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Clouding.io, sponsor of the Barcelona Code School

Clouding.io is a sponsor of Barcelona Code School. We support projects that fit our “Do It Yourself” philosophy (DoItYourSelf) and with a constant update to achieve excellence. In this article we interview Paulina Pajarskaite, its manager, to tell us a little about the School, its students and how they work. Students who sign up for the JavaScript Full-Stack Bootcamp have free credit to test our cloud servers. More info here.

Who founded the Barcelona Code School and why?

Barcelona Code School was founded by George Kovalev. As continuously a bigger part of our lives are being moved to the digital world it turns out that a lot of people are not quite prepared for this and are missing the skills to make the transition. George believes in DIY applied to every aspect of our daily activities which means that if you have an idea to be implemented online the first thing you should do is go and build it.

It gives you the satisfaction of creating new stuff and learning new skills is the best part of it. Not only do you evolve as a person but also these skills stay with you forever. A willingness to share this approach and belief that coding is a new literacy of 21st century were the main two main reasons to start Barcelona Code School.

When was the Code School founded and what is its philosophy?

The school was founded back in 2015, it started from the single day workshops on basic web development tailored for the complete beginners and since then this approach remains the same. We’ve done a lot of work to make sure that all of our courses and workshops are designed to bring a beginner to a certain level of expertise. It is not easy, but we think we developed a unique approach to make it happen.

The core philosophy is distilled in the school’s motto which says ‘Upgrade yourself!’ backed by our firm belief that there is nothing better than investing in yourself and constantly evolving to meet the new challenges the world gives us.

How do you work on a daily basis as a team and what are your goals?

Our main goal is to help students to achieve their dreams and reach their goals through mastering new skills and applying them in the real-life projects, whether it be building their product or changing a career and landing a job in tech industry. Our entire team works towards these goals and we provide an all-round support for each student starting from the preparation for the course and finishing long after it with, for example, signing a work contract with their new employers or making the first steps on the freelancer path.

Where is the school physically located?

Barcelona Code School is located in Sant Gervasi-Galvany district in Barcelona (hence the name). Thanks to the school’s premium location we are away from the touristic crowds and enjoying our cozy office with a quiet terrace which lets students focus on their studies 100%.

What is the profile of the students that attend your courses? Are there companies too?

We are happy to have students coming from all kind of backgrounds, we have a 100% admission rate because we believe that with enough effort on their part we can provide a high quality training to everybody without having the entry tests to select only students with some relevant experience in programming. For sure it would be easier to teach them, but it will contradict our vision of being capable to teach coding to everybody.

Because of that we enjoy groups with people being experts in many different areas and the combination of that lets them bring some unexpected insights into the learning process and create a diverse and mutually beneficial atmosphere in the classroom with students coming from marketing, engineering, business, arts, retail, services got all mixed up there is always something to talk about.

For companies the bootcamp is a great way to have their team members ‘upgraded’ with lots of practical skills in such a short period of time and have them back ready to take new challenges. It’s a win-win situation for everybody!

How many active students do you have at the moment?

It’s hard to give a specific number since we have several courses running at the same time. There is an in-person JavaScript Full-Stack Bootcamp which is a super intensive full-time program, on top of that we are running online version of the same course with starting dates every two weeks, plus shorter courses and workshops. Every group is on its own stage and we also working in job support for recent graduates, so we also consider them being students, even though they have graduated already, until we will find them a job they are looking for.

What do your courses, Bootcamps and workshops offer that make them different from other schools?

The main difference is the approach which makes sure that the complex concepts of programming (which is not the easiest subject by all means) are being taught and perceived successfully by the students coming with zero or very little knowledge. A lot of bootcamps are sink or swim experiences which could be extremely overwhelming for the beginners. We make sure that we avoid that and never leave students who are moving a bit slower behind. This is made possible partly due to the small groups with one of the best students/instructors ratio and also heavily due to the way we teach and structure our curriculum, which starts with a basic level and then progresses rapidly to advanced subjects like React Native. It’s not easy to fit everything into 9 weeks but we’ve found a way to make it possible.

It’s an incredible feeling to see the fantastic progress the students make during the bootcamp with building fully functioning production level apps. This is taking into account that before coming to BCS they had never written a single line of code!

Why did you decide to create a Meetup about the school? Does it work as a way of promotion?

We use Meetup to let more people know about our activity and also as a way to organize tech-related events where we can talk about topics like UX or blockchains. We want to make an input into local tech community not only by organizing our own meetups but also by supporting other groups by giving them a space to hold the talks and contribute in any other way possible. For example, in this manner we support a UX Book Club and Codebar events to name some.