Emerging Prairie Set To Launch Fargo’s Newest Coding Boot Camp

Written by: Brady Drake

Photos by Hillary Ehlen

Emerging Prairie is offering individuals a chance to take place in their new 20-week coding boot camp, Emerging Digital Academy, this coming April. If you’ve ever wanted to learn to code, this training program may be for you.


According to the program’s director, almost half of software developers come from a non-traditional educational background. Because of this, there is no previous experience required to apply. 

“There is a nearly 100 percent employment rate in the area for software developers,” said Booher.

They are still accepting applications and here is what you need to know:

Where did the idea to start the academy come from?

Emerging Digital Academy is a non-profit coding boot camp that teaches students the technical and soft skills needed to begin a career as a software developer. The concept of an immersive software development program is not a new idea. There are several dozen high performing programs of this nature that operate in major cities around the U.S. However, there have been no such programs in North Dakota. As part of the Grand Farm initiative, the Emerging Prairie team started thinking about what it would look like to help address the technical labor gap in North Dakota. Technology companies need software developers, and so Emerging Digital Academy was formed to help train folks from all backgrounds in the skills needed to start a career in software development.

What exactly does the academy entail/what does it offer?

Emerging Digital Academy runs a single program called Full Stack Engineering. This full-time, immersive program is 20 weeks long and focuses exclusively on tools, skills, and programming concepts related to modern web application development taught in a professional context. Students start by learning the foundational concepts of web development using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. We quickly move into more advanced training with frontend development (utilizing React and Redux), backend development (Node.js and Express), authentication and API development, and database design.

The final third of the program is focused exclusively on student projects. The first challenge is a solo project where students demonstrate the ability to design, build, and deploy a full-stack web application on their own. The final capstone project is a group project, where students practice modern software engineering processes and team workflow to design, implement and present their project to a real community client via a public demo. Along the way, students will have participated in a Career Day, where they meet with local employers who are hiring. Our employer network is crucial to the success of this program because we are only as successful as our ability to help place students in the industry upon graduation.

The tuition of the 20-week program is $15,500. There are financing and scholarship opportunities available. It is free to apply and there is no commitment or obligation. In other words, we encourage students to apply even if they do not have financing figured out. Once accepted, we work directly with the student to ensure that they are informed on all of their options. As a non-profit, we seek to connect all of our students with as many state and local resources as possible. In addition, we are working with the Bank of North Dakota to create a pilot for student financing, which would make us the only coding boot camp in the country with this type of program. 

See EmergingAcademy.org or contact [email protected] for more details.


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Brady is the Editorial Director at Spotlight Media in Fargo, ND.