Learning a new language is never easy… especially one that is designed to be understood by a machine. Nevertheless here I am at The Starter League having completed my first week. So what have I learned? Well for one Ruby was written in C… who knew?…
Let me tell you a few things I noticed about The Starter League experience.
- Students want to be here: Unlike a traditional university, where for many people the goal is JUST to get the diploma, and if they learn a thing or two in the mean time then great. The goal of The Starter League is to gain a new skill set.
- Paired Programming: During class we sit two people to a computer, one navigator and one driver. I have found this to be immensely helpful to understand the material. Having to articulate my thoughts out loud causes me to rethink something that in my head I would have just taken at face value.
- Sandbox: The digital world is our sandbox. We are strongly encouraged to try stuff out, start coding an API widget, see how far you get, get help from your peers. The education here is objective driven. If you work on an API widget, you will learn about APIs, etc.
My experience here has caused me to wonder, “Is this becoming the new model for education?” In an industry like web development where pedigree means little and deliverables are everything, The Starter League approach is powerful.
