Launch School: Find Top Courses & Training Locations

Students at Launch School go through a comprehensive familiarization process to determine if this alternative to a bootcamp is suitable for them. Instead of providing fast-paced sessions that can be difficult for some types of learners, the school takes time to ensure which path a student would be right for.

One of the world's oldest and largest coding schools, Launch School is a digital learning platform designed by computer engineers to reimagine computer engineering pedagogy. Founded in 2015 by experienced software engineers seeking to create a software development curriculum that prioritizes long-term career development. Launch School boasts a pedagogy of “mastery-based learning,” which replaces traditional, time-based approaches to coding education with slower, mastery-based assessments.

Unlike more traditional, multi-week bootcamps, Launch School offers long-term programs in professional development that aim to equip students with the problem-solving skills necessary for long-term career success, as opposed to short-term systems mastery.

Setting itself apart from other engineering bootcamps, Launch School prides itself on being the “slow path for studious learners.” Offering only a few rigorous curriculums, Launch School seeks to teach students the sets of skills necessary to “tackle engineering problems.” Rather than offering time-gated, 12-week courses, Launch School structures its classes around a slow and systematic approach to skill development. This approach gives students control over how quickly they move through the material.

Launch School is committed to teaching students the fundamentals of coding and computer engineering by giving them tools to “understand problems” through skills that do not become outdated with technology.

School Locations

Launch School is an online, asynchronous software engineering school. Their core curriculum is entirely self-paced, and they estimate the completion of the program will take the average student between 8 and 16 months, or approximately 1200 to 1600 hours. Launch School recommends that students spend at least 15 hours a week on coursework.

The capstone program, an optional program path available to students after completing the core curriculum, requires 16 weeks of online, synchronous coursework, all day Monday through Friday, and students must apply for this program.

The capstone program requires applicants to reside and work in the United States. The program offers support for fully remote students. Still, they provide preference to students willing to live in New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Portland, Denver, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

Subjects Taught at Launch School

Launch School offers its curated Core Curriculum track that provides a complete software engineering education in JavaScript or Ruby. The Core Curriculum includes courses in front end and back end coding, web development, HTML and CSS, and network and database fundamentals.

Each course in the curriculum is a required portion of progression through the program, so by the end of your studies, you will have a well-rounded understanding of web development for both front end and back end coding. To take courses within the core curriculum, students must complete free, unsupported modules offered on the website, in back end programming, and an orientation course that emphasizes the learning paths available through Launch School.

See how Launch School compares to other JavaScript, web development, and coding courses by browsing Noble Desktop’s Classes Near Me Tool.

What Classes Are Available?

Launch School’s Core Curriculum assumes that students are looking for a career in software engineering. To meet this goal, Launch school offers a limited number of course offerings designed to help students master complex skills and develop problem-solving abilities necessary for their future careers. Rather than providing individual courses on subjects like application development or web design, Launch School offers structured tracks that teach students the fundamentals of coding and software engineering.

Each of these tracks consists of ten to twelve individual courses that teach foundational aspects of computer engineering. These courses offer step-by-step instructions on writing code, constructing programs, identifying and debugging problems within code, and constructing web pages. These courses give students a well-rounded understanding of the complex problems and challenges they will encounter in their future careers.

Class Formats

All classes in the core curriculum run as flexible online courses. No synchronous courses are offered at the core curriculum level; all work is self-paced, and advancement to higher-level classes is contingent on a student’s ability to demonstrate skill mastery through course assessments adequately. Launch School’s “mastery-based learning” pedagogy foregrounds the knowledge of skills over the speed of skill acquisition, noting that they do not gate students with time-based objectives but instead offer students the opportunity to advance at their own pace through these course assessments.

These courses each include a single or multi-part assessment that assesses “comprehensive knowledge” and “mastery of skills.” These may take the form of traditional exams, live interviews, practicums, or take-home projects. Final assessment projects will vary from course to course, but each class will include an intensive final assessment.

Admissions Process

There is no application process for students taking core curriculum courses and paying the monthly course fee. Students may sign-up for the program and begin taking classes at any time. Still, students who wish to take these courses must first complete the free preparatory courses available after signing up for the program.

