A year and ten days ago, to be exact, Manhattan’s Flatiron School was founded—its mission to turn programming noobs into poachable techies by the end of one intensive, semester-long Ruby course.
Now, the school is expanding its offerings with the launch of a new ten-week iOS program that promises to make you a master of mobile development (in other words: apps. Lots of apps.)
“It’s nice to watch the school grow,” said the Flatiron School’s dean, Avi Flombaum.
The iOS program will rest in the capable hands of Joe Burgess, a mobile expert who, by his senior year at Carnegie Mellon, had helped create an iPhone app for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Under Mr. Burgess’ guidance, an expected ten to fifteen students will progress through three units of app-ducation (sorry), culminating in an exciting final project.
“I’m really looking forward to the capstone project,” Mr. Burgess said, “Students will be in groups of two or three working with real companies, trying to make their apps. I think that’s going to give them an incredible experience to explore the organizational parts of making an app, as well as the actual coding of it and working with a proper client. Hopefully we’ll make something cool.”
And though students won’t graduate with official tech degrees (who needs that shit anyway?), Mr. Flombaum says they will graduate with jobs.
“In the Ruby course [Flatiron’s other intensive program], we have basically 100% job placement,” he said. “With iOS we really just want to get 100% job placement for everyone who’s looking for a job.”
To ensure he’ll be training his young grasshoppers properly, Mr. Burgess has been meeting with iOS workers and developers, and finding out what they’re really looking for in a potential hire.
“A lot of them are looking for a lot of familiarity with the iOS ecosystem,” he said, “That’s the sign of a developer that has real world experience—a huge breadth of knowledge in the iOS ecosystem.”
Applications for the iOS program launched Monday, and will be accepted on a rolling basis. The course will start September 30. “We want a class where people can accomplish more together than they could alone,” Mr. Flombaum said, “The more diverse the class, the more great things we can accomplish together.”
On a very serious note, it has suddenly struck me that I could take this course and make my dreams of “Shazam for Faces” a reality. Because seriously, you guys. Shazam for Faces.
