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Field report 05 · Education · Pilot

Building General Assembly's Business and Design school in Los Angeles.

One of GA's founding course producers in Los Angeles, years before GA was acquired. Then a student in its first Swift class, and a product management instructor.

A one-page PDF of this field report.

General Assembly founding producers, 2014
GA founding producers, New York, 2014
Company
General Assembly, Los Angeles
Role
Founding course producer, Business and Design
Then
Swift student, product management instructor
Campuses
2 in Santa Monica, 1 downtown
Years
2013 – 2015

S1The situation

A first campus, and a part-time school to build.

GA was launching its first Los Angeles campus. Its Business and Design courses needed curriculum, instructors and students.

S2The one outcome

Fill evening classrooms, taught by people doing the work.

Recruit senior practitioners to teach working professionals, and improve every course between cycles.

S3What we built

A course catalog and the bench to teach it.

  • 25+ part-time course cycles launched
  • 50+ curriculum iterations
  • 15 senior professionals recruited to teach
  • The downtown product management course

The courses

Four tracks, taught by people doing the work.

Working professionals learning nights and weekends, taught by people doing the work every day.

  • Product

    Product management

  • Design

    User experience design

  • Marketing

    Digital marketing

  • Business

    Fundamentals, sales and business development

The debrief

What the school reached.

Working professionals learning nights and weekends, taught by people doing the work every day.

  1. 450+Graduates of part-time programs
  2. 3Physical campuses launched
  3. 25+Course cycles produced
  4. 50+Curriculum iterations
  5. 15Senior professionals recruited to teach

In their words

“Uzair has a gift for taking a roomful of people at vastly different levels and adapting to each individual's needs so that nobody feels either left behind or too far ahead.”
Abbie Moore
A product management student, now COO, Petco Love
  • “What I liked most about Uzair was how much he cared for his students by providing the resources to deliver the quality of work they deserved. Seeing this, made me want to come back to teach at GA again and again.”
    Cesar Gomez
    A GA instructor Uzair hired, now Principal Product Designer, Demandbase

Laps · how it got here

  1. 2013

    Founding producer

    GA's first Los Angeles campus, in Santa Monica.

  2. 2014

    Three campuses

    Santa Monica twice, then downtown.

  3. 2015

    Swift graduate

    GA's first Swift mobile class.

  4. 2015

    Instructor

    Product management, downtown Los Angeles.

Your version of this

A whole room, at every level, moving forward together.

That is a Pilot: two focused days a week with your team, for 30 or 60 days.

Book a 15-minute call

A one-page PDF of this field report.

Ready to start? Start 30 days · $10,000 for 30 days, paid in full, or Start 60 days · $20,000.

Further reading

All writing →

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Thank you to every student, instructor and teammate at General Assembly Los Angeles.