The ability to write lines of code can help you build apps, software, websites, digital solutions, or even a generative art piece. Because of its versatility, many have found that coding can amplify their affinities and lead them to a tech career that they’ll love.
But before you can benefit from the endless potential that coding skills may bring, having a solid foundation is necessary. App Academy is among the leading bootcamps you may want to earmark, even if you’re a coding beginner.
App Academy—a software engineering bootcamp with a growing presence in San Francisco, New York City, and online—is everything you need and more with its immersive courses in full-stack software engineering.
App Academy’s teaching approach and curriculum democratize the world of coding, no longer limiting it to mathematicians or people with high cognitive skills. It also lets you tap into a tight-knit community of seasoned tech experts and App Academy graduates—a vital resource that can immensely benefit your tech career.
App Academy provides beginner-friendly yet immersive training in software engineering. Depending on your availability, you can choose to learn to code online or on campus and part-time or full-time.
Join an App Academy info session to learn more.What Can You Do with Your Coding Skills?
More people realize that their interests meld well with coding with its many use cases. Below, we give you examples of areas you can explore with your coding skills.
Design and Develop Games
Contrary to your parents’ beliefs, playing video games does more than waste precious hours. Plenty of games push their players to be strategic, find patterns, memorize critical information, and be attentive to detail. Fortunately, these skills are instrumental in coding, where you must constantly think logically and come up with innovative and creative solutions.
Additionally, as an avid gamer, you might have already pinned down what makes a game great. If only you could create one that will tick all the boxes and share it with everyone. Learning how to code makes this wish a reality.
With a huge demand for games—averaging 25 game releases daily—leaping to game design and development presents vast benefits. You can get a slice of the global gaming industry that is estimated to be worth over $138 billion and earn an average annual salary of $67,000 as an entry-level game developer. On top of that, a career in game development is where work meets fun.
Having a solid competency in several programming languages is needed in game development. Among widely used game development coding languages is JavaScript, a popular and powerful language used to make interactive web and mobile games. Moreover, this coding language is behind some of the most addictive games played by millions of people worldwide, like Mortal Kombat, HexGL, Angry Birds, and 2048.
At App Academy, you will gain all the fundamental knowledge you’ll need, covering topics like JavaScript Syntax, Callbacks, and asynchronous programming on JavaScript. You will learn how you can optimize your JavaScript experience and build websites and apps from scratch. Once you master JavaScript, you’ll be able to integrate other tools, like CSS and HTML5, to breathe life into your game design concepts.
Code Your Own NFT Smart Contracts
Non-fungible tokens, popularly known as NFTs, are game-changers, especially for artists. They allow them to change the narrative of starving creatives by acquiring and selling digital assets for millions of dollars.
NFTs have been around since 2014, but the boom in cryptocurrency catapulted NFTs into the popular tokens they are today. Within a few years, everyone is tokenizing everything in exchange for profit. This includes digital arts, memes, videos, music, virtual tissue rolls, and even tweets.
News about the tokenized first-ever tweet of Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey valued at a staggering amount of $2.9 million broke the Internet, showing the massive potential of NFTs to make you rich. It’s even led people to rethink their careers. Gaining coding skills can help you grasp what is happening behind the scenes.
Take an NFT’s smart contract, for example, a fundamental program in every NFT that is submitted to a blockchain. It contains vital information and serves as a fingerprint, revealing who created the NFT and currently owns it. Smart contracts ensure that the NFT you have is original and unique.
Smart contracts also contain the requirements and terms for processing NFT transactions and are automatically executed without the aid of a middleman. Traditionally, these would be auction houses, galleries, showrooms, etc.
The importance of having a secure smart contract led to the growing demand for smart contract developers and engineers, both of which are viable career paths when you build a strong competence in development at App Academy.
Become a Quantitative Trader
Investing in the stock market has always been one of the go-to options for people who want to grow their money and diversify their investment portfolios. With the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of investors increased as people are finding ways to future-proof their finances. That said, there is always a clamor for different professionals to steer the stock market, like financial managers, investors, brokers, and traders.
But the tech roles of today are fast evolving, and having coding skills is a must, especially for fintech professionals. This is because of the increasing use of programming languages, like Python, Java, Ruby, and SQL, in crunching complex data and automating other tasks.
