| | Joh Meyers | Exactly one year ago today I was sitting at my desk at my sales job in one of Chicago's northern neighborhoods. The company I was working for had recently been named 'The Best Place to Work In Chicago' for the second straight year. I did not especially like my job. I felt unfulfilled. What kept me doing was this little hobby I was working on outside of work. That hobby was HTML and CSS.
A friend of mine down in North Carolina, Chance, was also teaching himself how to code and he suggested I apply to this new code school in Chicago called The Starter School. He had already done so. I applied. We both got in. The two of us quit our jobs and Chance drove almost 1,000 miles to move to Chicago.
To recap:
1) I quit my good, steady job
2) I paid $36K
3) ...to attend a brand new program that had yet to be proven.
What the hell was I thinking? A lot of the confidence I had about The Starter School came from my first encounter with Neal, CEO of The Starter League. We met for coffee at the Intelligentsia in 1871. He spoke with such conviction and determination that he could build a 9 month, all-encompassing program that I knew I had to be apart of it.
The nine months of Starter School were some of the most enlightening, crazy, humbling, and satisfying times of my life. I became great friends with my classmates (the most eclectic group of personalities that have ever sat in the same room together). I learned how to program in Ruby on Rails. I learned front-end design techniques and technologies like Sass and javascript. I got to meet and learn from the guys who ran the technology side of Obama for America. I learned about entrepreneurship from billionaire serial entrepreneurs. I met some of the biggest names in venture capital in Chicago to learn about investing in early-stage startups. I built an unbelievable network. I built a product I care about with Chance (familyroomapp.com). I launched that product to Chicago's tech community at our demo day. I grew. A lot.
Tomorrow (August 20th) marks two months since Starter School ended. Since June I have built a website for a startup with Chance, I have helped redesign a site for another startup, and as of next week I will be going to work as a product designer at a software firm to completely redesign their app's interface. Starter School propelled me into an exciting and meaningful career and I could not be more thrilled with my decision. If you have a passion for technology and want to take control of your career, Starter School is the place for you.
If you are already signed up for Starter School here is some advice! http://bit.ly/1oOYMpR |
