What to do when your code school announces it’s closing
- Take your time to process. — The morning that our Campus Director, Toni, shared that The Iron Yard would be shutting their doors after our cohort ends, I cannot lie — it hit me like a ton of bricks. One giant brick for the loss of a wonderful tech-propelling school in our community, another giant one for the thought of our incredible staff being disbanded and their family’s livelihoods being rocked. Another for the sheer panic of ‘oh, crap! What if I come to school tomorrow and it’s closed?!’ These were all true, raw feelings that flooded into my brain and heart that day. There were a lot of tears from students and staff alike and my brain was turned off the rest of the day. And that was okay. We needed that day.
- Then get over it. — Now, before I get your bricks thrown at me, hear me out. In the midst of the tears and overall bleakness of what that day was and meant, one-by-one there were students beside me and instructors in front of me that (whether stated or not) had a realization. Maybe they came to it on their own, maybe they did some heavy-duty processing with a couple friends, who knows. But here’s where we wound up:
The Iron Yard didn’t make us. We made The Iron Yard.
There has been a new-found vigor and energy about us as a whole, and it’s because we know that this is it. This is us giving it all we’ve got and not holding onto what could have been should the institution have kept running long after we graduated.
3. Pay it forward. — In our Tampa/St. Pete community, The Iron Yard has been well-revered and vitally important for the training of Jr. Software Developers and has a near perfect job-placement rate. This means that our cohort (#TheOcho) is the last bit of the funnel that will help to employ the growing tech field. At this point, we’re choosing to glean every bit of information we can from our incredibly talented instructors. Once we set off into the industry, it is up to us to impart that knowledge and mentor those interested (especially those in minority groups).
The buck should not stop with us.
Whether it is volunteering to help children learn how to code, training a small business how to best use their already-deployed systems, or attending a hackathon to benefit local non-profits — there will always be ways to make sure the knowledge we’ve gained from The Iron Yard spreads far beyond areas we could never reach by ourselves.
Much love ❤
Crystal