For eight years now, Lighthouse Labs has been connecting people to a tech career by accelerating their education. The Canada-based tech bootcamp offers full-time 12-week programs in web development and data science as well as upskilling courses that can be taken part-time.
With over 5,000 students to date, Lighthouse Labs has produced thousands of graduates with core skill sets in today’s most in-demand tech fields. This is evident in its 2020 Outcomes Report, which revealed an 85 percent employment rate among graduates in tech jobs that pay an average of $52,000 per year.
Besides Lighthouse Labs’ impressive results, what attracts potential students to enroll is how it welcomes a variety of students with cognitive ability and interest to get into tech and its mentorship approach to teaching.
Lighthouse Labs students are a mixed crowd of people from all walks of life, including those with zero experience in coding. The mentorship model also effectively conditions the students throughout the rigorous program, so they come out of the program industry-ready.
If people with non-tech backgrounds could launch a career in tech via Lighthouse Labs, so can you. But, how do you know if you have what it takes to be a Lighthouse Labs student?
You can test the waters and find out through the Lighthouse Labs 21-Day Coding Challenge.
Flex your programming muscles and get a chance to win many prizes by taking part in Lighthouse Labs’ 21-Day Coding Challenge.
Take on Lighthouse Labs’ challenge here.What Is the Lighthouse Labs 21-Day Coding Challenge?
There’s a popular school of thought about habits that you might have encountered. It says that it takes 21 days to form a new habit and 90 days to make a permanent lifestyle change. In fact, many health advocates apply the same rule to encourage others to create healthy habits, like exercising daily.
Taking a cue from the experts, Lighthouse Labs launched its very own challenge: the 21-Day Coding Challenge.
The challenge has three main goals. First, it aims to reinforce the habit of coding among beginners. Second, it wants to prove that, contrary to popular belief, coding really can be for everyone. Third, the challenge seeks to nudge learners to commit and complete such a training opportunity.
Retaining interested learners in free courses is challenging. Forbes reports that while Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have successfully attracted thousands of students to attend free online courses, only 20 percent of students completed them.
CEO and Co-Founder of Lighthouse Labs Jeremy Shaki shares the sentiment: “What we noticed is that most people would learn something online for free but then stop for a while, and it was really hard to build any retention of the subject.”
While forming habits may vary from one person to another, one thing is for sure. It is not the mindless repetition of tasks over a 21-day period that forms a habit but instilling consistency and willpower to complete them. And Lighthouse Labs provides a platform for beginners to explore code to see where it can take them.
Lighthouse Labs Web Development instructor and head developer of the challenge, Francis Bourgouin, explains: “The goal is not to create veteran programmers in 21 days, but to spark curiosity and show that coding is more of a problem-solving job than typing secret commands in sequence. In that aspect, completing a task every day is more about practicing problem-solving and finding out if you like it or not.”
What to Expect From the Lighthouse Labs 21-Day Coding Challenge
The Lighthouse Labs challenge revolves around JavaScript, a popular programming language tool that is used to create over 97 percent of the websites you see today. During the challenge, participants will complete daily tasks for 21 days.
“The challenges are made for newcomers that have little to no knowledge of JavaScript or programming,” says Francis. “It is made to show participants and allow them to practice the fundamentals of programming languages, including types, operations, conditions, and loops.”
The difficulty level of the challenge progresses each week, with the first two weeks tackling the basics of JavaScript, iterations, and conditions. For the last week, participants will face challenges culminating in everything they’ve learned since Day 1.
The design of the weekly challenges follows the natural progression of problem-solving. Francis shares, “The first challenges [will be] focusing on small tasks, the latter tasks reuse and push the logic [of coding that they learned] a little further.”
Incentives are in place to further drive the participants’ motivation to learn how to code. Lighthouse Labs will give away daily prizes, team prizes, and finalist prizes. Upon registration, participants will be automatically entered into the Grand Prize draw which will be done by the end of the 21-day challenge.
Participants can complete multiple challenges in a day if they fall behind. But ideally, it is best to finish one daily to get a chance at the loot bag and to avoid feeling overwhelmed with catching up all at once.
Lighthouse Labs Coding Challenge Prizes
Aside from building a strong basic foundation in coding, participants may win stellar prizes from Lighthouse Labs through draws. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.
Daily prizes include gift cards and a couple of AirPods or Apple Watches. Lighthouse Labs will also give away a $500 Costco gift card for each member of the team with the highest completion stats. To sweeten the pot, finalists who complete the 21-Day Coding Challenge will win an Xbox Series X (1TB), an iPad (10.2in), an Oculus headset, or a Sonos I.
As for the grand prize, the lucky winner gets a premium entertainment system including an LG 65” 4K Smart TV and a Pioneer 5.1 Channel Dolby Home Theatre System.
To boost your chances of winning the 21-Day Coding Challenge, it is best to come prepared.
How to Prepare for the Lighthouse Labs Coding Challenge
Lighthouse Labs provides everything you may need to help you before the coding challenge even begins. It has curated a prep series that covers the basic concepts of coding. The bootcamp also provides free resources and tips to build your knowledge as you prepare for your game plan.
The last—and probably the best—way to gain an advantage before the challenge is to take Lighthouse Labs’ free crash courses. The free courses cover a wide range of programming languages and tools, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and iOS.
If you think you have what it takes to be the next coding champion, all you have to do is take the first step and register.
Who Can Join the Lighthouse Labs 21-Day Coding Challenge?
Lighthouse Labs invites everyone who lives in Canada and is interested in learning about coding to register. There are no further qualifications needed other than your commitment, time, and your game plan to succeed. And yes, it’s free to join.
Francis reiterates: “The challenge could be for people who have always been curious about a career in tech but have been perhaps intimidated by the field. Or even for those who are mulling a career shift and want to expand their professional toolkit to allow them that flexibility. Or just for the enjoyment of learning something new!”
When asked for a piece of advice for those who are still on the fence, Francis says: “Do it!”
Given the design of the challenge, it is not a simple walk in the park, but it is not highly complex, either. The school encourages participants to work in teams and instill camaraderie, similar to the Lighthouse Labs bootcamp environment.
Register when you visit the Lighthouse Labs 21-Day Coding Challenge website and stand a chance to win great prizes.
Join Thousands of Participants and Start Coding
What began as an initiative to help beginners realize the fun side of coding through the challenge has surpassed the expectations of Lighthouse Labs.
CEO Jeremy shares: “[During] the last 21-Day Coding Challenge, we had over 10,000 participants and saw incredible engagement all the way through the challenge.” He adds that they were flooded with positive feedback from people who were encouraged by their experience to push through and enroll with Lighthouse Labs.
The 21-Day Coding Challenge helped people discover their potential in tech. “Participants have regularly messaged us about how doing the challenge inspired them to become developers,” Jeremy says, “It gave them the opportunity to use the basic coding skills they gained through the challenge in their work, which helped them change their career paths [into tech] and pushed them to keep learning and build some of their webpages.”
The challenge starts on November 22 and ends on December 12. So, what are you waiting for? Learn more about Lighthouse Labs’ 21-Day Coding Challenge and form your team to join and build today’s most relevant skills.
About us: Career Karma is a platform designed to help job seekers find, research, and connect with job training programs to advance their careers. Learn about the CK publication.
