Thursday was a banner day at a college in Long Island City that celebrated its first graduating class from a new program that prepares disadvantaged New Yorkers for careers in technology.

LaGuardia Community College held its first-ever graduation for students in their TechIMPACT Program. The almost 17-week boot camp teaches students different coding languages among other skills. 

The 18 graduates also got career and job placement assistance.

Officials say the program will be a game changer for both the tech industry and LaGuardia students.

“If we have more diversity in the tech industry, the types of solutions to problems that they're looking at might be very different,” said the program’s director, Michele Valdez.

“Going from teaching to software engineer is huge and it'll be an amazing impact on my life,” said graduate Naomi Meyer.

There will be another session of the program this fall.

To learn more head to laguardia.edu/techimpact.