Code Platoon Web Development Bootcamp Approved for GI Bill Eligibility

Code Platoon Web Development Bootcamp Approved for GI Bill® Eligibility

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Chicago, IL, February 26, 2018 – Code Platoon, a Chicago-based web development bootcamp for U.S. veterans and military spouses, has been approved for GI Bill eligibility by the Department of Veterans Affairs. This means eligible veterans and military spouses enrolled in the immersive, 14-week program will be able to use GI Bill education benefits to fund their tuition, housing and other associated costs.

Code Platoon is the first of its kind to reach this milestone in the state of Illinois, according to the bootcamp’s Executive Director Rod Levy.

“We are extremely proud to be the first coding bootcamp to be GI Bill approved by the VA in Illinois, and the only one to focus exclusively on veterans,” said Levy. “Code Platoon has always focused on providing veterans a top tier educational experience at an affordable price. We hope that the GI Bill will allow even more veterans to access our training and internships.”

Since its inception in 2016, Code Platoon has offered student’s scholarships of up to $10,500. Students using the GI Bill may now be able to cover the full cost of tuition depending on their level of benefits.

Code Platoon’s program is strictly for the veteran community and focuses on providing a supportive learning environment, coupled with industry-supported internships, to maximize the likelihood of successfully transitioning to a new career as a software developer.

“GI Bill approval will help us grow our class sizes and allow more veterans to become software development professionals,” said Alicia Boddy, Code Platoon’s development director. “This seal of approval from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and the Illinois Department of Veteran Affairs will show our current funding partners that we are continuing to cement ourselves as the leader in software development education for veterans.”

The nonprofit has received generous financial support through grants and sponsorships from major corporations, including Amazon, Motorola and Boeing. GI Bill approval could help Code Platoon and its supporters further their quest to enhance the lives of U.S. veterans and military spouses.    

For our answers to frequently asked questions on the GI bill, click here.

Code Camp: Make Tech Your Next Step

Code Platoon & Deloitte Team Up to Present: “Code Camp: Make Tech Your Next Step”

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If you are a veteran or military spouse who is interested in the exploding field of software development, Deloitte and Code Platoon have teamed up to offer a free, hands-on seminar designed just for you.

“Code Camp: Make Tech Your Next Step” features the team at Deloitte, a Top Four professional-services firm with more than 250,000 employees worldwide. Deloitte embraces a holistic approach when supporting veterans and military spouses, focusing on physical health and recovery, education, and employment.

No experience is required to attend the half-day event, which will begin at 11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 23, at Deloitte’s Chicago headquarters at 111 S. Wacker.

Jon Young, Code Platoon’s lead instructor, has put together an afternoon’s curriculum that will walk students through the fundamentals of coding as well as explore cutting-edge concepts such as cloud computing and the popular Ruby language.

The event also includes lunch, followed by ample time to ask questions of the panel members, who will share their experiences and offer advice on a successful career in technology.

The hands-on portion of the event will also position participants to apply for the upcoming cohort at Code Platoon, a nonprofit programming “bootcamp” that helps veterans and military spouses transition into the civilian workforce via 15 weeks of technical training followed by career placement. Significant tuition assistance is available, and veterans or military spouses who successfully complete the program are eligible for internship with sponsor companies.

“I decided to teach about AWS and Cloud9 because cloud computing is the direction that the industry is going toward,” Young said. “I chose Ruby because it’s an extremely high-level language that reads and writes a lot like regular English.”

Also on the agenda are tools that move developers from working on their own computer to collaborating on the Internet.

“I want to get them all set up on their coding skills, including Github and scripting basic algorithms that can get them past the initial phase of interviews,” Young said. “I’ll be teaching them an algorithm that 99 percent of developer candidates cannot solve, a fun problem called ‘fizzbuzz’ that can be tackled a number of ways.”

Rod Levy, Code Platoon’s founder, said he is eager to talk with participants about the bootcamp’s curriculum, success rates and unparalleled teacher-student ratio.

“We’re also pleased that the seminar’s participants will have access to experienced developers’ perspectives and Deloitte’s proven expertise in serving veterans and military spouses,” Levy said. “Their extensive hiring efforts produce great results, but they also are leading the way with the support they offer on the job.”

