Coding Dojo

Lets start with the interest of how things work. I'm always curious how you get from a to b and the complications that come with it. If you like to learn about something new and have the help to understand what you are learning then Coding Dojo is it. The instructors are super helpful and very nice. Career Service Department is helpful to point you in the right direction or where to start when it comes to making a appealing resume and how to search for a job. There will be times where you dont know what to do and we ALL felt that way, But once you figure out how to problem solve or display/query data from a database on to whatever page you want.... the feeling is amazing. And the fact you can do it in multiple languages and Databases. I cant really go a day without typing a line of code or thing about an idea of a solution I was working on.  I'm glad I got to learn 3 full stacks and My only suggestion when you decide to join is ask questions and get some sleep even though I was a pro by any means and I was putting in easy 70-90 hour weeks. But that included lectures and labs and asking other students questions. Again ask questions and write notes!. I want to Thanks to all my Instructors Phil, Saurabh, Nichole and Adrien the TA's Daisy, Chris, Michael. Jori Thanks for the initial interview to answer all my questions before I joined. Lets not leave out Michael Choi. Thank you all.

I attended The Online, 16-week program from July 6 – Oct 23 cohort.

The biggest takeaway that won my buy in at coding dojo is their wide breadth of technologies that they teach. Most coding bootcamps only teach JavaScript and the MERN stack. While some bootcamps also offer Python, Coding Dojo teaches MERN, Python, Java, and .NET among others. Ironically, I decided to learn the MERN stack. Now that I’m finished though I am eligible to subscribe to their alumni pass program which unlocks all stacks on their learning platform and continue learning different technologies. I will continue to learn other languages and platforms that interest me and expand my skillset.

A little bit about my background. I already am working in the tech field in a technical support role but I want to expand some of the tools that I have in my toolbox, if you will. I already had a little bit of experience with coding, dabbling with it in my spare time and being I had taken a few classes on it so I was really on the fence about shelling out thousands for a coding bootcamp program but I’m glad that I did. 

I gained real world experience in some modern technologies. The main takeaways that I wanted from my coding bootcamp experience were to leave knowing how to develop full stack software and to have some projects that I’ve worked on to show potential employers. I’m no expert now but I am very confident in my ability to develop and collaborate with other developers. I also have some projects under my belt but I think what’s most important is that I know how to develop so now I’m free to work on more projects. Another perk is that I’ll have free, lifelong access to career services help. That means that I can always hit up Coding Dojo for feedback on my resume or practice doing mock interviews. Yay! 

It was helpful to be able to work with other people in this field to get a better feel for what it is like. Software Engineers/Developers are just like anyone else, they don’t always know the answer to every question. Everyone’s experience will differ give or take a few hundred miles but this is the age of information and Coding Dojo encourages growing through research and being self-sufficient along with being able to collaborate with others in the software developer community to solve tough problems.

Ultimately, I would recommend Coding Dojo. I think that attending any coding bootcamp would be worth the money. However, I wouldn’t expect to finish as an expert. This was more like the first step in a journey of a thousand miles. 

Deciding on a coding bootcamp was one of the more difficult decisions I have made. Everywhere you turn people are promising you the career of your dreams with a big salary to boot. My goal with this review is to cut through some of that fluff and give insights that I wish people had given me when I was going through the process.

I signed up for the Full Time Onsite Dallas course which was broken down into 4 sections. Web Fundamentals(2wks), Python(4wks), MEAN(4wks), Ruby on Rails(4wks). While I signed up for the onsite course everything I did was online and I can not speak to the onsite experience.

Also, because I know people are wondering this, I had zero coding knowledge prior to Coding Dojo. I learned what a for loop was while doing the pre-course work that is given to you after you sign up.

This is not going to be short so here is a quick summery. Coding Dojo was well worth the money but nobody is going to hold your hand. Their learning platform is good, the online experience was better than anticipated, and being around peers who are also committed to changing their lives for the better is invigorating. If I could give .5 stars I would rate the overall experience a 4.5/5 but I will be giving an overall rating of 5 starts down below because I believe in rounding up. 

