Q&A with Cole Dixon, Dean of The Tech Academy, Denver
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Just one month ago, The Tech Academy opened a third campus in the Denver, Colorado area. As mentioned in a previous post, deciding to make the move to Denver was a no-brainer. Denver boasts a booming tech industry and one of the country's lowest unemployment rates. Also, employment for tech professionals has grown more than 30% since 2013.
Running the day-to-day operations of The Tech Academy, Denver is Cole Dixon. Cole worked as an Instructor at the Portland campus before relocating to Boulder to work at a startup. With more real-world coding experience under his belt, Cole is back at his alma mater to help train the next generation of developers as Dean of The Tech Academy Denver.
Cole Dixon answered some questions about returning to The Tech Academy, and the school's new campus.
Tell us about the newest campus. What can students expect?
The Denver campus is located in Wheat Ridge, a suburb of the city. It's in a modern office building, with an open layout and whiteboard walls that are perfect for students to debug and collaborate. The space can accommodate 20 students at any given time, facilitating a great student to instructor ratio.
All of our locations use the same curriculum and student portal. Because the Tech Academy's program is accessed completely online, students can also expect to work remotely with instructors and students at the Portland and Seattle campuses as well.
What was your professional experience prior to taking on the role of Dean and what inspired you to return to The Tech Academy?
Once I completed my education, The Tech Academy hired me on as an instructor. This was an excellent opportunity for me to reinforce the lessons I had learned myself. Soon after, I was appointed the Academy Director, where I oversaw the other instructors and handled advanced coding projects. After some time, I decided it was important for my progression as a developer to seek out some diverse real-world coding experience.
I was hired by a startup in Boulder, Colorado working on databases and data integration systems. This small startup was an excellent incubator for me to apply and refine my working knowledge of C#, SQL, JavaScript, JSON and XML for an iOS app. Within three years I worked my way up from a Junior Developer to an Implementation Engineer.
After several years out on my own, Jack informed me of their intention to open a new campus in Denver and were curious if I had any interest in being a part of their growth. I was very much enjoying my current job but the decision to return was a very easy one to make.
What can you tell us about the Denver tech scene?
Denver has become a big tech hub and is continuing to grow. Companies like Oracle, Slack, and Google have offices in the area, along with countless startups.
Through my experience, I've found that developers typically find one language or aspect of software development that they love and pursue a career around that. My advice to students who are looking to start their career in Denver is to find a meetup relating to the language they want to focus on, or aspect of the industry you'd like to work in. The developer community in Denver is made up of some of the nicest people I've met, who are always willing to answer questions and share their knowledge.
What would you say to someone who's considering attending The Tech Academy or any other coding bootcamp?
There are many boot camps to choose from, especially in Denver. Find out what area of software development you're interested in studying and what type of program suits you best, then do your due diligence to find a boot camp that aligns with those interests. For me, I liked how immersive The Tech Academy's bottom up approach to teaching is. It allows you to build your skills from the bottom up. Once you've enrolled, be sure to make a full commitment to your education and put as much time into learning as you can.
Anyone in the Denver area is welcome to stop by and tour our campus. I'm happy to answer any questions, and talk about how I built a career I love!
This post was sponsored by The Tech Academy.
The Tech Academy is now enrolling students at its Denver campus, as well as Portland, Seattle, and Online! Check out their reviews on SwitchUp to learn more, or visit learncodinganywhere.com!
This is a sponsored post by The Tech Academy
