Tech Talent & Strategy

I initially signed up for the IOS Dev bootcamp, but when I told them that I was building a start up, they encouraged me to sign up for the start up primer (and helped me find a way to make it happen financially!). Overall, I think it was a great decision!... Read More The class gave me some clarity on my company and helped me refine our message, and has given me plenty of opportunities to establish great connections with other entrepreneurs and professionals who can help us grow.

I took the full-time code immersion course with Tech Talent South to get some basic programming knowledge and came out of the class with a thorough understanding of how front-end and back-end languages work, a new career and a personal cheerleading team... Read More that has strongly contributed to my overall success in the course. Throughout the class, TTS staffed worked diligently to get me in touch with the right people, provided several networking opportunities and offered assistance on nailing my resume and LinkedIn profile. Since the class, TTS staff has reached out to me several times to check-up on my career and continues to offer their support.

I completed the iOS Development course in Charlotte, NC. Overall as a student, I was relatively new to programming and developing, and had only started learning HTML/CSS and JavaScript for front-end web development within that year. So, I was curious... Read More about the level of challenge I would face transitioning to coding in Swift and working with XCode. At the time, I was also working full-time during the day as a healthcare professional, so I needed to find something that would have the flexibility to fit into this schedule. I had heard great things about Tech Talent South, and at the time, in my local area (close to 100 miles away in Columbia, SC), there were not yet any established coding schools offering comparable courses. Choosing Tech Talent South was a great decision!

The TTS organization is extremely engaged in the IT community as well as the community of students, and it shows in the instructors’ dedication to ensuring students have everything they need to succeed. My instructor for this course was Zack and he was great all the way around! He and the TTS team clearly put time into developing a thorough and solid curriculum. Throughout the journey of the course, they were focused on supporting my learning, and ensuring that all the concepts were grasped completely. The coursework still remained challenging enough to know that my skills were growing and that I would ultimately be prepared for entry into the professional arena as part of a team of developers.

Additionally, the support in and out of the classroom was and has been excellent. They have offered various events and extended multiple opportunities to network and connect within the community, both professionally and socially. I would definitely recommend Tech Talent South to those in search of the right path to furthering their programming and IT skills and diving into this great community of technology lovers! They have the resources to help you in your journey to the next level!

This full-time immersion course has had a great impact on my life. Not only has it instilled the fundamentals for creating production ready apps, but it solidified my confidence that "I can do it." I previously had an engineering background, but was more... Read More focused on hardware. So software seemed somewhat daunting to learn. But after going through this course, I know how to build web apps (fullstack!). I also learned that I have a good eye for frontend, but also understand the main components of backend. My peers were awesome and inspiring as well. The teacher was great and always made sure everyone stayed in sync and followed along.

I would highly recommend this course. Be prepared to learn hands-on and get the tools to continue learning even after the program. This course is an critical step towards bright future in software development.

I started the full time code immersion course at Tech Talent South in September. I am also working 40+ hours a week. Coding is completely new to me and It was been overwhelming at times, however I am very thankful for Leslie who has helped me throughout... Read More this process. She sits next to me in class and is always available when i have questions about the class assignments.

Some pros -
-learning about current web design trends and different coding languages
-small classroom size
-knowledgeable professor
-nice location

Some cons-
-not a lot of support post-class
-could have had more speakers and people that work in industry
-some... Read More kind of career service would be helpful, like preparing each student separately with portfolio and resume
-too expensive

I found it very simple and easy to sign up for courses here at Tech Talent South. Everyone was very helpful from the recruiter to the class instructor.

While attending the course I found office hours to be very helpful. It felt good knowing there was... Read More time set aside daily for me to ask questions and further my learning. For the most part my peers were just as engaged as me and we'd get together during office hours to discuss homework and that day's lesson. Having the slides presented to us during class as we're learning was helpful and if questions were to arise Heather the instructor would be sure to answer them and make sure things were clear.

I wish that during my time here in the class that we were able to visit some developers on the job just to get an idea of the day to day for developers in this field. However there were some guest speakers that I appreciated. Additionally we were advised of meetups in the area through the Slack channel.

