Tech startups, creating apps, designing websites – 2017 has proven that coding is one of our job market’s most valuable skills. But people aren’t just born with coding skills.

Enter: Carolina Code School, a new project by Greenville-based nonprofit Build Carolina that is set for an early 2018 opening + will offer full-time software development courses to students and professionals who want to learn their API from their IDE.

Held six times a year with up to 20 students, the 12-week coding course costs $13,999. Sounds steep, but there’s no cheat code for learning HTML (it’s not like the days when you could hack the Sims to get extra money). This course spends 8 weeks on frontend and backend development + 4 weeks of study in the programming language of your choice. And funds from the coding school will go towards self-sustaining costs (like paying instructors) + future initiatives.

The school has backing from the experts: Lelia King, the former director of communications at The Iron Yard, is the executive director + Build Carolina board members include Peter Barth, the founder + former CEO of The Iron Yard, The Iron Yard’s former chief marketing officer Eric Dodd, and CEO of NEXT John Moore.

Carolina Code School will launch in partnership with Greenville Chamber of Commerce’s NEXT program. Courses will be held at the NEXT Innovation Center.

The coding school is also planned to include an apprenticeship/internship facilitation and matching program and an innovation fellowship program (in partnership with Furman + Greenville Tech for credit transferrals), providing even more opportunity for soon-to-be programmers. Carolina Code School is only one of Build Carolina’s three planned initiatives to boost economic development in 2018 – keep an eye out for what’s coming next.