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Introducing CourseStorm Roulette!
When I was in high school, I was obsessed with computers. Like most kids that age, my friends and I loved playing video games, but we also loved creating things. The first computer program I wrote with a friend was a short game of Madlibs. The game started by asking you for words: adjectives, nouns, places, things you wear, etc. We’d then take those words and insert them into a pre-built story invariably designed to make whatever you had typed into a crude joke. It was a blast!
But one thing was clear when it came to school — there wasn’t a lot of instruction for computers. Sure, we could take a keyboarding class or learn the ins and outs of Microsoft Word, but there wasn’t a class we could take to just “build cool stuff” on the computer. Yet, that’s all we wanted to do! We wanted to build computers from scratch, program new games to play, design animated shorts, create cool video effects, and stay up late into the night making music on the computer. We wanted to learn how to create new things, but there were no classes we could take that would teach us. So, we taught ourselves.
Fast forward almost 20 years and things have changed a bit. There has been an explosion of availability for classes like these and others for anything you’d like to learn as a kid or an adult. Interested in learning to play the ukulele? How about speaking Spanish? Or maybe solar energy, macro photography, or grafting apple trees? There are classes for all of these.
Before we started CourseStorm, I had no idea that these classes were out there. It was astonishing to see all the interesting things you could learn right in your local area, taught by curious people just like you. So when we had the chance to help expose and promote these great learning opportunities, we jumped at the chance.
Today, that’s still what drives this company — an intense love of curiosity and sharing that passion with others.
So, I’m very excited to announce CourseStorm Roulette: a game where you can pit your interests against our archive of classes from organizations across the country. If there’s something you always wanted to learn, but didn’t think there was a class to teach you, here’s the chance to find out.
The class archive at CourseStorm Roulette will continue to grow every day as new classes and organizations join CourseStorm. So if you can’t find a class that you’re looking for just yet, check back later — it won’t be long!
Play CourseStorm Roulette
By the way, although the idea for CourseStorm Roulette has been kicking around in my head for a while now, it only took 5 minutes of mentioning it to our crack team ahead of the Maine Startup and Create Week Tech Hiring Fair last Friday before they jumped at the chance to work on it. In fact, tons of credit goes to Justin Russell on our Product Team for designing and building this back-of-the-napkin idea in less than 4 hours flat so that we could share it at the Fair. If you’d like to join Justin and the rest of our scrappy startup team — we’re hiring!
Matt James
Matt has over 20 years of experience in the software industry. As the founder or co-founder of four software companies, he comprehensively understands technology, design, operations, finance, sales, marketing, and customer service. Matt co-founded CourseStorm to connect learners to classes where they can gain education a la carte to enrich their lives through art classes, prepare for a new job, or level up their existing skills.