At the end of August 2020, we accepted offers to be Code Platoon’s TA interns for their fall 2020 cohort, Mike Platoon.

As students studying Computer Science and Software Engineering, we spent previous semesters taking traditional CS/SE courses. Like our counterparts studying other subjects, we believed we would be able to find internships that would allow us to apply our in-class learnings to real-life challenges. 

We were wrong. 

After spending hours reading applicant qualifications for software development roles, we were bombarded with words like “front-end developer,” “backend developer,” “SQL,” “JavaScript,” and “React.” We came face-to-face with the reality that despite the fundamentals our CS/SE curriculums focused on, we were not adept in using these current industry technologies and languages. After seeing the Code Platoon TA intern opportunity open up that allowed for the dynamic of learning these skills and teaching, the decision to apply quickly followed.

Throughout the program, we sat through the lectures with all the students from the Mike Platoon cohort, studying a curriculum that focused on developing relevant skills for the full-stack development role. Utilizing off-hours and weekends, we were able to stay a couple of days ahead of the other students, which allowed us to serve as teaching assistants for the debugging process and gave us the ability to answer lingering questions. 

Although our time with the coding Bootcamp advanced our coding skills, we also gained much from the Beyond Tech sessions and Career Prep sessions, which covered topics ranging from mock interviews to salary negotiations and diversity in the workplace. Beyond Tech gave us a more realistic glimpse into the tech industry as a whole and what we can expect going in. The information gained from these “soft skills” sessions included some of our biggest takeaways, with information applicable to more than just a tech industry career.

If we could go back to the beginning of October and speak to ourselves and the students, we would advise them to continue asking questions. Everyone starts at a different place. Some students come in with a host of knowledge already, and some are starting from scratch. The key is to keep practicing what you’ve learned. If you’re confused about what you’re learning, ask questions. The internet and everyone in your cohort — both your instructional team and your classmates — is here to help you.

We are glad to have been allowed to work with fantastic people from Mike Platoon. We have learned so much from the journey. We know that the journey does not stop here and are excited to see what the future holds. It has been a pleasure working with everyone!

Merry Shen is a T.A. for Code Platoon’s 13th cohort, Mike Platoon. She is a rising Sophomore at the University of Michigan studying Computer Science and Mathematics. Follow Merry on LinkedIn. 

Alyssa Arce is a T.A. for Code Platoon’s 13th cohort, Mike Platoon. She is currently studying Software Engineering and Sustainability at Arizona State University. Follow Alyssa on LinkedIn or find her on Instagram.

Over the last few years, the conversation of equity has become front and center for many institutions, Code Platoon included. As a Coding Bootcamp tailored to serve Veterans and military spouses, Code Platoon attracts people from all walks of life. It is dedicated to providing a unique programming education with viable financial options to bring students closer to their next profession as software developers.

Thanks to the generosity of donors and corporate sponsors, Code Platoon has provided generous scholarships to many students, creating an affordable and attainable opportunity. Code Platoon will be offering a Black and Hispanic Scholarship to enrolled students to further diversity in the technology field.

Stack Overflow, a site for professional programmers to ask and share insights on the industry of programming conducted a global survey in 2019 to gauge who made up the field and what issues workers faced. In terms of demographics only, 3.6% of respondents stated their ethnicity as Black or of African descent. Those who responded coming from a Hispanic or Latin background was at 7.1%. 

Currently, unemployment numbers are difficult to pin down due to the uncertainty in the job market caused by the Coronavirus. However, in a recent study done the VA found that minority Veterans have a 44 percent higher risk of unemployment than non-minority Veterans. We know that our minority students face these challenges, and we believe that our Coding Bootcamp can help overcome these odds as 81% of our graduates find Full-Time employment as developers six months after completing the program. 

