Sometimes the Best Things Come From Unexpected Places From truck drivers to retail staff, and everything in-between, each LaunchCoder that passes through our doors uses their dedication and effort from their previous (or still ongoing) jobs to learn the new languages, workflows, and tools of the tech trade today. This is what makes LaunchCoders the…
Black History Month: A Look at Leaders in Tech
Black History Month is a great time, but certainly not the only time, to celebrate and further inform ourselves on the deep and intricate history and culture of Black Americans. Black history is just as much about the historical black figures, who paved paths and reached back, as it is about today’s black history-makers. Throughout…
LaunchCode’s Moonshot Awards 2020
In the spirit of entrepreneur Jim McKelvey, LaunchCode’s Moonshot Awards recognize the efforts of St. Louis trailblazers — those working toward new solutions to better our community. Meet the 2020 Moonshot Award Winners and 2020 New Horizons Award Recipient, Dennis Lower The New Horizons Moonshot Award honors unique vision and sustained effort in pushing to the outer…
Confections to Coding: Maroua From KC
My path into tech isn’t what most would call “straightforward.” Growing up as a first-generation Moroccan immigrant, I never envisioned a career in this field. Although both of my parents had college degrees and strongly valued education, the tech field was never on my radar. I wasn’t offered programming classes at school, and although I…
Expanding The Toolkit: Jacob from STL
A Precarious Assemblage For years I pursued a career as an artist and an educator. Art has always been a mirror of the time in which it was made. As a sculptor, my work often mirrored a rapidly evolving world that was driven by technological innovation. I found myself making objects that strayed from representations…
Success Story: Ryan from STL
I have been fascinated with computers for about as long as I can remember. As a child, I remember reading some of my mother’s old assembly code textbooks and thinking to myself “I don’t know how any of this works but it’s extremely cool”. Although I didn’t understand it, I always wanted to tinker with…
CoderGirl Story: Amy
From Living Paycheck-To-Paycheck to Landing a Rewarding Career in Tech When scrolling Facebook, I don’t generally expect to come across something that is going to alter the course of my life. Memes, cat videos, and Instant Pot recipes, sure. But life changing? Not so much. And yet, one otherwise ordinary evening in 2016, life-changing is…
Success Story: Josh in KC
A Q&A with Josh on His Transition into Tech Josh learned to code so he could build a website to self-publish his creative writing. With a website underneath his belt and CSS, HTML and JavaScript in his toolbox, Josh began exploring careers in web development. He then turned his coding skills and interests into a full-time…
Becoming A Microsoft Programmer
How a Curious Coder Made the Transition to Programming at a Major Technology Company The Beginning: Building My Coding Skills My journey with LaunchCode began with their online skills test and ended with a job as a web developer at Microsoft. I had spent the better part of my twenties teaching English abroad in China,…
Teaming Up in Innovative Ways: 1904labs x LaunchCode
1904labs, a human-centered software design and development company in St. Louis, supports the LaunchCode mission for myriad other reasons in myriad ways.
From Helping Others to Helping Myself
I realized I was so focused on helping others, that I never really thought about my own future. So, while it was uncomfortable and a big risk, I gave myself a sabbatical and applied to LaunchCode.
Writer to Coder: Jeff in Kansas City
After getting a BA in English Lit, Jeff supplemented his writing career with various middle-man business jobs, but he grew tired of a job in which he wasn’t a creator. The draw of a career in which he was able to build and create brought Jeff to LaunchCode. Now, Jeff is a writer again, but this time he writes code.
Forget What You Heard About Tech Career Paths
The effect on workers of the transition from a manufacturing economy to an information and service economy are well explored. This discussion has become so common, in fact, that a handful of notions about modern avenues into tech careers have become widely held despite being half-true at best, spurious at worst.
Placement Profile: Hakim in Kansas City
After moving from Ethiopia, Hakim held several positions that didn’t accurately reflect his experience of credentials. Approaching LaunchCode with a sense of purpose – and realizing that coding is a genuinely good time – helped Hakim land a tech job at VML.
Top 5 Tips for Hosting an Apprentice
Whether you’re just starting to consider bringing an apprentice onto your team, or you’re a couple months into having an apprentice, we’ll walk you through some best practices to make sure the program is a great experience for both your organization and your apprentice.
Finding the Ability to Transform: Shawn from St. Louis
After having several different careers, ranging from serving in the United States Army to working in the film industry, Shawn was looking for a chance to reinvent his career.
Following a Passion: Jiho in Kansas City
How did you hear about LaunchCode? A year before hearing about LaunchCode, I took some online courses on data science. I managed to get through some of it, but I was struggling to keep up with the programming portion. I never really had a solid grasp of Python or JavaScript, so when I found out…
Mentorship Always Mattered
Mentorship has always been a cornerstone of technical teams. LaunchCode’s apprenticeships are one way to create those opportunities. Let these five experienced engineers tell you about how mentorship played out in their early careers and how they seek to foster it on their teams today.
Cashier to Coder: Gail in St. Louis
Moving Out of a Job and Into a Career A year ago, I was a supermarket cashier with a bachelor’s degree in English. Today I’m a programmer for Express Scripts — a Fortune 22 company. An educational nonprofit called LaunchCode changed my life. LaunchCode provides learning resources and job opportunities in technology, all at…
Learning Something New: Carly in St. Louis
A Simple Challenge Turned into a Career You often hear that programmers are drawn to coding because it comes naturally to them. LaunchCoder Carly smashes that mold: she began coding to push herself intellectually because the logic didn’t come naturally to her. Now, Carly’s a software developer at Boundless. How did you first hear about…
Sunmi Finds Programming
This course teaches necessary logic technique and patterns, also opening doors for students to find opportunities for a better tomorrow.
Candidate Profile: Learn About Bill
LC101 exceeded my expectations…being able to take an in-person course was tremendously beneficial for me.
Rethinking Problem Solving: Katy in St. Louis
Finding the Right Time for Takeoff Katy first heard about LaunchCode from an announcement for the first CS50x course at the Central Library in St. Louis. The timing wasn’t right for her to become a LaunchCoder then, but she signed up to stay updated about future classes. When she received an email about the Winter…
The Melody of Code
The Sound of Code is Music to Their Ears At first glance, it may be hard to find the relationship between coding and art — but the connections are certainly there! We talked about the relationship between art and code with three musicians from LaunchCode – Kansas City, here is what they had to say:…
Launched & Landed: Shaun in Miami
From Vet & Journalist to Student to Apprentice to HIRED! Tell us a little bit about your background. I’m an Air Force veteran with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and prior to finding LaunchCode, I was working as a business journalist for a local newspaper. I heard about LaunchCode while reading and writing for the…
Coding As … Art?
Make All. The. Things. At first glance, it may be hard to find the relationship between coding and art — the dominant tech culture and perceived mathiness don’t necessarily scream “creatives apply here”. But talking with LaunchCoders who are also artists in Kansas City, known for its booming arts community, we found the connections are…
Apprentice to Developer: Mamata in KC
Making It In America Mamata, LaunchCoder & Software Developer Tell us a little bit about how you got here. I love to play with code. I do Java, Groovy, Android coding and also love different mathematical algorithm implementation. I have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from India. I worked as a…
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