You know the typical story of people trying to pursue the American dream. Usually, they come into the country not knowing anyone or having much to live on. They find a job and work multiple shifts to afford enough to pay the bills. One year after another, they follow the same circle, hoping that one day, they\u2019ll get a better opportunity and live a better life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pursuit<\/a> is a community that empowers these people, and other underrepresented groups in our society: women, immigrants, Blacks and Hispanics, people without a college degree, and those from low-income backgrounds. And it aims to transform many of such lives by providing quality tech training and setting up its Fellows for high-paying tech jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than just a coding program, Pursuit is home to a diverse set of learners who are looking to break into tech.<\/p>\nJoin the Pursuit community today.<\/a>\n<\/div>\n One of Pursuit\u2019s Fellows, John Gomez, shared his story with Career Karma. John is a Colombian-born software engineer. At age eight, he moved to the US with his parents. He had a difficult time trying to fit into his new environment, which affected his grades at school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cComing in as a kid, there was that culture shock. You grow with a perspective, and then you see how different the world is in different parts. So, it was hard for me to reconcile where I fit into it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before Pursuit, John did construction jobs with his father during the day and helped his mother clean offices at night. Although he was accepted into a college, he could not afford tuition plus he needed to help his aging parents. They struggled to make ends meet, eventually pushing John to drop out after a couple of classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As time went by, John widened his mind to the possibilities of science. He enjoyed science podcasts, read physics books, and paid attention to materials that spoke about science and tech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOn one of my first flights since coming to America, at the airport, I saw a book called \u2018How Google Works\u2019 and it talks about the type of people that Google likes hiring. It read: \u2018We like people that are interested in working on things that they find meaningful because they provide a lot of positive impacts\u2019. That resonated with me a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On one of his regular late-night train rides to work, he once again found another book called \u2018Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg\u2019 on an empty seat and read it. He loved the idea of working with people as a team to create software and thought it was something he would want to do in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was coming home one night when I saw an article in the Verge about Coalition for Queens\u2014Pursuit\u2019s former name. They were like, \u2018there is this pilot program that is trying to teach programming to people who come from non-traditional backgrounds.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though he had already begun learning to code on some other platforms, John loved Pursuit\u2019s community feature as it fell in line with what he needed at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo, I applied and I got accepted. I went to the program and now, a couple of years later, I am at Google as a software engineer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n John\u2019s story summarizes what Pursuit stands for: to train adults with the most need and potential so they can land their first tech jobs, advance in their careers, and become the next generation of tech leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to its website<\/a>, all Pursuit Fellows are from low-income backgrounds with 60 percent of them without a college degree. Providing further details on the racial make-up of its community, it says that Black and Hispanic Fellows make up 70 percent of the community, and 40 percent of them are immigrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The community also boasts of an inclusive environment, with more than half of the entire student body identifying as women or non-binary. Pursuit says: \u201cWe believe that everyone should have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream regardless of gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background, or geography.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n John Gomez\u2019s story demonstrates that mantra, and so does Jose Vila<\/a>\u2019s. Before Pursuit, Jose wasn\u2019t living a comfortable life. \u201c…I was barely making above minimum wage. I was living with five roommates and was thousands of dollars in debt. My salary wasn\u2019t on par with my experience or where I wanted to be in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jose was able to get the required training through Pursuit Bond<\/a>\u2014a funding model that allows students to learn with no upfront payment, courtesy of Pursuit\u2019s partnerships with social impact investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After 10 months, he found a job at Moat as an SDK engineer, then moved on to Mailchimp to be an Android engineer. Now, Jose said he\u2019s making way higher than the national average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In its early days, Pursuit relied entirely on philanthropy. It trained 21 Fellows with an all-volunteer staff in a donated classroom space in Queens. It succeeded in transforming their lives and hence, it drove to replicate the success in more people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Pursuit Bond is the community\u2019s way of making tech training scalable. It is an innovative model which provides learning opportunities to members of the Fellowship without any upfront cost. This model involves three key stakeholders: Pursuit, its Fellows, and the social impact investors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The investors share Pursuit\u2019s goals of making tech training accessible to the underrepresented. So, they cover the upfront cost of training for eligible Fellows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pursuit trains their Fellows to become software engineers, and it offers long-term career support. Then, the career support team guides the Fellows through searching and landing high-paying jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Fellows get training without paying tuition upfront. However, they are responsible to pay back as a percentage of their income over some time once they get a high-paying job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can think of it as Pursuit\u2019s customized Income Share Agreement (ISA). What makes it different from what many bootcamps offer is the kind of investor the Fellowship works with and how it designed its financing model: they are investing for social change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Henry Nunez<\/a> is an alumnus of Pursuit and a software engineer at cLabs. Before Pursuit, he went to college to study exercise science, with the hope of becoming a physical therapist. But he never found his footing. He did all sorts of jobs, including being a barista, an EMT, and a front desk receptionist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was during this struggle that a friend sent him an email about Pursuit. In his words, \u201cMy experience at Pursuit has been an incredible one. I remember the first day; everyone in our cohort was so different. Everyone came from different backgrounds and different professions. We were such an eclectic group.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut as time passed by, it turned out we were more similar than we were different. One thing was common: we were here because we wanted a big change in our lives. The [Pursuit community is] really inclusive, and I\u2019m always amazed at the things they\u2019re doing to reach out to underdeveloped communities to bridge the gap of financial inclusivity.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Describing the limitless opportunities the program offers Fellows, he said, \u201cEvery day I entered Pursuit, it felt like a playground where the possibilities were endless.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Erika Perez-Valle\u2019s story<\/a> also reflects the impact that Pursuit is making in many other lives. She crossed the Mexican borders with her mother and sisters at the age of 10. In high school, she was a straight-A student. Her dream was to get a college degree to lift her family out of poverty. Unfortunately, she wasn\u2019t able to go to college. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She worked several low-wage jobs to earn a living until she found out about Pursuit from a news segment on Univision. Erika entered Pursuit\u2019s intensive training program in 2018. Less than a year later, she became an associate software engineer at Spotify. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI still have to pinch myself. This is real. This is no longer a dream. I have so much to look forward to\u2014for my kids, my family, and my future,\u201d she said. Following Pursuit\u2019s tradition, Erika marked her new journey with the Gong ceremony<\/a>. See here<\/a> to watch her hit the gong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Pursuit Fellowship is currently an online and remote program. The Fellowship runs for four years: the first year focuses on teaching programming and the attention includes career training and support for the next three years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Through Pursuit Bond, tech training is made accessible for people from underserved backgrounds. And the community approach to learning helps to provide Fellows with the support and motivation they need to succeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nWhy Pursuit: John Gomez\u2019s Story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How Diverse Is the Pursuit Community?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Pursuit Bond: How It Works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Pursuit Fellow Spotlights<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Want to Know More About Pursuit?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n