Given the unique experiences that the military can provide, employers have begun to recognize the Veterans’ values in the workforce. Ability to adapt, exposure to leadership, and a strong work ethic are just a few of the reasons Vets make great employees, and that mindset should be extended to the minority Veteran population, and chances are it will be embraced more over time as the service branches, and the country as a whole, become more diverse.

“Code Platoon has always been a mission-driven nonprofit, with a goal to help Veterans and spouses. Within this population, we know there is a greater need to support Black and Hispanic students, who are underrepresented in technology. This scholarship will help with access, equity, and creating more opportunities for those that need them the most.” says Rod Levy, ED and Founder of Code Platoon. 

While Code Platoon is a small Coding Bootcamp creating this scholarship is aimed at making an impact and continuing to diversify the programming field while also empowering Veterans and military spouses into sustainable careers. 

To apply for this scholarship, interested students will just indicate on their application and the admissions team will follow up with them. This financial assistance could not be made possible without the aid of donors and supporters of Code Platoon. As a nonprofit, Code Platoon is fortunate to have stakeholders who believe in our mission and are invested in diversifying technology jobs. 

Amanda Michelle Gordon is one of Code Platoon’s summer interns, serving in the Content and Marketing department. She is a U.S. Air Force Veteran and a student of SUNY New Paltz for Journalism and Sociology. In her free time, Amanda enjoys reading, the outdoors, and turning coffee into copy. You can find Amanda on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

As the end of November approaches, Mike Platoon, Code Platoon’s newest class, is nearly halfway through their journey of the 14-week Coding Bootcamp. Mike Platoon is made up of 24 highly motivated Veterans and military spouses ready to take on the world of software development. Represented across the different U.S. military branches, here is a peek at some of our current students. 

As a military spouse, Aiizad is very excited to be part of Code Platoon and believes it is a great opportunity that matches up with her passion for software development. “Here, I have met an amazing group of people who want you to succeed,” Aiizad said. By the end of this program, she hopes to be well-prepared for the growing tech field and pursue an internship from one of Chicago’s great companies.

Tommy is a U.S. Marine Corps Veteran who served in signals intelligence. Up to this point, Tommy has found Code Platoon to be a fantastic experience. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m exhausted by the end of each day, but I’m also equally fulfilled each day. The Code Platoon curriculum, coupled with the support of wonderful instructors and after-hour TAs creates a learning environment where none of my questions go unanswered,” said Tommy.  At this stage in the program, he no longer feels intimidated by the software development field. “I still have so much more to learn, but I haven’t been this excited about the future of my career in a long time,” Tommy said. 

Jerel served in the Air Force as a cryptologic linguist. From a young age, Jerel enjoyed solving puzzles and learning other languages, and with Code Platoon, he is learning how to do both through coding. “Coming from a linguistics background, I feel like I’m adding new languages to my portfolio. Currently, we’re at the halfway mark, and already we’ve learned Python, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, and Django, to name a few,” Jerel said. By the end of the Bootcamp, he hopes he will gain enough knowledge to start his journey in the professional field confidently. 

Our U.S. Army Veteran, Emma, was also a cryptologic linguist. “Between TAs, instructors, and my classmates, there’s always someone to help when I get stuck on something,” Emma said, sharing how she is learning new skills in a short amount of time.  A new coding skill she recently enjoyed acquiring is Django. She was able to understand how Django worked because of all her HTTP server assignments. By the end of the Bootcamp, Emma hopes to have the skills to create future applications helping people find a little more happiness and feel more connected to others. 

As a US Navy Veteran, Augie served as a division officer on two ships. During these challenging times, Augie is finding the bright side of learning code in a remote setting. “I’ve come to appreciate the opportunity to learn in my own home, with a short commute (just downstairs!) and the ability to eat meals with my spouse, walk my dog, etc.,” Augie said. “I’ve especially been impressed by the support provided by instructors, teaching assistants, and my fellow students outside of class hours; when I have questions on the weekend or late at night, there’s usually someone around who can help me get unstuck.”. In the second half of the course, he is looking forward to working on the final and individual projects. “I have several ideas in mind for potential projects, for Bootcamp and beyond, and I can’t wait to have the skills and knowledge to bring them to life,” Augie said. 

