Ignition = Interactive Pre-Learning on Steroids

"Having a solid understanding of the fundamentals on day 1 was huge. Launch Academy goes by unbelievably fast and it’s all about learning by doing. You don’t want to waste even a single day playing catch up when you could be creating something cool, and gaining a ton of practical knowledge in the process!"—Dan Murphy

We’ve done this a bunch of times now and have learned a lot from each group of Launchers who have attended our program. One of the key findings is that there is a 1-to-1 correlation between people that succeed during the Ignition phase of our program and those that are able to hit the ground running on Day 1. We take Ignition dead serious and so should you. Each of our 100+ graduates that have received jobs (97% of which have done so within 90 days of graduation), have drank the Ignition kool-aid.

"As a former middle school math teacher, I knew the importance of having a solid understanding of the basics before diving into the more rigorous aspects of learning. My students needed to master multiplying and dividing negative numbers before being successful at solving systems of equations. In a similar vein, I needed to master fundamental Ruby concepts like arrays and hashes before I could be successful synthesizing and creating Ruby programs, which was expected of me at Launch Academy." — Landon Marder, Launch Academy Graduate

So, why is Ignition so important?

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know or The Benefits of Guided Instruction

Perhaps you’ve been learning on your own for 3-9 months or more in preparation to attend a bootcamp. Thats great! In fact, it’s likely one of the reasons you caught our eye. However, unfortunately, most unguided self-learning resources can create foundational holes due to the specialized nature of the topics they cover. By default, its difficult for the learner to connect the dots and align learnings in optimal order because they are learning in a vacuum without access to like-minded learners/educators. Our job as elite educators at Launch Academy is to pave the path to learning for our students. Ignition provides this path for you so that you can learn the important building blocks of web development in the appropriate sequential order to build upon each piece of knowledge from a position of strength.

Collaborative Learning Accelerates the Learning Curve… But Its a Learned Skillset

A key benefit of learning within a bootcamp paradigm is the collaborative nature of how you will learn. In isolation, you will learn slower than you would when learning with others. This is correlated to your time required to get ‘unstuck’ via a proven toolkit, your ability to now learn by “working as a pair, or consulting with other Launchers in [your] cohort”. Ignition starts you on this path so and ensures that you understand how to learn interactively with others prior to the start of the on-campus program. These collaborative learning skills will allow you to leverage the benefits of social learning to enable the exponential increase in your learning velocity.

Benchmark of Knowledge

Managing the effects of a polarized set of learners is one of the more challenging aspects of any educator’s job. Traditional education attempts to mitigate this challenge via ‘prerequisite’ courses. Ignition allows everyone in each cohort to come into the physical learning space with at least the same amount of knowledge. Once the cohort begins, we move quickly in order to attain the lofty goals we’ve set for our Launchers. It’s important that specific foundational concepts are understood prior to coming to Launch Academy so that you are ready to move just as quick as your fellow Launchers. We’re proud of our industry-low attrition rates. Ignition plays a key role towards our goal of no Launcher left behind.

"I think pre-work was incredibly important in my ability to be successful at Launch Academy. I would say pre-work helped me both in terms of strengthening my Ruby fundamentals, as well as my overall mindset and workflow in becoming a developer. The pre-work was also my first exposure to Git, GitHub and working with databases. Having the time to get comfortable with some of this before starting the program was really helpful to me because so much is thrown at you at once in a bootcamp-style curriculum. It was nice to spend some time with this at my own pace, then deepen my knowledge at Launch Academy. I was much better able to hit the ground running, and I think I was able to get more out of the program as a result. This was a big commitment for me and I wasn’t taking any chances!"— Melissa Carbone, Launch Academy Graduate

No matter what your experience level is coming into Launch Academy, it's important that you participate in Ignition so that everybody is on the same page on day one of the cohort. During Ignition, you'll have access to between 60 and 80 hours of interactive pre-learning on a broad range of programming topics:

• Introduction to HTML, CSS, the command line, Source Control (git and GitHub), database fundamentals, object oriented programming concepts, and plenty of Ruby (as well as some advanced Ruby topics).
• Ignition also offers you the chance to improve upon some personal productivity skills, understand how your brain works, and how to become a more efficient learner.
• You’ll begin to learn how to learn collaboratively, a skill that will serve you very well in the bootcamp paradigm.
• Learn the importance that self-reflection plays in the learning process via guided instruction by building your blog, which will serve as one of your personal portfolio pieces.

Our Experience Engineers oversee the program and are available to help you if you get stuck. You’ll converse and learn collaboratively with your fellow Launchers via virtual communication tools we provide. If you happen to be local you have the opportunity to gather with other local Launchers for study groups.

"[Ignition] gave me a solid foundation so I could hit the ground running when I arrived at Launch Academy. By the time we arrived, everyone had a common language to speak about programming. Ignition did more than prepare me technically—it helped immensely with the mental preparation that I would later need for the challenges I ran into during the cohort. Attitude and learning strategy is a huge part of what determines your success Launch Academy. Those two things determine how much juice you can squeeze out of the time there. The pre-work content on how to learn and the right attitude for learning gave me important pointers in that respect."—Mo Zhu, Launch Academy Graduate

Ignition is More Than a "Nice-to-Have"

Take it from the 100+ graduates that have successfully come before you and who are currently working in jobs as software developers.

Interested in starting your journey via a proven and successful path to exponentially increase your probability for bootcamp success? Apply Now to learn more about Ignition as well as the immersive 10-week program and our industry benchmark 6-month Post Graduate Support program.