While the 5-hour event is free, only 20 seats are available. To sign up, visit this link, or call Rod Levy at 312-767-7673

3 Industries That Love to Hire Veterans

3 Industries That Love to Hire Veterans

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For many veterans and military spouses, finding the right career path can be a tremendous struggle. While a growing number of industries are becoming more open to the idea of hiring veterans or military spouses, there are a few career fields that actively seek to hire vets and are also a great fit for any former servicemember. These career fields often require the same skill sets and capabilities that are taught in the military – such as teamwork, attention to detail, and discipline. If you’re a veteran or military spouse looking for your next career move, consider these three industries that love to hire veterans.

Law Enforcement:

This shouldn’t come as a surprise as many law enforcement positions offer an easy transfer for today’s veterans. Due the nature of police work and similar organizational structure, law enforcement will likely feel more familiar for servicemembers who have been deployed overseas. Additionally, law enforcement roles often mirror their military counterparts – from dog handlers to detectives, many veterans already have much of the specialized training necessary to work on a police force. What’s more, there are already many veterans in the law enforcement community so it’s hardly difficult to find individuals, or even entire groups of people, with shared experiences.

Technology: 

Although many veterans and military spouses may not know it, they are the perfect fit for the nation’s fastest-growing industry – technology. With recent tech booms across all major cities, CEO’s from Silicon Valley to Austin are looking for the best employees to fill their ranks. And from what we’re hearing, it’s not about hiring the next JavaScript expert, it’s about hiring a team player who can show up on time and do the right thing even when no one is looking. Contrary to the myth, most tech companies aren’t very fond of the ‘rock stars,’ rather, they favor disciplined and calm individuals who can keep it together in times of stress. It’s no wonder then, that major tech companies like Amazon, Dell, Hewlett Packard, and SpaceX are actively seeking to hire thousands of veterans and military spouses. For today’s veterans, the tech industry offers an exciting career that requires a can-do and adaptable mindset – old hat for soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. And considering that most tech roles — whether you’re coming on the team as a day-one programmer or developer — offer salaries near or above six figures, the tech industry should definitely be on every veteran’s radar.

Government:

Government roles are a good fit for veterans as they essentially adhere to a similar organizational structure as the military. Additionally, government positions span many different agencies and departments – including civilian roles in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or the Coast Guard. In fact, the government also offers positions for those interested in the aforementioned industries of law enforcement and technology. Veterans will also find that their military experience can translate into promotional points for a particular career field and, perhaps best of all, veterans and military spouses receive preference for all government job openings. This offers a tremendous advantage, and incentive, for today’s veterans and military spouses to apply. If you’re interested in working for the government, head over to USAJobs to find your next career field.

While veterans are a great fit for many different industries, it’s clear that many can truly excel in law enforcement, tech, or working for the government. And since all these fields are actively recruiting veterans, it’s worth considering a career in any of these three professions.

5 Similarities between the Military and Startup Life

From Deployed to Deploying: 5 Similarities between the Military and Startup Life

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Taking on a principal role for Purple Gator roughly four years ago was a leap of faith. Even though I loved the idea of our flagship product, a trivia platform that offers businesses a new way to engage customers, I was signing on with a brand-new company that could offer no guarantees. Fortunately, my six years as a maintenance analyst in the Air National Guard were perfect preparation for the highs, lows, hard work and just plain uncertainty that come with the startup terrain.

This is one of the reasons that I help mentor fellow veterans who are enrolled at Chicago’s Code Platoon, a nonprofit web-development school known informally as a “coding bootcamp.” That nomenclature is by no means an overstatement. This relatively new type of intense, immersive education plays to the strengths these men and women gained in the military. 

Here are the top reasons that a combination of military experience and a bootcamp education produces developers who are perfectly suited to join anyone’s startup.

1) We are comfortable wearing multiple hats. The boss: “You’re a software engineer? Don’t care, today you are a customer support representative! Tomorrow you will be on a sales call at 2 p.m. but definitely finish planning our customer-appreciation party by noon.” 

If you’ve been in the military, this is second nature: My old boss: “You’re a diesel engine mechanic? Don’t care, today you are the squad’s physical training leader!” Although my specialty was logging maintenance data, more important, I was an airman ready to serve wherever I was needed.

