Alchemy Year in Review: 2020 Highlights

2020 has been a year for the history books - for the world at large and also for our world at Alchemy Code Lab.

We owe our community a huge thank you for turning this year's huge challenges into an opportunity to come together, grow, and innovate.

We want to end the year on a high note, so here are some of our favorite 2020 highlights...

We graduated four Cohorts of new software developers!

And they're ready to take on the world!

We celebrated new jobs!

Check out the encouragement within our community... with this level of support, our grads can do anything!

We went totally virtual.

While we love the in person vibes at our space in NW Portland (check out this vintage 2018 pic), the transition to virtual learning ended up working out better than we every could have imagined, thanks to our incredible instructors and super-adaptable students.

We introduced exciting new ways to fund your education.

Among the most exciting: a $5,000 scholarship for Black and Indigenous women in partnership with PDX Women in Tech, now accepting Veterans' Benefits to train U.S. vets for new careers, and our new Income Sharing Agreement which allows students to pay back their tuition only once they've secured a job post graduation.

We grew our team!

We welcomed Whitney to our admissions team, Ciara to our marketing team, and benefited from scores of helpers from web design to teaching assistants to consultants behind the scenes. You may not see them every day, but their work makes Alchemy possible!

We all became experts at working from home.

Coffee? Check. Comfy pants? Check. Double monitors? Double check.

We learned the value of community all over again.

Tragic events seemed to be the theme of 2020: the outbreak of the coronavirus, the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that catalyzed the current wave of #BLM, the forest fires throughout our region... but with each tragedy, our community came together and supported one another. You challenged us to do better and create space to learn and heal.

We learned some challenging lessons... and the work continues.

We promised to do the work, and we've been doing it. Last month we wrapped up our first wave of intense DEI training and continue to update our policies, curriculum, and perspective to make Alchemy more equitable for all.

We loved on our furry friends.

Both while working from home and on our virtual tour of Sweet Farm!

We hit #1 on the charts.

Hitting #1 Best Coding Bootcamp in the United States and #3 in the world on Switchup was a huge honor and brought a wave of awesome new people to our program. We're so grateful for the reviews you've left for us on Switchup and hope you continue to spread the word!

What will 2021 bring? Time will tell, but for now, we're grateful for a year that brought growth in every sense of the word.

Wishing you an amazing New Year!