Welcome to our new Success Stories series, in which we interview Actualize grads who successfully made the leap and landed a job in tech.

In this first post, we interview Ian Matthews of San Francisco, who recently graduated from an Actualize Online Live cohort.

What were you doing before you joined Actualize?

My background is in accounting, as I ha...

Coding bootcamps, coding schools, dev bootcamps, code academies - they may go by different names, but they are all phrases that describe the same phenomenon.

What is a coding bootcamp?

A coding bootcamp is a vocational program that teaches its students the skills necessary to become a software developer. A software developer - sometimes called a computer programmer or softw...

When people picture technologists, such as software engineers and the like, their mind conjures up images of a twenty-year-old pimply guy wearing earbuds and a hoodie, with the hood pulled all the way up to his eyes. He is typing frenetically at his keyboard, and is in a very dark room, like a basement or a garage. He doesn't stop typing, only taking his hands away from the keyboard to chug ...

How long does it take to learn to code?

Once you've decided that you're interested in learning to code, one of the next natural questions to ask is: How long will it take me? What kind of time investment am I dealing with here?

Of course, it's impossible to give an answer to this in terms of exact hours, as each person learns at different speeds and each person may...

You've decided that you'd like to break into a career in technology. Technology is taking over the world. Robots are eating people's jobs in every industry. You don't want to be left behind, so you decide to jump on the bandwagon.

But you're not 19 anymore. In fact, you have a career in something other than tech. You're an accountant, a welder, a mechanic, or a lawyer - and y...