the entire community

47:26

now just being a coding boot camp and you

47:28

got to be able to just

47:30

distinguish between good advice and

47:32

just noise and you can't take it personally

47:34

and you just have to kind of go with

47:37

a bit of a gut feeling and data-driven decision

47:40

to actually improve your program . But a

47:42

lot of coding boot camps that had

47:44

higher ups that were sensitive to feedback

47:46

I feel like I'm just

47:48

starting to see them truly struggle

47:51

and they're not adapting well . So

47:53

I just want to give you credit for that . You guys did a really good

47:55

job .

47:55

Appreciate that . Yeah , I mean I think we

47:57

, we know who we are and with that

47:59

obviously there are strengths and weaknesses

48:01

. But you know we , every lecture

48:04

we give , we have students fill out a survey

48:06

. Every two weeks in the program we have students fill out a survey

48:08

. It's anonymous and it's really helpful

48:10

for things like how's the pace , how's the

48:12

quality of the instruction . Most

48:14

of the time that feedback is very positive because you know

48:16

we're confident , we're good at what we do , we spend a lot of time

48:18

in the curriculum and we care about the students . But

48:21

other times it's not the case . So you

48:23

know , we get , we get a lot of those punches and as

48:26

educators and as experienced educators , there

48:28

is that mix of you know , actually Don's right

48:30

or there's a you know that's

48:32

Don's opinion and that's cool . So I

48:35

think we you know , we know what we are and we

48:37

roll with it .

48:38

I like it . Well , ellie , I really

48:41

appreciate you coming on . I want to give you a chance

48:43

to like if I didn't ask , um

48:45

, or I missed out on a question you wish I would have

48:47

asked . I want to give you a chance to kind of just wrap

48:50

it up with any other thoughts you want to share and

48:52

, uh , please feel free to shout out

48:54

whatever's going on with Rhythm for coming

48:56

on to my podcast .

48:58

Sure , yeah , I mean . Thanks again for having me on . I really appreciate

49:00

the frank conversation . I know it is

49:03

a very , very difficult time in this space . I think we've

49:05

both spoken about there's optimism

49:07

for the future , but it might take a little while . So

49:09

we just encourage anybody that is looking

49:12

at prospective coding bootcamps to

49:14

make sure you get a chance , like

49:16

we mentioned , to see those teachers

49:18

that you're going to spend time with teach or meet

49:20

them or talk to them and get a chance to

49:22

know what you're really getting yourself into . Be

49:25

cautious with every conversation and

49:27

trust your judgment with what you're looking at

49:29

. You know we've got programs starting

49:31

in June and programs starting in August

49:33

. We run every eight weeks and we

49:36

plan to be around for a while and hope to be around for a while

49:38

, but at the end of the day , it

49:40

is a tough time for our industry and if

49:43

you are hearing otherwise , I

49:46

would really really question that . So

49:48

just kind of keep that in mind . For folks looking

49:50

at this space , getting into the space and I

49:52

think you're doing some good work here , even

49:54

if the feedback is critical it's important to get the word

49:56

out .

49:58

I really appreciate that . All right , well

50:00

, everyone watching . Feel free to comment below . I'm

50:02

kind of curious what your thoughts are , and you

50:04

know , I know most of my community . They're

50:08

full of self-taught developers . I

50:10

know a lot of you are self-taught . I

50:12

know money's tight , but I think there was also a lot of good

50:14

advice that truly does carry over from

50:16

the coding bootcamp industry to more

50:19

of the self-taught path and hopefully

50:22

that was helpful . But I want to hear your thoughts . Ellie

50:25

, stick around for a couple of minutes , but thanks so much for coming

50:27

on .

50:28

One last little thing for those folks who are

50:30

self-taught and do not have the resources

50:32

. We do a ton of free meetups . I love to teach

50:34

for a living living , so we've taught all things from general

50:37

problem solving and data structures and you

50:39

know , working with uh , building things with ai and

50:41

such . So take a look at the website , come join us for some events

50:43

. They're totally free and you can just get to get

50:46

a , get a sense of what we're about . So I hope to

50:48

uh get some of your folks in our community love

50:50

it all right .

50:51

Well , thanks for tossing out that offer . All

50:53

right guys , that's it . We're gonna wrap it up here . Uh

50:55

, good luck on all .