Launch School Podcast

In this episode Launch School Student Felicia interviews Chris as he shares the origin story of how Launch School came to be. He also offers his unique perspective on how Launch School approaches learning, coding education and software engineering. The show includes several new announcements that students should be aware of. Show Notes LS181 Assessment Update Launch School Exercises Update Capston...

This episode Karis and Chris discuss the all the latest Launch School interviews and presentations. Karis also catches up with the co-host from last season Mandy who now works at Mozilla. Finally they leave you with a number of new announcements that students should be aware of. Intro Agenda Felicia's Interview with Chris Felicia's Interview with Carolina Women's Group Employer Speaker Series Rodn...

This season Chris kicks off our first episode by introducing Launch Schools new podcast format and new co-host Karis. Together they discuss the latest events happening at Launch School and some quick reminders students should be aware of. Karis also catches up with previous host Callie in a 1 on 1 interview. Introduction - 0:00 Agenda - 4:33 Buddy System for Female Students - 5:10 Felicia's Interv...

In today's episode, our podcast hosts Chris, Callie, and Mandy share their end of the year reflections on Season 3, new updates on where Mandy and Callie are going, upcoming ideas for season 4, and ambitious goals for Launch School in the New Year and beyond. Chris, Callie, and Mandy wishes everyone a joyous and wonderful holiday season! You can listen from your favorite podcast app by searching f...

In today's episode, Callie chats with Launch School TA Pete about his journey to and through Launch School. He shares about his beloved cats we see glimpses of, what brought him to Launch School, and why he enjoys being a part of this community. He also sheds light on what makes a good Core student and talks about someone who made a lasting impact on his career. You can listen from your favorite p...

In this Thanksgiving episode, Mandy talks to students who have been at Launch School for over a year. These students share what they are grateful for and how the community has helped them throughout their journey at Launch School. Special thanks to the stories shared by the wonderful students: Alfonso Gonzalez, Felicia Bacon, Charles Hartman, Anne Tiotuico, Natalie Thompson, Rona Hsu, and Austin M...

In today's episode, Callie chats with three Launch School students in three very different life stages. They share how they came to Launch School, what seemed to come easy to them, and what was harder. Without hearing one another's interviews, they paint similar pictures that are still unique. Whether you've been here awhile or have just joined the community, their stories will encourage you and h...

In today's episode, Callie chats with Launch School TA Srdjan as he shares his journey to and through Launch School. He generously shares about a wide range of experiences, from how his cats lovingly torture him to what scared him the most as a student/TA at Launch School. He shares lessons learned from being a student, and what he believes makes a genuinely good Capstone student (it's probably no...

In today's episode, students from Women Who Code share what the group is, what the meet-ups are like, and how they've found a sense of belonging and community. These students talk about the importance of having a supportive community while going through the ups and downs of online learning at Launch School. They generously share their thoughts and experiences through their time spent in wwcode: El...

In this episode, siblings John and Adam Isom come chat about their journeys working together through Launch School. Adam had completed a different coding bootcamp and was in the midst of completing his CS degree when he switched to focus on Launch School. John walked away from a college scholarship to study CS to do Launch School. Why did they do that? How did it work out? Give this episode a list...

Today's episode is the first of a new series called Bytes: a collection of sound-bites from the Launch School community that answer a focused question. A question we've all asked at some point or another is why should I go to Launch School? Maybe you're past that point, or maybe you're still trying to figure it out. Either way, listen in to hear the voices of eleven different people from the Launc...

Previously in Season 2, Chris talked with Gabe, Ben, and Arthur to share their story on how they, as a group, supported one another through the Core curriculum. That episode highlighted the importance of community and friendship. In this episode, Gabe, Ben, and Arthur are back with us to share more! They update us about their journey through Capstone, the job hunt, working as software engineers an...

In today's episode, Launch School students Jenae and Mandy interviewed Barbara Oakley. Dr. Oakley is no stranger to Launch School students — her Learning How to Learn course is a required part of the preparation to being a student! The conversation has many gems, including what it’s like being a woman in STEM and how programming is a form of art. She generously shared her own journey of learning h...

In this episode, Staacy and I held a Zoom Q & A. I was happily surprised by the wide-range of topics that we got to dive into. Questions ranged from knowing if you’re on track for Capstone, when and how to get a job, how your age affects a career in tech, how to know if Launch School is for you, and how the Deferred Payment Program works. Whether you’re new to Launch School, been here for awhi...

In this episode, I caught up with Liz, Jesse, and Katarina to chat about another peer-led community group at Launch School called "The Social Network". We previously chatted with The SPOT community leads here on the podcast, but The Social Network differs in that its mission is geared towards social events and having fun. Last month, The Social Network put on an amazing Conference on Study Habits....

Welcome to another episode of the Launch School podcast. This is a slightly different episode in that it’s a recording of a webinar we did a few weeks ago about our Deferred Payment Program . Now why would we include a webinar in the podcast? Well, the reason is because this webinar is actually a panel of Launch School students and the conversation is mostly about their journey through Launch Scho...

In this episode, I caught up with Leena, Rodney, and Christian who started a peer-based study group within the Launch School community called SPOT, which stands for Study, Practice, Overlearn, and Teach. This is, arguably, one of the most important topics for us as a mastery-based learning program. I’ve been observing this group for a few months and have been blown away by their organization, prof...

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 7 of the Launch School podcast. In this episode, I had a chance to chat with Sunny Beatteay, a senior software engineer at Digital Ocean and Capstone alum. This conversation was recorded a few months ago back in March, 2020. Many of you who hang out in the Launch School chat room have probably seen his name there. Sunny is always amazing to speak with because he’s so o...

In this episode, I asked one of our very first Capstone graduates to share with us what’s been going on a few years removed from graduating Capstone. Michael joined Launch School in 2016, finished Capstone in 2017, and is now making a “quarter of a million” at Facebook working on the Oculus VR team. We always talk about Launch School being a long-term investment, so now we get to see what the retu...

In this episode I got a chance to speak with Nick Calibey, a Capstone graduate and software engineer at TimescaleDB. We talked about how he went from getting his Masters in Theological Studies to now working on Cloud Infrastructure making 6 figures all working remotely from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Nick is one of the first remote people we took into Capstone, so the remote job hunt is a topic we focused o...

I asked Gabe, Ben, and Arthur to come on the podcast today to share their story about how they, as a group, are supporting and helping each other through the Core curriculum and talk about the importance of community. To me, they’ve cracked the code with regards to mastery-based learning. There are so many positives to mastery-based learning and if you’ve been listening to the podcast and followin...

I catch up with Sasha Prodan, who describes her multi-year journey to her high-paying software engineering role. Sasha arrived in the US as an immigrant, worked retail jobs to support herself, and spent 3 years completing her transition to a software engineering role in San Francisco.

Capstone graduate and frequent Launch School Tech Talk speaker, Julius Zerwick comes on the podcast to chat about his Software Engineer job at DigitalOcean, software salaries in NYC, the importance of soft skills, pros/cons of coding bootcamp vs Launch School, and his upcoming book Make Sense of Distributed Systems from Manning.

In this first episode of Season 2 of the Launch School podcast, I chat with Capstone graduate Tannr Allard about his reflections on going from leaving college to a $120K job to working in blockchain development.

In this episode, we speak with Letladi Sebesho, a South African developer who recently completed all (well, most) of the Launch School courses. He talks about how Launch School compares with his computer science courses, his job hunt process, and also how he's been doing now that he's been working for a few months.