Overall, everyone was very helpful here and I'm proud of my decision to attend courses here.

Tech Talent South (TTS) provides so much more than just,"Here's what code is, here's how to write it." The efforts that go into student acceptance selection and course delivery ensure you're sitting beside individuals that are just as excited about learning... Read More the content as you are. That thing you get really excited when talking about... ya, your fellow student probably does too and also found this new way you weren't aware of that opens up a completely new approach; and yes, they'd love to hang out after class on the couch or meet for coffee on a Saturday and "geek-out" about it with you. Once you factor in the community factors of TTS (Local Start-Up Tours, Networking Events, and TTS Community Team that want's to here and help you on your journey to success, however you define it); it's really a no-brainer that the lasting benefits and resources you'll get will be worth far beyond what you pay for a course.

Disclosure: I took the TTS Part-Time Code Immersion Course in order to familiarize myself with terminology, concepts, practices, and general knowledge to enable myself to better communicate with our technical team and better support their efforts, not to directly acquire a technical role, though many of my peers in the course were there directly for that purpose. I definitely got out of the course far more than I expected, I had no clue about all of the value I'd find in the community and peer networks. I would personally recommend Tech Talent South to anyone; not sure if a full course load is right for you? (I was concerned about my time commitments) Go for part-time or get your feet-wet with a weekend course! Once you get a hint of what the TTS course offerings are all about, you'll be signing up for your second or third course in no time.

I am a PhD candidate at Emory University where my focus of study centers around topics including accessibility, usability, and research design and methods. I've always been interested in making services as "easy" and accessible as possible, but also reliable... Read More and valid. Is a product or service actually doing what it sets out to do? I became interested in these sorts of topics as a teenager when I was first learning about standardized assessment, survey design, and statistics. I realized that even on the most highly regarded standardized assessments, much of the content seemed "inaccessible," or inapplicable, to large segments of the population. For example, sometimes the language used would be so theoretical or heady that it was difficult to understand a question or a concept. Other times, questions on assessments, which were theoretically "standardized" and designed to be of use by "all" people, seemed to be missing the mark. For example, a standardized body image assessment might ask about a person's experience with exercise or a healthy lifestyle--the assumption could be that someone who exercises a lot may be labeled as having a negative body image because they're "obsessive"; at the same time, someone who doesn't exercise at all may be labeled as having a negative body image with the implication that they "don't care" and are negligent of their health. These sort of discrepancies bothered me! I started noticing these things everywhere in all forms. For example, have you ever used a "handicap" bathroom? Take a look around next time! Usually, the stalls are large enough for a wheelchair to comfortably navigate the space, and oftentimes the toilet seat and countertop are lower; but so often, the paper towel dispenser is too high to reach from a seated position, or there is a step-can trashcan for waste disposal, which could be completely inaccessible for someone who uses a wheelchair.

It took me years to realize that these organic passions of mine were related to fields like human factors engineering and user experience research and design. While teaching myself some UX "basics," I realized how perfect of a fit this field was for me! I also realized that I needed (and wanted) a lot more knowledge and training! I first approached TTS because I was interested in their "UX Design for Beginners" course (which was a total blast.) On top of that, I'd always been interested in coding. I had zero experience with coding--I dabbled in things when I was a teenager, like html and silly customization (I can't be the only teenager in the early 2000's who had a bunch of different Angelfire and GeoCities (RIP) websites, am I right!?) but "coding" itself always seemed way too difficult. My friends who coded tended to be ridiculously good at math and they seemed adept at learning "foreign" concepts easily. I mean, I took Spanish for six years as a kid and can barely remember a thing--ergo, learning entire programming languages seemed impossible.