Students wishing to participate in the deferred payment program must be able to work in the United States and complete a rigorous application process. In addition to completing the requisite Preparatory courses, this application process includes a live interview and technical assessment of an applicant’s coding skills.

Students who wish to apply for the Capstone program must complete Launch School’s core curriculum and then apply for the advanced program.

Pricing & Payment Options

Each course within the program costs $199, and the service offers a deferred payment plan beginning at 299 dollars per month. Launch School’s optional capstone program costs 18% of your first-year salary or 18,000 dollars, whichever is higher. Students who wish to pay monthly are under no commitment to continue paying for the service and can stop taking courses at any time.

The Deferred Payment Program offers students an opportunity to defer payment for courses until they accept a job in the field of computer engineering and begin earning money from their degree. This program includes a rigorous interview process and works with students to construct a payment plan that fits their needs. The program offers a money-back guarantee if a student cannot accept a job offer of at least 60,000 dollars a year.

Career Support Services

Launch School does not offer mentoring or tutoring services as a part of its core curriculum. Launch School does not provide career placement services as part of its core curriculum but does build a career search process into its capstone program.

Alumni Outcomes

Launch School tracks that the average graduate of their capstone program who enters a full-time software engineering career earns an average of 118,408 dollars per year. Over the past four years, 100% of graduates of their capstone program accepted job offers within 180 days of graduation, with the average student finding job placement within 70 days.

Graduates of Launch School have gone on to careers working with industry leaders and successful start-ups such as Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Amazon Web Services, PayPal, Etsy, and E-Trade.

What Do Students Say?

Student reviews of the Launch School on bootcamp rating websites are uniformly positive. These reviews emphasize the program's depth and rigor, highlighting how pedagogical commitments to skill development and mastery set Launch School apart from other coding courses and bootcamps.

Students praise the “mastery-based learning” pedagogy, highlighting how these challenging but thorough assessments assured that they were mastering the skills they would need rather than being shuffled through a series of courses and falling behind in their studies. These reviews tend to focus on the transferable skills they learned as part of the program, speaking to how the assessment process assured that they could take the skills they learned in the coursework and apply them to practical coding exercises and jobs.

These reviews highlight the high discipline and self-pacing requirements required to complete the program. One reviewer notes, "[t]his could be the program for you if you're looking for something that's more on the hardcore end of the spectrum.” Students praise the slow, methodical mastery-based learning outcomes. Still, they note that the time-intensive nature of the program is a real barrier that one must be able to overcome through discipline and hard work. The reviews all praised this teaching methodology, saying that it made Launch School such an effective program, but it can be challenging to adjust to the expectations and assessments.

Key Takeaways

Launch School offers an intensive, advanced computer programming curriculum that emphasizes developing skills necessary for a long-term career in computer engineering. They provide course tracks in Java and Ruby, with both tracks teaching students how to code, debug and design using HTML and CSS.
Launch School prides itself on being a program that does not teach you simply how to code. Instead, they teach you to “deconstruct and solve problems like an engineer.”
The program is flexible but time-intensive, often taking more than a year to complete. It targets students who see themselves working in computer engineering for their entire career rather than students looking to learn to code for entrepreneurship or hobbyists.
Their “mastery-based learning” pedagogy foregrounds skills acquisition over the speed of skill acquisition. Rather than offering courses that end after a certain number of weeks, all of the courses offered by Launch School are indefinite, being completed once the student completes an assessment demonstrating their mastery of the subject matter.
Launch School boasts an incredibly successful program, with graduates earning an average of 118,400 dollars a year after graduating from their program and entering the workforce.
Launch School’s Core Curriculum is for students who know they are seeking careers in software development, coding, or computer engineering. These students need to be self-motivated and able to dictate the pace of their own learning and assessment.

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Launch School

School Locations

Subjects Taught at Launch School

What Classes Are Available?

Class Formats

Admissions Process

Pricing & Payment Options

Career Support Services

Alumni Outcomes

What Do Students Say?

Key Takeaways

Top Courses at Launch School

Full Stack Web Development

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Subjects Taught at Launch School

Web Development

Map of Launch School Locations