From Omaha Code School

Blog posts about my time in Omaha Code School

Meeting Everyone

Last night Omaha Code School hosted a mixer at Bliss Bakery and Aromas Coffeehouse downtown. Many of the students, instructors, and mentors were in attendance. It was a good opportunity for us to get to know the people we will be spending so much time with over the next three months.

Rahul is helping Sumeet run OCS. He lives in San Francisco and works full-time at Big Wheel Brigade, the company that puts on Omaha Code School. He is constantly looking for new sponsors and mentors for us. I hope that he will be able to make come back to attend our demo night at the end of the course.

A few of our mentors were there. Michael is a recruiter. He works for Agape Red, a local company that is trying to change the way the industry recruits new employees. OCS has asked him to help us with practicing our interview skills. We were all excited to hear about what he does and the exciting ways they are changing the way things get done.

There were also some local entrepreneurs. Meg runs a retail fashion website called Hello Holiday. I have read about some of her contributions on Silicon Prairie News. It was awesome to get to hear about what is going on in our community and what they need to take their business to the next level. Hopefully one of the students in our class will help them in the future.

Then I met Autumn. She is the owner of Bliss Bakery and Aromas Coffeehouse, where we were meeting. She and her husband have a passion for supporting our community. They help with the 402 Arts Collective, a local non-profit trying to build a network of artists committed to making a difference in Omaha. Something tells me that we will be using their coffee shop to work throughout the class. Good thing they make excellent coffee and pastries.

I also got to meet some of the students that couldn’t make it to the SPN meetup last week. We are all scrambling to complete the prework before class starts on Monday. I have enjoyed meeting everyone, and I think we are going to make a good group.

Overall, I am still incredibly excited to start. Everyone that I have talked to has been friendly and supportive of what we are trying to accomplish. Now, I need to rest up and prepare for Monday. Once we start, there’s no looking back.

A Mutual Farewell

Today is my last day at Mutual of Omaha. It is a bittersweet moment for me.

Over the last week, I have made it a point to express my thanks to the people I have worked with over the past five years. I walked throughout the building tracking everyone down. I have worked with almost every team in our company, so I had a lot of ground to cover. I was incredibly humbled by the responses I received. My goal of expressing my thanks was met with kind words expressing how much people have enjoyed working with me. That is an awesome feeling.

I am thankful for all that I have learned and experienced during my time at Mutual. I would not be who I am without those who have taken the time to make me a better person. So if any of those people are reading this post, thank you.

As I move on to my next adventure, I will always look back and appreciate everything Mutual of Omaha gave me. I can only hope future opportunities work out as well as this one has.

SPN: Omaha Code School student starts blogging his experience for SPN

Omaha’s first code school launches next week and Silicon Prairie News would love to be at Omaha Code School every day from Day 1 on Feb. 24 to graduation May 16. But we can’t. Luckily, we’ve still got the inside story.

Andy von Dohren, one of the School’s 14 students, is blogging about his experience on his own site, Code School Adventures, and will be sharing some of his stories for SPN’s audience every other week. He isn’t a stranger to tech—he quit his job as an information security analyst for Mutual of Omaha to start Code School, but is new to coding. He won’t be going far, as Omaha Code School is down the block from Mutual of Omaha at Midtown Crossing. Here’s his first post.

Omaha Code School is the first course of its kind in Omaha.

There are lots of similar courses in larger cities across the nation, such as New York and San Francisco, where our instructor, Sumeet Jain, lived and taught a similar course.

After he moved to Omaha, he and his cousin saw an opportunity to do something similar here. They founded Omaha Code School last fall and began accepting applications. There were more than 70 applicants from the U.S. and across the world. Eventually the applicant pool was whittled down to 14—the inaugural class.

When I tell people I’m attending Omaha Code School, I get a lot of questions. So here’s an attempt to answer them. If you have others, let me know on Twitter @AndyvonDohren and I’ll try to answer them for you.

What is Omaha Code School?

Omaha Code School is an intensive 12-week program that intends to teach 14 willing students the technical skills needed to land a job in web development. Intensive is kind of an understatement in this case. The class is 7 days a week, for 8-10 hours a day. Boot camp style.

I haven’t actually started. It’s hard to answer what something is when you haven’t seen or experienced it for yourself.

What will you be learning?