From this point I am going to offer criticism at some items but please keep in mind these are criticisms coming from someone who enjoyed the experience and gave it a 4.5/5. 

The application process was straightforward and the admissions team was much more helpful than admissions teams at other bootcamps. Vic answered the questions I had and pointed me to some great open house events where I got to meet some instructors and career service folks as well. They did not pressure me into a decision which felt really nice and they also helped me secure some scholarship money. Hint, write a reasonable essay about your journey to coding and you will get some money. Again I would have not even applied for one except for Vic so shoutout to him. 

Now something that caught me by surprise was the size of the class. The Web Fundamentals class had over 45 students in it on day 1. This was a far cry from the 10-14 students I was expecting. There were two teachers and two TA's but it was still too large. This continued through Python but after that my class size shrunk to 8-12 which was amazing. 

This was the first time I had ever experienced learning online and it was so much better than I thought it would be. The instructors did a great job of utilizing zoom and recording lectures so that we could participate in the lecture live while also having the ability to go review a section of the lecture that was particularly challenging. Another perk of having the class online was that it meant I was constantly engaging with my classmates even beyond the 9-5 hours that the course was being held. I made some great friends during my 14 weeks and it was so helpful to have people to talk things out with at all hours of the night. 

The Coding Dojo learning platform was impressive. So much good material on it and I was leveraging it all the time. As a student you get access to the learn platform for a year after you graduate and you get access to stacks that you did not take. You can continue learning new languages even after you graduate :). There were several instances where we were not using the most up to date versions of software etc. It seemed that this was usually so that Coding Dojo did not have to update instructions, content every couple of months or deal with the bugs that come with constant updates. I understand why this decision is made but it still is a little bit of feels bad. To be clear, if you learn how to code in rails 4.2.7 then you can code in rails 6.0.3 so your learning is not being stunted. 

The pace of the class was relentless. Web Fundamentals in particular was challenging for me. I would highly recommend doing as much of the prep work as possible prior to starting. I probably spent 50 hours on prep work prior to starting the course and wish I had spent closer to 100. So I would give yourself 2 weeks of treating the prep work as a full time gig prior to starting if you have no coding experience like I did. However all of the material in the prep work gets covered in class. There were 3 types of students(for the most part) during the first 2 weeks. The first was the group who had coding experience and they cruised through the first two weeks. The second was the group who had done the prep work(this was me) but it was the first time they had seen the material. This second group was always on the cusp of not being able to keep up but some late nights and long weekends got the job done. Then there was the 3rd group(it was the smallest) who had not done the prep work and had little if any prior coding experience. This last group struggled mightily. I recommend not putting yourself in the last group :).

If cannot dedicated yourself fully to this course then Coding Dojo full time is not for you. I spent between 70-90hrs each week just to keep up with the minimum requirements and be prepared for the next day's material. I was usually coding until past midnight every day with a break for meals and exercise. Yes, I worked like that on the weekends as well.

After learning 3 languages and spending two weeks in Web fundamentals I would have gladly traded my 4 weeks of Ruby on Rails for 4 more weeks of Web fundamentals. This in my mind is why Coding Dojo was 4.5 and not a 5. The speed of the course is such that I would have much rather spent more time learning fundamentals of coding instead of another language. I think this would have given me a better handle on the "why" of things which is key to my understanding and being able to fully explain concepts during interviews.

The instructors I had during my time at Coding Dojo were great. Each one had industry experience and were very knowledgeable and willing to help. One of the big things you see as a red flag for bootcamps is when they have a bunch of former students as teachers so I will note that while I was there several students were hired as new teachers and they did not have industry experience(at least according to their LinkedIn). All of these former students were incredibly bright and my interactions with them was nothing but positive but if you are a perspective student you should be grilling your admission person on this and not settle for a wishy washy answer. I'm guessing that the pandemic and moving all classes online has led to an increase in the number of students so Coding Dojo needs more teachers which I get but I would be aware of this. Again from a review perspective my teacher experience was great.

