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Tech

'Nomadic Code School' Is Kind of a Good Idea

I'm surprised too.

Nomadic Code School presents itself as a cross between a beach resort vacation, wilderness adventure camp, and a learn-to-code incubator. For those future-scripters looking for something beyond the offerings of the hundreds (more?) of mostly frontend development-focused camps currently offered across the country, one will soon be able to learn their code in "amazing places with amazing people."

NCS hasn't properly launched yet and is still in the sign-up-for-more-information phase. According to its website, NCS is currently scouting potential locations for its inaugural session. Matt Lea, the company's founder and CTO at Townsquare, told me that destinations under consideration include India, Turkey, and Italy. Three weeks in Vermont this is not.

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This is what you can expect learning-wise:

We will start with the basics literally creating your first web page via a text editor. Next we will learn the fronted building a variety of browser based apps. Finally we will dig into the back end and build server side apps using NodeJS, ExpressJS, and MongoDB and learn how to host them on the Amazon Web Services.

Would you believe … I actually kind of like this? At the very least, I wish it was my idea.

For one thing, I have no grounds to hate on Nomadic Code School, though that's kind of where I started because the pricetag is completely brutal. While a resident of a certifiably amazing place—literal minutes from the best whitewater kayaking, mountain climbing, skiing, and windsurfing in the continental US—I'm able to study computer engineering at a pretty great university and work for a pretty great company thanks entirely to this here internet. It's not bad! It's also not India, but whatever.

I am a deep, lifelong believer in amazing places and NCS' offering of three week coding bootcamps at "exotic locations throughout the world" has a certain resonance. Hell, my second degree is in recreation management (which is sort of hard to explain, but we can just say that I'm well-qualified as a park ranger). I'm a recreator.

I think a lot better here in my amazing place, certainly. I'm outside constantly doing outside kinds of things: hiking and climbing and kayaking. It for sure helps me to learn and problem solve, and there are a bazillion studies out there confirming that outdoor activity is good for mental health. A 2011 metastudy for example, found that exercising in natural environments led to "greater feelings of revitalization and positive engagement, decreases in tension, confusion, anger, and depression, and increased energy."

To be sure, there's something not quite on about boutique coding retreats and expensive programming bootcamps in general. In a way they seem designed to reinforce the status quo within the industry of rewarding the rewarded, but that's not really on NCS. (Though it likely won't be cheap: "These prices are subject to change," Lea said. "Not including travel or food, but including housing for the three week course were looking at around 10 to 15 thousand." His estimate for a 12 week program is more like $30,000.).

Mostly, I just think you'd learn a whole lot more (and learn it better) surrounded by an environment as far removed as possible from the day-to-day grind rather than some airport hotel meeting room, at least if you've got the coin in the first place and only have three weeks to spend on a new career. I dunno.