ASHTON JEFFERS – NEWS EDITOR ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JAN. 31, 2024
Following the winter break, most students look forward to finishing their semester and moving on to the next phase of life, whether by completing courses or attending a commencement ceremony. Before that time, students focus on their remaining courses and look forward to internships or job opportunities outside of their educational programs. Students at Codeup, a learning center in San Antonio that allows individuals to gain knowledge in full-stack web development, data sciences, coding and cloud administration, were offered a variety of programs related to coding. These programs served to accelerate students’ careers, offering a unique opportunity in the Tuition Refund Guarantee. This offer stated that for students who had yet to enter the workforce within six months of completing their respective programs all of their paid tuition would be refunded back to them by Codeup.
The company attracted students and staff from all over San Antonio with their services. However, on Dec. 28, 2023, Codeup officially closed its operations. This left students and staff members working to quickly find methods of supplementing incomplete coursework or further employment opportunities. The announcement was made via email, which continues to bring more questions than answers for those who had their classes canceled. Leadership at Codeup has not released statements on the situation and reaching out to them has been difficult. The official website for Codeup no longer yields any results, which underscores the lack of communication for those struggling after the coding bootcamp’s closure.
Codeup’s teaching method appealed to many interested in coding and web programming. They provided students at St. Mary’s with an interesting internship opportunity or a potential company to work for post-graduation. This happened to be the case with Aijalyn Gonzales, a St. Mary’s University alumni of the Greehey School of Business and Honors program.
As a digital marketing major, Gonzales sought out potential internship opportunities during the summer of 2023. “I found my internship with Codeup through a San Antonio-based program called Students and Startups, which connects college students or recent graduates with start-ups based in San Antonio. Of the companies I received an offer from, Codeup seemed the most established and promising in terms of opportunities for future employment,” stated Gonzales when asked about her encounter with Codeup’s internship opportunity. “I worked as a Marketing Intern in Events, which required me to work pretty late hours to host workshops and graduations for the tech bootcamp’s alumni and prospective students.”
For other St. Mary’s students interested in computer and data science, the closure spells a loss of a major coding educational and career resource. Internships at companies and startups in San Antonio are extremely valuable for students to gain more knowledge in their respective career fields and more information about the community that the company creates around San Antonio. “I obtained a lot of really valuable real-life experience in my time there. I got to sit in on marketing brainstorms and was definitely integrated into everything like a true member of the team,” Gonzales stated. She also spoke about what it was like joining team meetings and being involved, recounting her successes and challenges of working in a company. “However, it was evident, even from a temp’s perspective, that the company’s business framework was not working… I was confident, still, that things would turn around. A new building was in the works, and they made the switch from “.com” to “.edu,” promising better positioning as an educational institution versus a commercial business.”
Still, other organizations around San Antonio stepped in to assist the struggling students and staff. Alamo Colleges District currently offers scholarships for UpSkill/Career Academy for students who were enrolled in Codeup’s bootcamp since its closure in December 2023. Geekdom, a coworking and business mentorship organization, has also stepped in to help students, instructors and staff at Codeup by providing free access to their resources for the next three months. There still are resources and groups willing to provide aid for those advancing their skills in the tech industry around San Antonio. After Gonzales’ time as an intern, she graduated from St. Mary’s and currently works as a Junior SEO and Digital Marketing Specialist. “That being said, I closed my time with Codeup without the opportunities I was hoping for, but not without a network of professionals and valuable experience—and not just professionally,” Gonzales remarked about her hopes. “The students I met whilst working those three months touched my heart. Most were veterans seeking to transition into a tech career after service… they believed [in] the company’s ability to pave that path for them. I believed in it too- that the work we did was truly changing lives.”