A physical classroom and small classes - why we teach this way
All our courses are held in physical classrooms with a lecturer present. At a time when most training is moving online, this is a deliberate choice. Here is the reasoning.
There is an endless supply of good programming education online. Videos, courses, documentation and, increasingly, AI assistants that explain exactly what you are wondering about.
Even so, we gather our candidates in a classroom in Oslo every day for three months.
It is not only about code
The technical part of the training could in principle be delivered online. But the hardest part of moving from university into working life is not about syntax.
How do you work effectively in a development team? How do you take a code review without taking it personally? When should you try on your own, and when should you ask for help?
Those are skills that develop in the room, together with other people.
One lecturer, all the way through
Teaching is led by Dr. Dean von Schoultz, who has more than ten years of experience preparing graduate developers for professional work in demanding environments.
“The programme emphasises software design, correctness, and disciplined reasoning about system behaviour, with learning tailored to the team and environment each participant will work in.”
Having the same lecturer throughout means he knows every candidate personally, and can adjust as they go.
Small classes make tailoring possible
We take in a small number of candidates each year. Not because we could not take more, but because the model stops working once the class gets too big.
With small classes we can build individual learning paths around each candidate and the assignment they are heading into. With fifty people in the room that would be impossible.
Candidates also work with modern equipment in an environment that mirrors the tasks they will actually meet later.
A professional community from day one
What candidates most often point to afterwards is not a single topic from the curriculum. It is that they met others in the same situation.
Being new is easier when you are new alongside someone else.
That is why the classroom stays, even as everything else moves online.