2) Long hours don’t faze us. While work-life balance is a reasonable long-term goal, that is not always a feasible reality in the early days of a company like Purple Gator. Any company might require a 12-hour day here and there. But at a startup you could work those hours for 20 days straight. And the average veteran reading this is probably thinking, “Yeah? Is that supposed to be abnormal? What about the other 10 days in the month?”

3) Teamwork is second nature. For better or for worse, sacrifice is required in both environments. At Purple Gator, we don’t face life-or-death situations, but people’s livelihoods and careers are at stake. In place of “battle buddies,” we might find support and camaraderie as part of a tech incubator on the 9th floor of the Merchandise Mart. And just like the days when I was deployed to Guam in support of the 509 Bomb Wing’s 52 Bomber Squadron, such shared experience forges bonds that transcend background, politics, what have you. I expect the relationships made in both places to last forever. I’ve already seen that happening at Code Platoon, where my first mentee, Javier Revuelta, was part of the inaugural cohort. He is now a software engineer at PowerReviews, but returns often to mentor the current cohort.

4) Coping with stress is first nature. My stress level right now is very high. We have several big-name customers already for GStack, our trivia platform. But every sale counts so much at a startup, and losing out on one means three wasted weeks. You never know where that next paycheck is coming from. And I’m away from my family for days at a time. During a deployment, too, you must deal with not knowing the dangers behind the next hill while worrying about that family back home. For me, personally, while on active duty, I remember a particular time when a lot was riding on whether I could figure out why one of our planes was having mechanical issues. To be more specific, it kind of caught on fire, and combing through the data in order to ensure that this didn’t happen again was a long, arduous process. Because it was very important that the plane not catch on fire again!

5) Even the rewards are similar. When you establish a startup, you are filling a void with your idea, creating something that didn’t exist. So seeing our MVP in a customer’s hands that first time, watching them actually use our product to make money — and finding that their customers did indeed enjoy the trivia games — was an incredible moment. It reminded me of coming back, exhausted, from Operation Enduring Freedom, and the first time that a civilian looked me in the eyes and thanked me for my service. Both times, suddenly, my vision felt clear and crystallized.

By James Bell

Chief technology officer | Purple Gator

Before becoming immersed in the startup world, James was a successful options trader and electrical engineer. He has a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Illinois and studied electrical engineering at St. Louis’ Washington University, where he also played football. He served in the Air National Guard and was deployed to Asia during Operation Enduring Freedom.

U.S. Sen. Durbin Talks Tech Education and Jobs at Code Platoon

U.S. Sen. Durbin Talks Tech Education and Jobs at Code Platoon

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U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) visited Code Platoon’s headquarters on Friday to learn more about the coding bootcamp for veterans and military spouses.

Code Platoon’s students, who are a week away from graduation, presented Durbin with an iteration of their capstone project — a web app that allows users to submit and vote on pet submissions much like the NCAA March Madness brackets. The final project is a tangible product that students can use to market their newly-acquired skills to potential employers. The program connects students with local tech companies to help them network and aid them in their job search.

“One of the key tenets of our program is that we work by, with, and through the Chicago tech community to support ourselves,” said Rod Levy, Founder and Executive Director of Code Platoon. “They support us financially and they support us by providing internships for our students once they have completed the program.”

Code Platoon is a Chicago-based 501(c)3 non-profit that helps veterans and military spouses transition into the civilian workforce by providing technical training and career placement. For 15 weeks, students are immersed in a web development program, learning Ruby, Python, SQL and a number of other marketable coding languages. Upon completing the program veterans and military spouses will be eligible for internships at local tech companies, which could lead to a full-time job.

Durbin added that military veterans and active servicemembers often struggle in their pursuit of higher education, including in deciding on what institutions turn to for continuing education.

They don’t know where to go. They don’t know what to do and they tend to respond to the most advertising.  And they go to [places like] the American Military University. My nephew went to the American Military University and I said to him, ‘Mike, what are you doing? You live in Maryland. The University of Maryland offers courses, why don’t you take that and you can transfer the hours back. The American Military Academy – nobody will know what you’re talking about.’