Code Platoon is proud of Mike students’ immense progress so far and is eager to see all that they will accomplish in the future. 

Brenna Koss is Code Platoon’s Development and Operations Coordinator. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina Greensboro in Political Science and French. In her free time, Brenna loves to travel and spend time with friends and family. Follow Brenna on LinkedIn.

We usually think of poets and engineers as mutually exclusive types casting suspicious glances at one another across the academic canyon that separates the Humanities and Sciences.  There are some excellent reasons for that. Lewis Carroll can write:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

And we get it, even though we don’t get it. Carroll has created an image of some vague things moving around in an environment.  He has created something with words; but if it were a bridge, you wouldn’t walk across it without a life-vest.  In the same way, you might not invite the kid who was taking apart the toaster at five years old to write a poem for your wedding.

But this dichotomy between the freewheeling poet and the disciplined engineer is mainly illusory.  We all get to be good at language for free, at least one language anyway.  We know the rules so well, and so implicitly that we can play around in what feels like complete freedom.  But if you’ve ever had the experience of learning another language as an adult, you know that languages are chock-full of rules, restrictions, and we-just-don’t-say-it-like-that’s.

If you’ve taken the time to learn another language’s funny shapes and pesky rules, you have already extended your hand over that tremendous intellectual divide. And, believe it or not, there are a few “sciency” types out there on the other side reaching out towards you too.

At the beginning of their book Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, the authors, who were all undoubtedly taking apart toasters in kindergarten, describe programing as sorcery:

“The programs we use to conjure processes are like a sorcerer’s spells. They are carefully composed from symbolic expressions in arcane and esoteric programming languages that prescribe the tasks we want our processes to perform.”

To put it another way, programming allows you to create things with words, even silly and pointless things. 

To oversimplify a bit, these “spells” are composed of two essential elements: nouns and verbs.  I’m sorry, I meant to say: data and procedures. Let’s flesh that out.

In the beginning (or a few days later), there was Man. The first instance of the kind “Man,” or Mankind for short, was Adam. If that part of Genesis were written in Python instead of Hebrew, it might look like this:

class Man:

def __init__(self, name):

    self.name = name

    self.hasEatenTheApple = False

adam = Man(“Adam”)

Don’t worry about the syntax right now. New languages often look and sound very strange at first. The important point is that our “adam” is now the first of his kind, but he’s just a lump of clay with a couple of attributes (name and hasEatenTheApple–mercifully false at the moment).  As you might have heard, Adam did more than just sit there; he also ate an apple. Let’s go ahead and add a verb to our little conjuration:

class Man:

 def __init__(self, name):

  self.name = name

   self.hasEatenTheApple = False

def eatsTheApple(self):

   self.hasEatenTheApple = True

adam = Man(“Adam”)

Now our “adam” has a verb (eatsTheApple). Or maybe it’s better to say that he has the potential to perform the action eatsTheApple. Let’s not get into free will.  

As is often the case with natural languages, verbs act on other nouns, which then become “objects.” In this case, our verb (eatsTheApple), when performed, acts on the noun hasEatenTheApple and changes it–for the worse.

We can then freely render this sentence.

English:  Adam eats the apple.

Pythonish: adam.eatsTheApple()

And it’s all downhill from there.

Of course, knowing what a noun is doesn’t make you an expert in Chinese any more than knowing what a piece of data is makes you a Pythonista. But knowing what nouns and verbs are, and being able to adapt to a strange system of signs and rules will give you a leg up as you climb the walls of Doune Castle (that’s a Monty Python reference–you’ll get tired of those).

But don’t go getting a big head about it just yet; even with previous experience learning another language, there is still much work to be done. You can’t just stick your hand out; you have to get your ass over the wall too.

