Fall 2018 Announcement from Momentum: Adding Python to our Code Immersive Program
At Momentum, we believe in continuous learning, not just for our students, but for ourselves and our business. As we approach our first anniversary as a company, we’re making an exciting change to our curriculum based off that core value: this fall we’ll be teaching Python in our immersive program.
When we started, we had many discussions about what to teach, and from those discussions, we chose to teach both front-end development with JavaScript and back-end development with Ruby for our first year. Python was another strong option, though, and as we’ve watched its growth in popularity and usage over the last year, we came to agree that it made sense to bring it into our program.
What does this mean for our program?
For the fall 2018 program, instead of teaching two specializations — front-end and back-end — we’re going to focus on one curriculum. That curriculum will be web development with Python and Django. Front-end web development will be part of the course, as we’ll learn how to make more dynamic interactions on the web with JavaScript. The course will be taught by our CTO (that’s me!). Python and Django are tools I’ve used throughout my career, and I’ve spoken about it at DjangoCon. I’ll be joined by Rebecca Conley as an associate instructor. Rebecca is a great Python and Django developer who serves on the board of the Django Software Foundation and who has spoken internationally about Python.
So why Python?
Python is widely recognized as one of the fastest-growing and most used programming languages in the world, as seen in this analysis from Stack Overflow and this recent article from The Economist.
We’ve seen this growth locally as well. Our employer advisory board has let us know they are looking for great Python developers. We’re in the business of helping people get jobs, so that need matters a lot to us.
One other reason besides growth is that Python is an extremely versatile language. It is used for web development, data science, games, automation, and more. With the core skill of Python under their belt, our students will be able to move throughout the world of development into many jobs.
How can you learn more?
We’re running a two-hour crash course on Python next Tuesday (October 23, 2018) that we’d love to have you at. If you can’t make it to that, reach out to us online and we can answer any questions that you have.