So these for-profit schools are right in the middle of this and sucking out all of the G.I. benefits that you all worked to earn and they’re supposed to give you a chance in life.

The Federal Communications Commission was fresh off the vote to end net neutrality when Durbin visited the Code Platoon offices. During a Q&A with the students and Code Platoon staff, the lawmaker was asked about his take on the agency’s 3-2 vote to repeal two-year-old regulations aimed at ensuring equal internet access by outlawing fast lanes, throttling, and website and app blocking.

“This was a disastrous decision by the federal communications commission,” said Durbin. He followed his answer by explaining his perspective on the FCC’s monumental decision.

“Their elimination of net neutrality means customers and consumers all across America will start having to pay for things that are free today, and they’ll have to start bargaining with some provider who is going to say, ‘for a certain amount of money, you’ll get faster service. For a certain amount of money, you’ll have access to X-Y-Z.’  All of these things restrict our freedom and access to the internet. I think it was a terrible decision.”

Boeing Invests in Veterans with $100K Grant to Code Platoon

Boeing Invests in Veterans with $100K Grant to Code Platoon

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The push to get veterans and military spouses trained for STEM jobs got a boost with the announcement of The Boeing Company’s $100,000 grant to Code Platoon, a web development boot camp for servicemembers.

Rod Levy, executive director of Code Platoon, calls the grant “recognition of the learning and hard work of the veterans, and their success in the market after leaving the program.”

Boeing is increasing their focus on veterans as one of their main “pillars” of investment. The world’s largest aerospace company has granted some $8 million to support efforts that help veterans and their families transition back into civilian life as part of their “Our Heroes: Veterans and their Families” initiative. In addition to veterans, Boeing has turned its attention to investing in youth education and local communities, with the company’s cumulative sum of nonprofit grants reaching $50 million for 2018.

Code Platoon will use the funds for staff development, fundraising, a new instructor and a marketing push to get the word out about Code Platoon’s unique opportunity for veterans and military spouses.

“This grant will be instrumental in helping us reach more veterans, and make a bigger impact,” Levy said. “This investment in our future growth will take us to the next level.”

Code Platoon was founded in 2014 with a focus on preparing veterans and military spouses for jobs in the booming tech industry. The non-profit offers admitted students guaranteed scholarships, taking the cost of the $13,000, 14-week immersive program down to just $2,500. The Chicago-based boot camp recently expanded its program to offer remote training for veterans or military spouses who cannot take classes at the downtown campus. Code Platoon students receive career assistance, with many embarking on paid internships at leading tech companies upon graduation.

The deadline to apply for the next Code Platoon cohort is November 13.

We’re adding an assistant instructor courtesy of Motorola!

We’re adding an assistant instructor courtesy of Motorola!

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We’re proud to announce today that we’ve received a $10,000 USD grant from the Motorola Solutions Foundation, the charitable arm of Motorola solutions, Inc. We’re using the grant to provide an assistant instructor for our Spring 2018 cohort. The assistant instructor will work directly with the lead instructor to help bring more personalized coding and programming opportunities for our students.

The Motorola Solutions Foundation awards grants each year to organizations that support and advance public safety programs and technology & engineering education initiatives. This year, programs that served underrepresented populations, including females, people with disabilities and veterans were prioritized. I can speak for Rod and the rest of us when I say that we’re absolutely honored to receive this grant, which will help us create more opportunities for our veteran students to learn and grow.

For more on the Motorola Solutions Foundation grants, click here.

To read our press release on the Motorola Solutions Foundation grant, click here.

Our office

Can’t make it to our office in Chicago? Don’t worry, we’ll come to you!

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Here at Code Platoon, we see more and more veterans and military spouses transition into the world of coding and development every single day. However, we know that veterans or military spouses come from every corner of the nation – not just the Chicagoland area – and that’s why we’re excited to share that we’re expanding our offerings to include a new remote initiative!

We’ll be piloting this new program during our next cohort and we’re looking for two highly motivated veterans and military spouses to participate; if that sounds like you or someone you know, read our full brief below.

