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In this section, we explore what CodePath is, how we got started, what we offer to students, and why we look forward to working with you. |
CodePath.org isn’t about taking a class or a program. Our focus as a non-profit organization is to help every potential and current CS student accelerate their pathway to becoming a successful software engineer. And perhaps as importantly, to work to transform and improve the tech industry with all of your help each step along the way.
Over the past seven years, we've trained thousands of engineers within some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley including Facebook, Netflix, Airbnb, Youtube, Dropbox, and more.
We are sponsored by many of the largest employers in the US including Walmart, Microsoft, Facebook, and Cognizant. We wanted to use our years of experience as entrepreneurs, engineers, and educators to create a bridge from the industry back to university students all across the United States.
{% hint style="success" %} As a 501(3)(c) non-profit educational organization, we are incredibly proud to share that all of our programs and services are 100% no-cost for students (outside of the normal costs in the case of for-credit courses we provide at your campus). This is a critical value for us, we remember first-hand how difficult it is in college, and would never want to limit participation in these programs.
In addition, we provide ample opportunities for students to step up into paid contracting roles, and pathways into their first technical internships and software roles. {% endhint %}
Check out our video here to learn more about how we got started and our mission from Tim Lee, CodePath.org Co-founder:
{% embed url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAWNiJ3zNWI&feature=youtu.be" %} Listen to Tim Lee, one of the co-founders of CodePath on "Why CodePath?" {% endembed %}
Participating in our programs should span multiple courses, signing up to our career center, and access to direct opportunities for internships through our career fair. Benefits of being a part of CodePath include:
- Real-world domain experience. The more experience you have with practical industry skills such as mobile, web, or Cybersecurity, the more confident and prepared you’ll be in interviews and once you are on the job.
- Industry career center. All CodePath.org students that complete the prereqs have access to our software engineering career center, including resume/LinkedIn review & feedback, 1:1 coaching sessions, and virtual career fairs introducing you directly to companies.
- Building out your portfolio. One important aspect of getting internships and positions is having a portfolio of projects you can talk about in interviews and that recruiters can review online.
- Developing your network. Expanding your connections and meeting professional engineers is an important part of finding opportunities in industry. Over your time with CodePath, you’ll have access to mentors from industry and connect with many other students that share similar goals.
The first major step to success after graduation is landing a summer technical internship (or co-op). 80% of CodePath students get a technical internship before their Senior year. This is crucially important because an internship makes getting a great full-time job much easier after you graduate.
As part of being a student with CodePath, we hope to share with you the following values:
- Never give up a sense of curiosity and humility. The desire and curiosity to learn new skills, and the courage to admit you don't know are some of the most valuable skills you can hold onto as you advance in your career. There is always more to learn, there are always things you don't know, and there are always ways to grow. Seek those out and be open to them along the way.
- Mastery through service. No matter if you just started out, or if you've been working as an engineer for 20 years, there's always someone else that you can help and support. The more you mentor and teach others, the better you understand the concepts yourself. The best thing you can do is start mentoring and teaching whenever possible as part of your own journey into being a leader.
- Never forget the journey. Related to the above, and intertwined is the importance of lifting others while you climb in tech roles yourself. Remember how difficult it can be to start out, how little you know at the beginning, how difficult it can be to get that first internship or that first role. How nervous you were before the first technical interview. Remembering this is the first step to the next item.
- Actively work to transform and reform the existing systems. There is a near infinite room for improvement in the tech industry on every front. Work with us and other students and industry engineers to help change and improve the industry from within. As your influence, ability, and network grows, so does your responsibility to help think about the tech industry itself as a system: what is working? what is broken? what can I do to help push things in the right direction?
- Within software engineering, there are many exciting specializations and disciplines. However, the majority of the jobs by far are in application development, whether that be web, mobile, or desktop products.
- This is a great time to get into the tech industry. Salaries for software engineers can often be six figures right out of college in major tech hubs (San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston, New York, etc). A few years into a career as a mobile engineer, you'll often be making 125-150k a year or more.
- Beyond salary, often the challenges you get to work on are interesting, there are a lot of different products to work on ranging across the spectrum of interests in Healthcare, Entertainment, Finance, et al. Work is very collaborative and creative, working with other engineers as well as product managers and designers.
- There's a lot of flexibility as a software engineer, you can find roles that are working from home, or where you start at 11am, or where you work mostly by yourself, or where you are frequently collaborating with others. There's a tremendous range of options of how, when and where you work as an engineer.
We have a number of different courses for you take, some run on your campus and others happening remotely via Zoom classroom. Our available courses each year include:
- Software Fundamentals Series - Free summer technical interview prep series
- Cybersecurity - Learn the secrets of hacking in our Cybersecurity course
- iOS - Learn how to design and build apps for your iPhone
- Android - Learn how to design and build apps for your Android phone
In addition to these courses, we plan to offer new courses in the future focused on any exciting career tracks in software engineering.