The start of a new school year can be an exciting, yet stressful, time for all students, from kindergartners to seniors in college. A new year comes with new clothes, new classes, new backpacks, new teachers, and new friends. You probably thought you wouldn’t have to go through a first day of school ever again. Although DevMountain is a different environment than grade school, in many ways you’ll have a lot of similar anxieties and excitement. To help out our future first-day DevMountain students, we’re going to give a quick overview of what you can do to best prepare for your experience, and what you’ll go through during week one of the course.
The Transition
Coming to DevMountain really is a life-changing experience. If you’re in one of our immersive programs, you’re likely leaving a job, schooling, or other commitments behind to focus on your coding education for 13 weeks. It’s a little scary, exhilarating, and nerve-wracking all at once. There’s also a lot of prep work to handle before you arrive. It can be a challenging to do everything you need to in order to make a successful transition to your DevMountain experience.
First Steps
Pay Your Deposit After you’ve been accepted into your program, the most important first step will be to pay your deposit in order to reserve your seat. Our classes can fill up quickly, so paying your deposit as soon as possible will ensure that you get into the cohort you want. If you have any questions before paying your deposit, make sure to communicate with our Admissions Team so they can help you get answers.
Decide On Free Housing After paying your tuition deposit, you will need to decide if you want to take advantage of our free housing for immersive programs. If you decide that you will, our admissions team will introduce you to our housing staff. In order to reserve your spot in the housing, you will be required to pay a housing deposit and fill out some paperwork. After all that is received, you will will receive a check-in guide with information on timing and location.
Pre-Course Work You will also receive information about our pre-course work. All students who join DevMountain are required to complete pre-course curriculum before starting the program. You may be asked to defer to our next cohort if it is not completed.
The Week Before Class
Your mentor will reach out to you a week or two before class starts to get to know you better and walk through a few things. They will work with you to schedule a phone call at a time that works with your schedule. Your mentor will evaluate your understanding of the pre-course material during the call, and you will be able to ask any questions you may have about the pre-course material or the program in general.
If you’re taking advantage of our free housing, you will check in the Friday before class starts during business hours. A DevMountain representative will meet you at the apartment to give you your key, remind you of the expectations you agreed to in the housing contract, and answer any questions you have about the new area you’ll be living in.
First Week of Class
On day one you’ll be jumping into code within the first few hours. But before that, we will hang out for a bit and get to know each other over breakfast. After we eat, we’ll walk through orientation, give you some tips on being successful in our program, help you get to know other peers in your cohort, and have some fun together. Before lunch, your hands will be on the keyboard and you’ll dive into the command line and Git.
By the end of the second day, a member of our student success team will reach out to set up a one-on-one meeting. This will be a chance for them to get to know you better, explain how they will provide support throughout your time in the program, help you set some goals, and talk through any questions or feedback. This is a great opportunity to build rapport, because there might be times during the program when you will struggle, and our student success team will be there to help you get through it.
Your first week of class will set the tone for the rest of your time in our program and we will do all we can to help you hit the ground running, but we ask that you come ready to run! Do everything in your power to prepare – especially when it comes to the pre-course material – and your experience at DevMountain will go smoothly.
Are you thinking about attending one of our programs? Reach out to us, we’d love to hear from you!