Blog

There are a lot of threads to the story of the first five years at NSS. One of those threads is our start-up story. It's an aspect of the NSS story that I often get asked about during our information sessions and during interviews with applicants: why did we decide to start the school and why did we decide to do it the way we did. Our fifth anniversary feels like a good time to go back and review some of those key decisions and see how they worked out in practice. Probably the single biggest decision that we made when we considered the business model for NSS, and the one that still seems to most shape how applicants, employers, and the community view NSS, was the decision to establish NSS as a non-profit. Read More

One of the key "leaps of faith" in the initial business model for NSS was that there were an adequate number of employers in Nashville ready and willing to hire junior developers. This was definitely not self-evident back in late 2011, early 2012 when we were designing our business model. My, how things have changed over the past five years. Read More

Software developers are modern day builders. They do not use a hammer and nails; instead they use languages and frameworks. When Michael Watson and Luke Woodard see a problem, they want to build the solution. Read More

Many of our graduates come to NSS to change their careers. When they start their first job as a junior software developer, not only do they bring problem-solving and coding skills, they also bring their prior work experiences with them. Jared Fuller and Jesse Waddell both come from customer-focused careers. Their experiences in serving customers' needs will help them work with both clients and end-users as developers. Read More

Is a bootcamp right for someone with a master’s degree? If you want to learn the craft of software development, absolutely. Everyone’s educational journey takes different paths. These two Cohort 17 graduates have master’s degrees, but when they decided to pursue software development, they opted for the accelerated, hands-on learning environment that our bootcamps provide. Read More

There’s a common misconception that if you are creative, you will not like coding. The reality is that many of our students come from creative backgrounds. Whether you are a musician, writer, graphic designer, or express your creativity in other ways, you can bring your creativity into your role as a software developer. Today we meet Sorrel Brigman, an audio engineer, and Ashley Irwin, a writer, from Cohort 17 who both use their creativity to code. Read More