Once you invest in learning how to code and enhance your finance and investment skills, you are on your way to a lucrative tech career path. One of the many career paths you can take is as a quantitative trader (quant) in a bank or a hedge fund company, where you can earn an average basic salary of $175,704 per year. And as you move up the ladder, you can expect to take home around $280,500 per year and above.
Gaming, NFTs, and investments are just some of the many affinities where coding skills can prove helpful. And with a bit of boost from App Academy, you can also pivot toward software engineering and other fulfilling tech roles.
Mike Gee is one of App Academy’s graduates who leaped from retirement planning to software engineering, and he never looked back.
From Retirement Planner to Software Engineer
Mike Gee is no stranger to software engineering. Working as a retirement planner based in New York City, many of his clients were software engineers looking to diversify their investments. Mike explains, “I helped my clients figure out how to maximize their retirement plans, utilize their employee stock purchase plans, and set up other accounts to diversify their portfolios, from tax and risk perspectives.”
As someone passionate about computer science, software engineering has always piqued his interest. Upon meeting with a friend, who found career success as a software engineer after attending App Academy, he was persuaded to take a chance in tech.
Mike shares, “I would hear about different problems they were working on, and I was intrigued; I’ve always been a nerd at heart. My best friend, Noah, had gone to App Academy the year before, and he spoke highly of the program. He was able to find a software engineering job pretty soon after.”
App Academy’s software engineering bootcamp is an intense learning experience. But Mike credits the bootcamp’s rigorous training for molding him into a software engineering whiz with in-demand soft skills. He explains, “I enjoyed working with other people who were just as committed as I was. Learning programming and being forced to verbalize and explain complex concepts helped me solidify and understand the curriculum we were learning.”
With his customer-facing work experience in finance, his previous skills proved helpful while studying his software engineering course. He was able to break down complex concepts and relay information in a simple yet engaging manner.
Mike says, “Most of my clients didn’t have finance backgrounds and weren’t interested in the intricacies behind tax diversification. So, I learned how to convey these concepts clearly, precisely, and in an actionable manner. This has helped me a lot in my journey as a software engineer: during pair programming, during job interviews, and today, when I work with people across different teams.”
App Academy also ingrained a can-do attitude and a growth mindset in Mike. He says, “App Academy gave me the confidence to approach any new subject or coding language with an “I know I can learn this” mindset. It’s been life-changing, and I love my career!”
Moreover, his affinities in finance didn’t go to waste as he delved into a different industry. His ability to spot trends and solve complex problems are skills that are essential in tech.
Mike adds, “There are a lot of fintech companies where you can combine your passion with finance and your technical skill to build tools and platforms that can have a widespread impact.”
Now, he works as a software engineer for a technology platform that provides medical software.
How to Build Your Skills at App Academy
For those who prefer to attend face-to-face full-time classes, you can enroll in App Academy’s Campus Software Engineering Program, which spans 16 weeks with locations in NYC and San Francisco. The curriculum stretches over several topics, from fundamental to more complex concepts, to provide you with a foundation that you can build on. Expect to learn JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, React, and Redux.
App Academy also offers a 24-week Full-Time Online Software Engineering program and a more flexible Part-Time Online Software Engineering Program for students who do not want to give up their day jobs. For these online programs, you get to learn Python instead of Ruby on Rails. The curriculum also dives deep into the MERN stack, one of the most popular stacks used by full stack developers.
If these terms sound overwhelming to you, App Academy has you covered. Its beginner-friendly bootcamp provides comprehensive support from instructors ready to help you confront challenges and absorb concepts efficiently.
The bootcamp advocates pair programming, a buddy system where you will collaborate with your classmates to complete tasks. Instructors and teaching assistants are also constantly on the lookout and are available to assist and motivate you to succeed in your endeavors.
And you will be welcomed by a diverse community of App Academy alumni, seasoned experts, leaders, career coaches, and employer partners, which can be a huge plus in kickstarting your career.
Don’t know where to start? Take the App Academy quiz and see which course is right for you. Or you can also join the bootcamp’s info session!
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.