We’ll learn plenty, but it all falls into two categories: soft skills and hard skills. Hard skills are the actual technologies—things like HTML5, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, JQuery and many more. More important are the soft skills like test-driven development, GIT, version control and pair programming, among others. To sum up, we are going to learn more in 12 weeks than any other period of time in our lives.

What did you do before you signed up?

I was an information security analyst at Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company. The work was good and I felt like I made a difference. I worked with identity management systems to make sure everyone had access to what they needed, but nothing more. I worked there for almost six years.

Why now?

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Before you say otherwise, it is for me. I’m 29, married and own a home. The next logical life event is to have children. Once that happens, quitting your job and going 12 weeks without pay won’t be an option.

Do you know who you will be working with?

No. I have never met anyone involved with this program before. That’s part of why it’s awesome—I will get to grow my network. They even have a group of people put together to help mentor the students as they progress through the course. We may occasionally go on a “field trip” to meet with people in the industry and learn from their experience.

My first blog post was just three weeks ago. In that time, I have 22 new followers on Twitter, 1,074 blog views, an interview request and numerous retweets and shares. Most of these numbers represent people I have never met before. I’m not too worried about not knowing anybody. The people I have interacted with so far are awesome and I know it’s just going to get better.

What happens after the class is over?

That is the question. There is no job at the end of the horizon waiting for us, no interviews lined up and no idea of what is waiting for us. This is seriously scary. I don’t do things without knowing what’s next. I have planned out to this point in my life and I don’t have any regrets. All I know is that I couldn’t stop thinking that this is what I am supposed to do. Hopefully there will be an opportunity waiting for me on the other side.

What has surprised you so far?

The amount of support my classmates and I have received so far is surprising. Friends and family are on board. Omaha Code School has helped make connections for those of us who need help paying the tuition cost. They’re even trying to get us cheap MacBooks for class.

What still needs to be done?

We have homework already. There are various web tutorials and readings we need to complete before class begins. This way we can gloss over some of the basics and concentrate on learning new skills. We have already been working for a couple weeks, but will have spent approximately 55 hours to complete everything. Not a small task.

I’m excited to see what comes next. I guarantee it’s going to be an adventure.

Want to get in contact with Andy? Tweet at him at @andyvondohren.

Check out Omaha Code School’s space on Facebook.

Meetup and Prework Update

Thursday was an amazing night. Silicon Prairie News hosted a meetup in Benson. Our class was invited to meet some members of the community and our fellow classmates. It was a lot of fun, even for an introvert like me. I made myself go up and introduce myself to Jeff Slobotski, co-founder of SPN. He was extremely nice and introduced me to a couple of Ruby developers. It was cool to meet some people working on what I want to do. Next week, we are going to have a smaller event just with Omaha Code School students. I am really looking forward to it.

Yesterday I woke up at 4:30 AM. I wasn’t happy about it, but it gave me an opportunity to wrap up my prework. I learned about a version control method called GIT. It allows several people to work on the same project, and merge their updates together. It seems to work pretty well. I also finally finished my Ruby homework. The whole lesson we did seemed to be one step ahead of where I was at. I managed to get through it, but I definitely need more practice to really understand what I was doing.

Wednesday is my last day of work at Mutual of Omaha. I’ve been walking around the building trying to say thank you to the people who have worked with me over the years. It is kind of a bittersweet feeling. A lot of the people I have talked to have had a lot of good things to say about working with me. I really cherish their comments. Mutual is not the easiest place to make a difference, and it seems like I have.

Now I have a week to relax and get everything put together before class begins. I’m on the last downhill slide, and can see a cliff jetting upward in my future. Hopefully I can make the climb and come out on top. Only time will tell. Until then, I’ll enjoy a little relaxation.

One Thousand and Counting

Wow! I’m blown away. Last night I passed 1,000 views on this blog. I am constantly surprised by the number of people who are reading my posts on a regular basis. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for the retweets, likes, shares, favorites, and pluses you have given my posts. It has really helped sustain my momentum. My goal going forward is to get the word out about what we are doing and learning in Omaha Code School. I hope that you get as much out of it as I do.

On another topic, tomorrow is the Silicon Prairie News meet-up. It’s an opportunity for me to meet some of the entrepreneurs that live in our community. I have admired this group of people from the outside for a long time, but now I get the opportunity to meet them and join their community. I might get to meet a few of my future classmates too.