As someone who learned programming myself, I can tell you that while the plethora of online lessons offered by Codecademy, Code School, and Coursera are great, nothing beats sitting down together in a room to learn from an experienced hand.
While online courses are convenient and fun, it lacks the social element and peer motivation that powers a learner to the end. In other words: you’re more likely to give up.
In Singapore, there are several options if you’re looking to learn programming in a classroom setting. Here’s a list of places that offer such courses.
See: Learning to code? I did it for 2 years – here’s what I learned
General Assembly launched in Singapore recently, and is a fairly well-known brand in startup education. It offers eight to 12 week full-time courses in web development, user experience design, and soon, Android development. It also has eight to 12 week part-time courses focusing on back-end web, front-end web, and iOS programming.
Other non-programming but startup-related courses include data analytics, data science, digital marketing, product management, user experience experience design, and visual design.
The full-time immersives will set you back upwards of S$10,000 (US$7,070) while the part-time courses cost north of S$3,500 (US$2,474).
Location: The Working Capitol, 1 Keong Saik Road, Singapore 089101
The Pragmatic Lab has been around since 2011, and was recently acquired by Alpha Camp, a similar school from Taiwan. It has three offerings: iOS, Android, and web programming (focusing on HTML and CSS). Courses cost between S$750 (US$530) to S$2,200 (US$1,555), and can be taken full-time or part-time.
Location: Ming Arcade, #05-01, 21 Cuscaden Road, Singapore 249720
Alpha Camp runs courses in Singapore now. It has a learn-as-you-build 6-week part-time course for beginners to turn their ideas into an iOS app, as well as a deeper 10-week bootcamp that incorporates web or mobile programming with digital marketing and general startup skills. Pricing details have not been released yet.
Location: To be confirmed
StackUp is a new initiative by the National University of Singapore’s Institute of System Science to teach beginners how to code. Three courses are on offer, taking a student through building a web app, creating both the frontend and backend, and using APIs. Pricing undisclosed.
Location: To be confirmed
If your goal is to make your own game, SAE Institute is an option. This is the Singapore branch of an education franchise from Australia which was founded in 1976. It offers part-time and full-time diploma and degree programs in games development. The full-time route will take a year to complete, and it’ll cost about S$20,000 (US$14,000). A part-time option is available for the degree program.
SAE also offers a part-time iOS programming course lasting four weeks. It costs S$1,250 (US$883).
Location: The Riverwalk, 20 Upper Circular Road, #01-42/49, Singapore 058416
If you’re into hardware hacking and Arduino boards (an open source circuit board equipped with sensors), Tinkercademy has something for you. While the company primarily runs courses for students in partnership with schools, it has some light one-off lessons in Arduino programming for the public.
Location: Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, 10 Pasir Panjang Road, #09-01, Singapore 117438
This is an updated version of the original article dated September 17, 2013.
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