After filling out some info online, I had an initial phone interview with Meghan, which was really much more of a conversation about *me* and my goals. I really appreciated this call--initially, I thought I had to "sell myself," which made me a bit anxious since I had zero tech experience. Instead, Meghan seemed more interested in figuring out if TTS would be able to provide me with the necessary resources for me to get a step closer to *my* goals. Since I'm already a full-time doctoral student, I don't have much free time and I have basically no money, ha! Meghan assured me that even though I'd be even busier, my schedule would be doable. She also shared invaluable information with me about scholarship opportunities and discounts. When Meghan asked if I was interested in other courses that TTS offered, I think I laughed. Of course I was interested! But every coding "bootcamp" I came across was several thousand dollars, required a lot of time, and seemed to offer false promises like guaranteed job placement. I casually mentioned I might be interested in a part-time coding course but that she shouldn't go into too much detail because I knew I wouldn't have the time or the funds. She respected this, and simply mentioned that I seemed like a really good fit for TTS and so she would email me pricing information, the schedule, and information about scholarships and discounts.

Before approaching TTS, I looked into other UX and coding programs offered through competitive companies and attended some info sessions. While I'm sure that many competing programs are fantastic, they were simply too expensive for me to even consider. I found several courses that were $10,000+ for ~10 weeks and essentially required that people quit their job because of the class schedule. Many programs did offer scholarships, but they might only offer one single scholarship. One company in particular, a nationwide company, told me that they did indeed offer a scholarship but that I wouldn't be a good candidate (I appreciated their honesty!) because they only awarded ONE scholarship per cohort across the entire nation, and that these scholarships (understandably) went to people far more disadvantaged than myself. These companies also seem to prioritize job placement ratings and use that as leverage, using carefully-worded language to make it seem like a job was "guaranteed." Very few programs are in the position to guarantee anyone a job, especially in this economy, and that really concerned me. A company told me they had a 98% job placement rating within three months of graduation. When I asked probing questions, like "what percentage of these jobs are in the tech industry?" and "what percentage of graduates who became employed also had a traditional 4 year college degree?" I was met with silence. These are important questions for such an expensive investment!

TTS makes no promises or guarantees about job placement and that's honestly one of my favorite things. The people at TTS, the entire model of the school, the quality of teaching...it all speaks for itself. TTS doesn't need to offer any [false] promises--they've created an environment where 1) the employees have the best interest of the students in mind, so obviously they will assist with things like connections and networking, and 2) the students are offered such good instruction and resources that we want to do as much as possible to succeed...we don't need handholding!

To my delight, TTS helped make it possible for me to take both of the courses I wanted--UX and coding. They were incredibly responsive and I never felt any pressure. Everyone is also so accessible! For example, I kept running into a coding error while I was doing some independent pre-coursework coding exercises. We were given Zack's email and told to contact him with any questions, so I did. Little did I know that he's the CTO of the entire company! How cool is that!? I felt a little silly for asking such a basic question, but he never made me feel like I was wasting his time and he always responded with great detail, wanting to make sure I understood things.

Both of my instructors were always available for office hours, and were constantly on Slack. On days we didn't have class and I was having a hard time, I would message my instructor on Slack and know that he'd respond. I had to miss a couple of classes due to a pre-planned trip, and my instructor took it upon himself to with meet separately upon my return to ensure I wasn't too far behind. I've been in school for 23 years at this point and the attention and quality of teaching I've experienced through TTS has been among the best! Plus, all of my classmates are pretty awesome; with relatively small class sizes, we're pretty much all able to get some form of individualized instruction if we get stuck and ask for help.

The guest speakers that TTS brings in are among the best and also so accessible! None of them have a "cocky" attitude, and many of them are in high-level positions (CEOs, etc.) Atlanta has quite an impressive tech community and I was curious to see what sort of resources or connections TTS might have access to. When our first guest speaker was from MailChimp, that basically just solidified my confidence in them. Because of the guest speaker series through TTS, I've already had three separate one-on-one meetings with highly respected tech companies in the Atlanta area. I'm convinced that it's my own knowledge and drive, networking, and mentorship that will help me get a job in this industry, not a fancy "job placement rating" toted around my competitors.

I could go on and on but this is already too long. Every interaction I've had with a TTS employee (i.e. Admissions, Communications, Logistics, Community Organizing, instructors) has been enjoyable. Go to this school! It's small in a good way--you won't be overlooked; you'll have access to their resources and connections; and you'll learn a ton in a short period of time. You'll also probably keep a lot more money in your bank ;)