Mandy Arola
Mandy has been following developers & tech companies at meetups since 2016. She is NSS’s chief content wrangler, a.k.a. marketing manager. When she’s not writing blogs, managing social media, pestering instructors & graduates for content, or attending meetups, you can find her traveling the world or at home with her beloved dog Lola.
When a student considers attending NSS today, many of them spend a lot of time researching the school. They look at reviews on Course Report, read our blog, comb through every page of our website, and talk with our graduates. But five years ago, none of that existed...well we had a website with a few blogs that read more like social media updates than blog posts, but there were no reviews or graduates to talk to. In fact, even the idea of a coding bootcamp was still a new concept. So who were these early adopters that decided to take a chance on NSS as part of our very first cohort?
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Topics:
Alumni,
Student Stories
On Friday we graduated 21 new full stack Node.JS developers. This is our eighth class of software developers to graduate this year and wraps up our fifth anniversary year. Cohort 20 spent 6 months with instructor Joe Shepherd, who shared the class became like “siblings” and learned to work together despite their differences. Listen to their podcasts.
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Topics:
Student Stories,
Hiring?
You’ve heard of UX Designers, but do you know what they actually do? The title can be a bit misleading. While design plays a role, UX designers do so much more. Let's explore the six stages of UX design.
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Topics:
Student Stories,
UI/UX
Cohort 19 students Willie Pruitt and Azim Sodikov were already learning software development before they attended NSS. Azim was teaching himself basic skills and Willie was pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Both wanted to increase their pace of learning and were ready to takeoff on their bootcamp adventure. Hear about their journeys.
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Topics:
Student Stories,
Hiring?
In an article published on TechCrunch last year, Carson Miller discusses why
The Future Of Front-End Development Is Design. Building new digital products is easier and more affordable than ever, but you still have to build a product that users love...and therein lies the challenge. In today’s job market, code literacy is an essential skill for designers and managers, not just developers. It's also beneficial for front-end developers to understand user experience design. The demand for this hybrid role is growing quickly in Nashville, which is why we created our Front-End Web Designer/Developer Bootcamp.
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Topics:
Student Stories,
Learning,
UI/UX
Ryan Tanay was working in desktop support, small business IT, and networking before he attended NSS. After graduation, Ryan was a junior instructor for a year and now works in DevOps with the full-stack and learned all of his DevOps skills post NSS. Ryan shares about the importance of continual learning and networking.
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Topics:
Alumni,
Student Stories
On Saturday Nashville Software School and Tech Hill Commons was filled with energy from the Nashville tech community for BarCamp Nashville. The doors opened at 8am and the building quickly filled with eager learners. With sessions ranging from interviewing, to how to speak at BarCamp, to VR and AI, there was something for everyone.
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Topics:
Alumni,
Student Stories,
Community
Aimee Knight is a former professional figure skater and was in marketing when she made the decision to become a software developer. After researching (and visiting) bootcamps around the country, she landed at Nashville Software School as a part of Cohort 4. Aimee encourages new developers to "Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable."
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Topics:
Alumni,
Student Stories
Cohort 21 wrapped up their first 3 months of bootcamp last week with their front-end demo day. No matter how many front-end demo days our instructors and staff have been a part of, we're always impressed with the level of the projects the students present. By the time front-end demo day arrives, the students have presented as groups several times and test-driven their front-end demo presentation to their classmates.
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Topics:
Student Stories
Nine students and two alumni formed 3 teams and gave up their weekends to help Horse Haven of Tennessee and tnAchieves as a part of LBMC’s Code For A Cause hackathon. They share what they learned and 10 tips for success in a hackathon.
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Topics:
Alumni,
Student Stories,
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