Chad Mowbray is an instructor for Code Platoon’s Evening and Weekend Program. He was a paratrooper and Arabic translator in the 82nd Airborne Division. He eventually found his way into a Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago studying classical Arabic poetry. But after starting a family, Chad inexplicably developed an appreciation for suburbs and retirement accounts. After graduating from Code Platoon, he worked as a DevOps engineer at Motorola Solutions and is currently a data analyst and digital pedagogy fellow with Academic Technology Solutions at the University of Chicago.

When most people think of a linguist, a few careers may pop up. Translators are an obvious connection, and being an educator in a foreign country may also be a viable option, but what about programming? When it comes to Code Platoon’s alumni, some of the most successful Coding Bootcamp graduates served as linguists within the military.

From the outside, it might not seem like the social science major would fit into a software engineering career, but in many ways, linguists can adapt their skills into the field of computer science. One of the best examples of this may be the American linguist Noam Chomsky. Primarily known to the masses for his political activism and work in the field of language interpretation, Chomsky also left a significant impression upon the field of programming with his contribution of the hierarchy of grammars (also known as the Chomsky hierarchy) which gave something short of a mathematical blueprint for grammar, a useful model for programming languages. Linguists may speak multiple languages but one of the critical areas of study for these wordsmiths is understanding languages’ structure. 

“Programming languages are just that – languages. You are learning syntax, you are learning the vocabulary so you can give the computer program instructions,” says Marcos Castillio, a Code Platoon graduate from Julia Platoon. “However, programming isn’t just learning the language, programming is problem-solving, and I think that’s where the similarity between language learning programming starts to branch off.”

Before participating in the Code Platoon, Marcos served with the U.S. Army as an Indonesian linguist. He also taught himself Japanese.  Following his separation from service, he became an English Teacher in Japan. After teaching for four years, Marcos knew he wanted a change in both scenery and career. A conversation with a software engineering friend made programming sound like a potential outlet. Marcos researched how to break into the field and found a few Coding Bootcamps that fit what he was looking for, but only a few programs would accept VET TEC as a financial option.  

“I used the GI Bill to go to the University of Texas and get a degree in economics. I still had some time leftover (on his GI Bill), and with VET TEC, if you have one day of GI Bill leftover, at least you are eligible for it,” says Marcos. In January of 2019 Marcos applied for Code Platoon’s program and eight months later he was in the classroom beginning his next career. But what is it about Code Platoon, or Coding Bootcamps in general, that works so well with our Linguist Veterans?

“I think one of the biggest things for someone who has successfully gone through a DLI program is that they already understand the extended Bootcamp learning environment,” says Marcos, recalling the intense schedule at the Defense Language Institute. The days start early, and each hour spent in the classroom is vital, where most can’t afford to miss a single day of training. “I feel like going through Code Platoon was less intensive actually. I think anybody who thought about coding, a potential advantage for someone who has successfully gone through DLI would have is that you have already experienced the classroom in terms of style, and you’ve done it for longer.”

One of the big misconceptions of becoming a programmer is that you have to be an expert in math and science, and while having a background in those fields may be helpful, it isn’t completely necessary. 

“I was that person for the longest time. I’m not a math person,” Marcos says, hoping to dissuade potential applicants from walking away from their next possible career because of any doubt. “It is a different way of thinking that can be trained and something that you would have to get used to. But just because you haven’t done it before doesn’t mean you can’t be successful.”

If you are considering making a career change but have some doubts, we encourage you to prove yourself wrong. Check out what Code Platoon has to offer and apply today. 

Amanda Michelle Gordon is one of Code Platoon’s summer interns, serving in the Content and Marketing department. She is a U.S. Air Force Veteran and a student of SUNY New Paltz for Journalism and Sociology. In her free time, Amanda enjoys reading, the outdoors, and turning coffee into copy. You can find Amanda on LinkedIn and Twitter.