The 17 best coding classes in NYC

As database management becomes more and more important in virtually every field, it is important to know how these databases work and how you can improve your career opportunities by knowing your way around a database. NYC Career Centers offers an immersive SQL Bootcamp to help you become proficient in Standard Querying Language, the most common programming language for building, organizing and searching databases. This course, which is designed with complete novices in mind, can help take you from someone barely managing an Excel spreadsheet to a master of database maintenance and organization in just a few sessions.

Continuing the focus on data management, Practical Programming offers a Python for Data Science Immersive course that will teach you the art of using Python, one of the most popular programming languages in the world. This course focuses on Python’s applications in the field of data science and students will learn how to work with different kinds of data, analyze databases to find trends and patterns that can be used to make informed predictions and create compelling data visualizations to communicate your findings. If you hope to work with data in a meaningful capacity, you’ll need to learn Python and a course like this is an excellent place to start.

Virtually every company, organization, project and institution needs a web presence, meaning that the demand for talented programmers who can develop websites and applications is likely to stay high. Learning front end web development means learning the art of coding the elements of a webpage that visitors see, so it includes all of the visual elements and the assets that a visitor can interact with, like buttons that help users navigate the page. To do this, students will need to learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript, the trio of languages that undergird almost every modern webpage.

Obviously, a website can’t run on just the front end alone. Enter the process of full stack web development, which includes not only the front end elements that a user experiences when they visit a webpage but also the back end infrastructure of servers and databases that keep the webpage operating. In this course, students will learn how to write front end code with HTML/CSS and JavaScript and how to work with advanced JavaScript libraries in order to build the requisite back end infrastructure. By the end of this program, students will be prepared to start building entire webpages and digital applications at a professional level.

Students looking to build practical career skills in the field of data science should consider a course like Practical Programming’s Data Science Certificate. In this career-focused course, students will learn the three pillars of database management: Excel, SQL, and Python. With this knowledge in hand, students can search for a career in the rapidly expanding world of data science and analytics, skills that are becoming increasingly in-demand as more and more businesses and organizations realize the immense value of being able to collect data and use that data to make informed business decisions.

Novice programmers may want to start out with something simple as they dip their toes into the world of programming. HTML and CSS training is a great way to learn a practical skill that has applications in almost every field of programming while still being accessible for new students. These languages are essential to modern websites, since they are the languages that tell a web browser how to display images, text and assets. While you’ll need more training to pursue a career in professional web development, learning these skills is an invaluable first step towards building a future in programming (or just making your own personal websites).

It will come as no surprise to hear that women are still drastically underrepresented in the tech industry. This 50,000-lady-strong nonprofit hopes to change that. Join the New York chapter of the global organization to take advantage of free technical classes, study sessions and networking events.

This beginner software engineering course by The Flatiron School is 15 weeks long and aims to teach students how to develop software for websites and apps. This is a great course to take if you're wanting to kickstart your career in software engineering. You'll learn the fundamentals of programming, understand front and back-end development and work on group projects to show off your new skills. It's available online or in person with an average class size of 15. 

This Python Machine Learning Immersive class by Practical Programming is perfect for beginners wanting to learn more about reliable tools needed for approaching a machine learning problem. It will focus on the practical skills needed to solve real-world problems with machine learning, although this class does need students to be comfortable with Python and its data science libraries (NumPy and Pandas). 

As its name implies, Practical Programming focuses on programming languages that do the hard work behind the scenes: SQL, a language used for database management, and Python, an easy-to-learn language often used in both web and app development. Courses here are some of the more affordable options in NYC, too.

With 20 campuses around the world and an alumni network of 40,000, General Assembly is one of the best-known technology schools. Students looking for a career change might want to enroll in one of the full- or part-time courses on subjects like data analytics, user experience design and web development. 

If you’re looking to study up on one particular skill, Noble Desktop might be your best bet. This 33-year-old school teaches courses in everything from HTML email to responsive mobile design to Adobe Illustrator. Classes range from daylong intensives to twice-weekly courses, so you can definitely find something that fits your schedule. You don’t even need to bring a laptop: Every classroom at Noble Desktop is outfitted with both Macs and PCs for students to use.

Ready to make a career change? You might want to consider the 13-week career accelerator at Fullstack Academy. Students learn front-end, back-end and database development through live lectures, programming challenges and hands-on workshops before working on both team and individual projects. A word to the wise: You need at least rudimentary programming experience to apply for this course. Fullstack Academy also runs the Grace Hopper Program, a software engineering intensive for women.

Perhaps you aren’t looking to learn to code yourself, but you are looking to upskill your team to ensure that they have the programming skills necessary to tackle your next big project. Noble Desktop offers a wide range of corporate training options (available at your office location or in a live digital classroom) for companies to help their employees learn skills such as web design, data science, Python, SQL, JavaScript and more. This training can be customized to fit your needs and, if you want to help your employees learn coding skills on their own time, Noble offers discounted rates on group enrollment in any of their in-person or online coding classes.

Students looking to learn the foundational skills that all computer scientists need to know should consider a program like NextGen Bootcamp’s Computer Science Summer Program. In this program, students will learn how to code with Java and Python, both foundational languages that are utilized in a wide range of computer science fields, including software engineering and data science. This program is designed with the Computer Science AP exam in mind, so students who take the course will leave prepared to ace their exam and earn college credit in the process.

Students interested in pursuing a path in data science (whether as a Data Analyst working for a football team or a Wall Street firm or a Data Scientist building the next generation of AI technology), will need to start by learning how to read and write Python code. In this summer program, students will learn how to use Python to query and input data into complex databases, visualize their data in graphic representations (including charts, maps and graphs) and work with rudimentary machine learning algorithms.

Java is not only a practical programming language to learn (especially if you want to work in software engineering) but it is also the language most commonly emphasized on the AP Computer Science exam and in early level college computer science classes. Thus, if you know you want to pursue a degree in computer science (or an adjacent field like data science), it pays to know how to code with Java. In this summer Java programming course, students will learn how to write industry-standard algorithms, read and interact with large code and write their own functions as they learn to think like programmers.