Help us support students who need Ada the most! The Ada team is deep in the review and interview process for our next group of Adies! We will soon extend invitations to 48 students to join us for Cohort 13, starting in February of 2020. We know that many of these students will only be able to attend Ada with the support of Ada’s Financial Aid program. The program is designed to fund basic needs including housing, childcare, medical…
Hey, What Happened to the Trees? By Alexandra Holien Change at Ada Developers Academy has been in full swing in 2019. With our Interim Executive Director Christine Martin at the helm since February, Ada has realigned and restructured our staff; brought on 4 new Advisory Board Members and 7 new staff members (5 full-time, 2 contractor); established cultural values; and is in the final stages of our Strategic Planning process. With lots of change and exciting growth, it seemed like…
Bethany Lindsey, Director of Education (she/her) Share a little bit about your background and previous experience in education. Education is my career. I have worked in schools as a teacher, volunteer, or admin since I graduated from college. Most recently, I was working as the Program Director at Galvanize’s Seattle office. I truly believe that education is the best way to create positive change in the world. What part of Ada’s mission resonates with you most? Ada’s mission really resonates…
By Dan Roberts, Lead Instructor, Interim Director of Education In a previous post we discussed the problem of teaching inheritance in object-oriented programming. Ada’s curriculum relies heavily on inheritance, so we asked three questions: What about teaching inheritance is hard? How is inheritance used in the real world? Given those constraints, how can we teach inheritance more effectively? We identified that inheritance solves a complex problem, and that the way inheritance is typically taught doesn’t correspond well with how inheritance…
By: Gabriela Pinto (she/her), Program Manager – Philanthropy & Communications I am excited to join the Ada family as our newest Program Manager of Philanthropy and Communications! Working closely with our Director of Strategic Partnerships and Development, Alexandra, I look forward to strengthening community support for our Adies, expanding our fundraising channels to create a foundation for growth in our programs and cultivating and sharing the amazing stories from our current and past students. Before landing at Ada, I spent…
We get lots of questions from alums and donors about how the Ada Loan Fund works. We know it’s a bit confusing so we wanted to put together the following guide to bring clarity. Access to low-cost, unsecured loans is hard for many students, so this is where Ada steps in to help fill the gaps so students can cover living expenses while they attend Ada. We recognize that some students could receive loans from conventional banks which have more…
By Jared Maddox (he/him), Instructor Hi! I’m Jared Maddox, my pronouns are he/him and I’m very excited to join as an Instructor here at Ada! Before graduating from The University of Texas I got to join part-time staff at Lanier High School as a Tutor. By the time a graduated and moved to Seattle, I knew I loved teaching. I volunteered with Treehouse as a Tutor to satisfy my itch to teach while I worked at Amazon Music as a…
By Becca Elenzil (she/her), Instructor Greetings! I’m Becca and I’m super excited to join Ada as a classroom instructor. I’ve worked as a middle and high school math and computer science teacher for the last five years, most recently at the Bush School in Seattle. At Bush I taught a number of different courses, primarily in Python, including Fundamentals of CS, Game Design, Data Structures & Algorithms, and Data Science. I also taught creative coding electives including Apps for Good…
by Dan Roberts, Lead Instructor, Interim Director of Education Hello Ada community! I’ve spent some time reading through your responses to the strategic planning survey we sent out a few weeks back. Something that stood out to me from the written comments is that we haven’t done a particularly good job of communicating what the instructional team looks like these days. So with the “T” in SECRETS in mind, I figured I would write a little update on who’s here…
We’re excited to welcome two new Alums as Advisory Board Members! We caught up with Miriam Cortes from Cohort 6 to get an inside look on how Ada impacted she and her vision for board involvement. Miriam Cortes, C6 Ada Alum [she/her] Software Development Engineer, Zillow HOW DID YOU FEEL WHEN YOU WERE ADMITTED INTO ADA? I was in disbelief! I was about to teach a class and it just felt unreal, like listening to someone talking when you’re underwater. …