We tend to get a little nostalgic here at NSS every year when June rolls around, as it is NSS’s anniversary month. It’s a little surreal to think that it’s been nine years since the students of Cohort 1 arrived on the first day of class at the old Nashville Business Incubation Center, thus launching Nashville’s first coding bootcamp and the first non-profit bootcamp in the entire country. 

Like all of us who belong to the Middle Tennessee tech community, we’ve seen a lot of change and growth, but our mission remains the same - to prepare adults with motivation and aptitude for careers in tech. We are still committed to creating opportunities for individuals who are financially disadvantaged, or are members of groups under-represented in tech careers, to access high-paying careers.

1,500+ GRADUATES 

We started 2020 by celebrating our 1,000th graduate and now, just a little over a year later, we’ve graduated 500 more. Most of these 500 graduates chose to place their trust in us during a pandemic, something we don’t take lightly. And they all experienced some degree of virtual learning with us. With the graduation of three cohorts in the past week, there are now 1549 graduates of NSS. Wow.

It took five years to reach our first 500 graduates, two and a half years to reach our next 500 graduates, and only 16 months to reach this new milestone of 1500 total graduates. Can we reach 2,000 by our 10th anniversary? That might be a little ambitious based on our current plans, but we definitely expect to reach 2,000 graduates before next year is over.

HERE’S TO 1,500 MORE GRADUATES

It’s the most exciting time yet to be in tech in Nashville. We’re seeing hiring steadily increase this year, with May being our highest number of placements ever in a single month. With Oracle’s announcement this spring, it’s clear that the local tech community will continue to grow at an accelerating pace. As the demand grows for junior tech talent, so will we, whether that’s growing the number of cohorts in a particular program or exploring new programs to help launch tech careers in other specialties. 

Next week our 50th full-time Web Development cohort begins their journey. 50! For those of us who’ve been around for a while, that’s another number that seems surreal.