Our new Remote Attendance Program offers:

ABSOLUTE CONVENIENCE – Whether you’re traveling or you’re on the other end of the world, our Remote Attendance Program is all about providing our veterans and military spouses with a convenient path to access our tried and true curriculum. While we’d love to have you visit our AO, you no longer have to make the trip over here to learn everything you need to become a full-stack developer.

FREE ADMISSION FOR VETERANS AND MILITARY SPOUSES — Our regular program is a 14-week long, in-person coding program located in Chicago, Illinois. For in-person students, the cost is $13,000, but all admitted veterans or military spouses receive $10,500 in scholarships so they’re essentially paying $2,500 out of pocket. For our veteran or military spouses students who are going to be remote, we’re upping that scholarship to the full $13,000 so that they won’t have to pay a cent.

HIGH QUALITY INSTRUCTION — The Remote Attendance Program is very much the same program that our in-person students participate in. Remote students will have access to everything that in-person students have, and will be able to participate in live discussions, ask questions, and receive real-time answers. What’s more, our remote students will work on the same assignments and team projects as their in-person counterparts. The only thing that’s different for our Remote Attendance Students is that they won’t be eligible to participate in the internship program, or at least not with Chicago-based internships.

If you’re interested in taking advantage of our remote offering, make sure you apply now! There are fewer spots for our Remote Attendance Program and our admission standards for these spots will be more rigorous than our in-person program given that we can only take so many. Additionally, we will give preference to veterans with disabilities.

If you’d like to learn more about our remote offerings, you can head to our Remote Attendance Program page for more information or contact us at info@codeplatoon.org.

Deja Baker’s Coding Journey

Deja Baker’s Coding Journey Leads the Way for Women and Veterans Alike

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Despite the fact that the tech community is growing faster than ever, there are still two demographics that are often overlooked – women and veterans. However, the dearth of representation from both communities is quickly changing, especially when you have individuals like Deja Baker spearheading the effort. Baker, who enlisted in the Navy as an Analyst, eventually pursued her interest in technology as a Computer Science major at the Naval Academy.

Seeking to further her education in the coding industry, Baker applied for and received Code Platoon’s Women In Technology Scholarship, which fully covers her tuition, and is scheduled to attend the all-veteran coding bootcamp this fall. While there were a number of other bootcamps to choose from, Code Platoon was always the first choice for Baker.

“One reason why I chose to apply for Code Platoon is because its exclusively for veterans,” Baker said. “I feel that being around people from a similar background, who are working towards the same goals, will prove more beneficial to the process.”

In addition to providing a sense of community, Baker believes that an all-veteran bootcamp will likely be composed of the most highly motivated and disciplined students in the coding industry.

“Veterans have worked in a variety of different roles all over the world, and because of that, veterans have a wide array of experiences that allow them to adapt quickly when engaging in new projects,” Baker said. “I feel that a lot of veterans have the drive and the aptitude to work towards a role in tech.”

Although many of today’s veterans often have skillsets that translate well to coding and programming few choose to pursue a career path in the tech industry. Baker says that veterans who have given thought to a career in coding should, at the very least, give it a try.

“I know a lot of people that are interested in coding who are too worried to see what it’s all about, but there are abundant resources online to just dabble in it and see if coding is for you.”

It’s a sentiment that’s shared by leading tech giants such as Google, IBM, and Intel, all of whom have taken measures to help veterans gain a footing in the tech sector. And because there are plenty of opportunities waiting for veterans with strong programming skills, Baker says she’s eager to begin her first day at Code Platoon.

“I’m excited to have this opportunity to study and work towards becoming a developer; I’m looking forward to working in teams in a highly collaborative environment and to be challenged while solving difficult problems.”

3 Tracks for Veterans and Military Spouses

3 Tracks for Veterans and Military Spouses Interested in Becoming Software Developers

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For people interested in becoming software developers, it may seem as if there are infinite ways to embark on that path. Which is great, because having so many options means anyone can learn to code, but this is also bad, because you can get seriously bogged down trying to figure out how to get there.

To simplify the choices, let’s take a look at the three major forks you can take, and how to navigate them. They vary in investment (think time AND money), expediency and outcome. (The goal here is to narrow your focus, not provide an overwhelming list of possibilities, so this is hardly an exhaustive list of options.)

