Claim Academy Helps Students Break Into Tech Careers With Coding Boot Camps and Career Services

TL; DR: Claim Academy helps students launch tech careers with immersive coding boot camps and career services. It offers several programs and schedule options to allow students to learn in a timeline that fits their goals and interests. Students receive an invaluable, end-to-end experience that provides them with thorough teaching, collaboration, and job preparation. We spoke with Ola Ayeni, President and Founder of Claim Academy, about the boot camp, its mission, and how it transforms students into exceptional job candidates.

Attending a four-year college and graduating with a diploma isn’t for everyone. But that doesn’t mean education has to be off the table. Thankfully, there are plenty of alternative educational opportunities out there that can meet different needs. With the internet, more people are becoming aware of other career training options and opting out of traditional degree programs.

According to Inside Higher Ed, financial barriers are the number one reason students choose to forgo a traditional college education. About 38% of the students surveyed didn’t enroll due to fears of amassing debt and doubts surrounding the financial returns of a college degree.

Alternative career training opportunities can help students avoid the financial barriers of a college education and prepare them for successful careers with similar and more focused programs. Claim Academy is a premier developer boot camp providing students with thorough educational programs and career-intensive solutions.

“What makes us different from all boot camps is that we are approved by the Missouri Department of Higher Education Workforce & Development, which allows us to issue certificates and transcripts. So our transcript is equivalent to 34 college credits,” said Ola Ayeni, President and Founder of Claim Academy.

Claim Academy prepares and transforms students into employable candidates with invaluable coding knowledge and career resources. Claim Academy ensures students receive the best return on their investment, taking them on the journey from education to job placement.

Claim Academy opened its doors in 2014 with the mission to change lives. In February 2015, it launched its first coding program with only four students. Since then, its enrollment has skyrocketed.

“Claim Academy’s mission is to change lives. We have graduated over 1,800 people. We’ve had people from 49 states physically move to our St. Louis location to attend our full-immersion full-time class,” said Ola.

Claim Academy is dedicated to its students and offers a variety of learning opportunities to fit their schedules and help them jump-start their careers. Its full-time classes are 12 to 14 weeks, depending on the specialization. Its part-time program includes evening classes and goes on for 20 weeks. All of its classes are also available online.

“We have full stack Java, which is our number one program. We have full stack C#/.NET, full stack JavaScript, and then we also have cybersecurity. When students finish our cybersecurity course, they get a Security Plus certification,” said Ola.

Claim Academy positions its students for success in their educational and professional journey. Its focus is to help students elevate and make a better life for themselves with careers in tech. This is why the team is selective in who they admit into the boot camp, as they seek people who want to be present and seize the opportunity.

“We don’t take everybody. We are very focused on people who have a certain background. They have to go through a first interview, then behavioral prep work, and a technical interview on the cyber side and the Java or C# side before we can accept them,” said Ola.

Once accepted, Claim Academy allows students to jump straight into programming in an environment primed for learning and collaboration. Students get to skip over unnecessary prerequisites and save money while at it. Claim Academy also gives students an end-to-end experience, which takes them from learning the essentials to job hunting.

“Our full-time program is broken into 3-hour blocks: three hours of pure programming, three hours of mentoring, and three hours of instruction and lab. That’s what they do every day, Monday through Friday, whether online or in person,” said Ola.

Unlike other popular online courses, Claim Academy touches on everything students need to know to become a top developer. Claim Academy uses a hands-on approach to ensure students not only learn how to code but also how to solve problems. Students build several solutions throughout the class and have a Capstone project so they can learn to work with developer kits.

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“Hard skills are one thing, but soft skills are also important. We teach them how to build LinkedIn profiles and help them with résumé writing and presentation skills. We teach design thinking. Students develop capstone projects. We also do many different mandatory events. So every week, we will have a company come and speak,” said Ola.

Ola said Claim Academy had a Google representative come to speak not too long ago. It also has an alumni night every month during which alumni will speak to current students about their experience and where they are now. Claim Academy follows tech trends and updates its curriculum to ensure students get the most relevant information and education.

“We’ve added AI to our curriculum and are teaching AWS within it so they can spin on AWS. Regenerative engineering is so important that you must know how to do prompts with ChatGPT and other tools in any development. So we’re teaching that in our curriculum as part of getting people ready for the job, not just for now but for the future,” said Ola.

Claim Academy’s end-to-end boot camp empowers students to become top IT talent and professionals within a highly sought-after market. The Claim Academy staff is intentional in helping students get their foot in the door and capture the employer’s attention.

“Every month, we have a repository of jobs. We provide it to our current students every week and a link for them to apply. We have a robust job placement team that helps people not only on their résumé but also on their cover letter, interviews, and technical assessments,” said Ola.

Claim Academy has great relationships with top corporations in the country and gives students access to this network. Ola said many of these companies hire from the Claim Academy student pool because they trust the type of employee they will get. Claim Academy puts in the work so everyone who graduates can be an excellent job candidate.

As for future endeavors, Claim Academy has partnered with the National Geospatial Agency to launch GIS DevOps. St. Louis has a high military presence, especially in the GIS space. So this partnership will go hand-in-hand. The boot camp will also release shorter classes focused on various disciplines and frameworks, including React, SAP, and drone development.

“If anybody lives in Missouri, we have some grants for them to come to claim. We also have a short payment program for as low as $399 a month and special scholarships for active military and veterans. If somebody is international and wants to join, we can take them,” said Ola.