No, seriously. The first Dallas cohort for Tech Talent South is underway, and that means we’re the best Dallas TTS group ever. So far. For anyone thinking of attending the next round, I encourage it. If exposure to a solid foundation of coding fundamentals, hands on practical demonstrations, and opportunities to meet and mingle with some of the most forward-leaning technologists in Dallas isn’t enough, the elation you feel when the light bulb clicks is reason alone. But this isn’t easy.

This course is at a pretty decent location. We’re learning at 211 N. Ervay St, which is the last remaining 1950s “cool blue” style building in downtown Dallas. Oddly, despite being one of the oldest buildings downtown, it’s home to several leading edge technology companies. By leading edge, I mostly mean startups. There’s lots of beards, shorts, opportunities, and caffeine everywhere. Overall, it’s a good spot, even if the building is still undergoing some renovation.

Oh man, the workload is intense. I was lucky to come into this course with some prior knowledge, and thank goodness. Although each session is roughly 4 hours long, I find myself spending at least that much time out of class on the materials. Often a lot more (it’s 1AM now…) A lot of this is self directed, and when not in class, I’m reading Ruby documentation, generating/ breaking Rails models, improving my design skills, and working on third party tutorials to increase my understanding. All of this by the third week. I’m impressed, and very interested to see how competent I’ll be at the course conclusion.

The success of the first Dallas cohort is basically a record meant to be broken, so go ahead and give it a shot. It won’t be easy, but something worth doing never is.