Path #1: Traditional: Get a degree in Computer Science

This is the most traditional way to enter the world of software development, but it is also expensive and takes the most time. Bachelor’s degrees take four years, a master’s degree typically takes two. Fortunately, many veterans and military spouses have GI Bill® funds that they can use at universities. If you go this route you may as well use the top ten programs as a starting point. This is most tried-and-true way to enter software development, and no hiring manager will thumb his or her nose at your background (although there is by no means a guarantee of a job). Moreover, if you do attend a prestigious program, you will also enjoy the benefits of having access to the alumni network, not to mention a thorough knowledge of, well, computer science that can take you in a lot of directions.

Despite its advantages, a CS degree can be a daunting and expensive undertaking. For people who are changing careers or with families to support, being out of the workforce for several years might not be practical. And these days companies often fault CS graduates for not having much practical experience.

Bonus tip — possibly the best deal on a CS degree is offered online by Georgia Tech, which happens to be a Top10 program, for $7,000.


Path #2: Nontraditional: Coding Bootcamp

The premise of ‘coding bootcamps’ is to take a deeply interested beginner and, in a matter of months, teach all of the practical skills to qualify as a junior software developer.  These schools are named bootcamps, because many follow an ‘immersive’ philosophy, which requires students to work 60- to 100-hour weeks. The cost, too, is usually under $20,000, and pales in comparison to the cost of traditional higher education, The bootcamp model is reasonably new, but has exploded in popularity as a way for career changers to learn the skills to fill the growing need for software developers. Today dozens (hundreds?) of coding bootcamps, in all shapes and sizes, dot the country, with some of the schools offered wholly online.

Some factors to consider while comparing these schools: technology stack, location, length, cost,  reported outcomes and curriculum. Course Report is a good starting point for this research. One simple guidepost: Look for coding boot camps that offer at least 1,000 hours of instruction/coding/project time.

For veterans and military spouses, there are a few additional points to consider. Some coding bootcamps are eligible to accept the GI Bill. Operation Code, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help the military community learn software development and break into the tech industry, keeps a list of these coding bootcamps. Code Platoon (disclaimer, I’m the executive director), is a Chicago-based non-profit coding bootcamp exclusively for veterans and military spouses that offers its students $10,500 scholarships.

Other reasons to go to a coding bootcamp instead of college? The slide in this article says it all. Much less time spent out of the workforce, and, for the better bootcamps, pretty good employment outcomes. You’ll see a greater emphasis on building products, rather than theory (not unlike learning to be a carpenter versus studying to be an architect). The fast pace can’t accommodate the rigorous study of algorithms and problem solving that a CS program can, of course, and some employers are still skeptical about hiring bootcamp grads.  

Bonus tip — probably the best deal in coding bootcamps is online Free Code Camp. It’s rigorous. It’s long. It’s well designed. It’s FREE! Get through that and perhaps supplement with this algorithms class.

Path #3: Self-paced online learning

If you want to explore your options, to try as many different things as possible, and have the time, you can try to learn on your own. There are many, many ways to do this.

If you want to pursue this path, please:

  • Don’t stress about which language/framework is hot. Start with JavaScript (widely used), although Ruby on Rails (which we teach) and Python are great too. Nothing wrong with picking other big ones like C# or Java — they just have a longer learning curve.
  • Get on an online guide. Bento.io and The Odin Project are two examples of free sites that will guide you, step by curated step, down the road to learning web development. They gather lots of different resources to help you learn and remove the guesswork as to what you should learn, in what order, and from where.

Of course, to just get a feel for the business or explore its many facets, you’ll find a boggling array of resources.  Codewars.com, Hacker Rank and Codingbat have lots of free programming challenges, as well as some guidance on how to go through them. Alternatively, you could pick a project that you are interested in, either something you want to build (a website, app, etc.) or that someone else has suggested. And then go build it!

Additional resources

  • Operation Code — for all kinds of feedback for a veteran who wants to enter software development — join the Slack channel
  • Not necessarily free, but good resources include: TeamTreehouse, Codeschool, Udemy, Upcase, Flatiron, Thinkful, Coderbyte, Learn Code the Hard Way, https://automatetheboringstuff.com/