Here at Grand Circus, we’re excited to be starting 2018 by announcing our new coding bootcamp model. Today I’d like to provide more details on this change, why we’ve made this decision and how it will impact our community. We’re super happy with the new additions, but I get that you’re probably wondering why. Grand Circus had daytime bootcamps for nearly three years around a 10-week model with good success! Why change the model?
Well, at Grand Circus we pride ourselves on being committed to student success and being responsive to feedback. As we looked toward celebrating our 5th birthday and our 1,000th bootcamp student, we took time to reflect on how we could better serve our community as we continue to grow. We listened to our partners, surveyed our community and identified a few areas that could lead to even greater student success. Feedback is something we’ve taken very seriously since Grand Circus was founded, and this anniversary was the perfect time to take a deeper dive and implement a few changes.
We heard from alumni —-both those exiting our programs and those who have been working in the field for some time — that more time would give them more practice and confidence, which makes all the difference in those first few junior software developer interviews. We wanted to extend the length of the bootcamp so students could graduate our programs with an increase in confidence that, we hope, translates to a more satisfying career in technology overall.
We regularly connect with employers from across Michigan and heard feedback that a few different concepts could really set our students apart. We sat down with employers who have hired a ton of our grads, and those who haven’t hired any at all, to get a sense of what additional concepts would make graduates more marketable, more job ready and more productive in their first tech roles.
We listened to our staff! Grand Circus is filled to the brim with some of the most talented developers, teachers and career-change-cheerleaders that I could ever hope to know. We used our collective experience from nearly 60 bootcamps and over 900 students to examine ways our program could best serve the community that we love.
When all those factors came together, we knew that adding two weeks to our bootcamps would allow us to deliver an even more targeted, thoughtful and compelling career-changing platform for Michiganders. So, what will we do with those extra two weeks? So glad you asked!
What’s the game plan for the 12-week coding bootcampmodel?
- We’re adding more content! By adding two more weeks of in-person training, we can add technical magic that will help make Grand Circus graduates more competitive on the job market. We’re looking forward to adding coursework around data structures, algorithms, wireframing, SASS, gulp, and/or UX/UI, depending on the program a student takes.
- Making our hard stuff work harder! Even with the new stuff we’re adding, having two more weeks with our students in-person gives us the ability to dive deeper with some of the trickier topics in our bootcamps. Students will leave our 12 week program with an even more thorough understanding of each of their bootcamp’s core frameworks and most difficult concepts.
- We’re laser-focusing on career preparation! We’re taking the time to revamp our soft skills offerings, add new sessions, and tailor each sessions based on feedback from both students and employers. This revamped offering will give students both the theoretical approach and tactical strategies needed to find the perfect company for their budding development careers.
We’re really looking forward to serving our communities with our more robust bootcamps. Our team is proud of the success we’ve had with the 10-week model, and we know this new material will help them become even more impactful. We’re thankful to be on this journey with 1,000 software developers throughout Michigan and beyond, and we’re looking forward to training even more in the coming years.