Also another note on teachers: I learned the most from Chris who is the head of the Dallas dojo. However he is the most challenging instructor at Coding Dojo. If you do not enjoy being pushed or want a teacher to be gentle while helping you then you should not take any classes with Chris. Personally, I loved it and learned more in MEAN and Ruby on Rails than I did in Python. You have been warned :)

Coding Dojo makes TA's available to the students for questions that arise after hours(aka after 5pm). The TA's were super helpful but I have to give a shoutout to TA Daisy who was always so knowledgeable and helped me out of many a jam. The TA's were usually available until 8pm during the week and there were not any TA's on weekends. Not having a TA on the weekends was a bummer. Having a great group of friends comes in extra clutch on weekends as they can get you unstuck and not force you to wait until Monday.

Let's talk about Career Services now. My Career Services contact was Michelle and she was fantastic! I gave the job assistance score a 4/5 and Michelle was the reason for such a high score. As a student you get your first Career Services meeting about the time you finish your first stack. Career Services will help you as much as you are willing to help yourself. No one will write your resume or LinkedIn profile for you but they will be there for suggestions, edits, etc. I set up bi weekly meetings with Michelle and she helped hold me accountable for making progress on my resume LinkedIn etc. When I started I did not even have a LinkedIn but I was getting interview opportunities in my LinkedIn inbox before I graduated largely because Michelle was willing to work with me every week. I only put in an hour or two each week into my job search during the bootcamp and even that small amount multiplied by the weeks in the course paid massive dividends and has led to multiple job offers within a week of graduation. 

The reason that Job Assistance is not a 5/5 is because Coding Dojo does not seem to have any pipeline type relationships with employers. Coding Dojo has set up some great tech talks and I have connected with those people on LinkedIn etc and learned a lot. However, I have not experienced anything like having potential employers attend project demo days or things of that nature. 

Coding Dojo will give you the structure, tools, and community to successfully transition into a career as a developer but it will require over a thousand hours of work. I was ready and willing and Coding Dojo was the place that allowed my desire to switch careers come to fruition.

Hope it was helpful to learn more about my experience and if you have more questions feel free to ping me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-perkins/

Coding Dojo was a great experience. The Instructors were easy to work with, knowledgeable and the platform contains a lot of content. Out of all the schooling I have done in the past this was the first time that I was waking up in the morning looking forward to going to class. Even though I was self taught in python and JavaScript I found that through the Coding Dojo I was filling in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge that I missed on my own. Coding Dojo also gave me a great overview of different technologies that I would not have, on my own, learned. I highly recommend to anyone looking to get into the field.

This review could've been 5 stars review but here is my story:
 
Ok program but after two weeks I found that the program wasn’t a good fit for me. I contacted customer service on 10/25/2020 to look into a refund. I spoke with Luke and I asked if I could get prorated amount back of 85% tuition refund. I was told they would look into it and get back to me but in the meantime to go ahead and keep taking the classes. I then received a call from Nicholas Moralez, a different representative there, who told me that Luke was wrong and that they could do the 85% for me without issue and he disconnected me from the program, I lost all access, and the financial team will process a refund for me. At this point I was very satisfied, but then today I received a email from Nicholas’s supervisor, Amanda, who then said Nicholas was wrong and that I would only get 75%. I felt this was unfair because I was already promised the 85% refund and lost access. I sent her an email about my concern and tagged Nicholas on it. He then called me and was very rude, laughing when I told him that I didn’t think this was fair. That extra 10% is a lot of money and this situation shouldn’t be laughed about. I’ve had horrible customer service before but I’ve never felt like this when getting off the phone with a representative.  He then said he would see what they could do but so far all I see them trying to keep from making their previous promise all so they can try and hang on to every little bit of money they can. To me this makes me feel like this company is only focused on what money they can make now and have no regard for the customer, or even consider any future business they would receive from me, friends, coworkers, or any positive review I may have given them, written or verbally that may have resulted in future students.  But now I don’t think I closure send anyone there if they are going to be treated like garbage if they have a concern. I will continue to comment further as the situation progresses, after I was laughed at I didn’t want him to be the one to follow up with me so I asked for a higher supervisor to contact me regarding the issue or at the very least Amanda. He didn’t seem to take my request seriously so we will see. More to come as situation progresses.

 Meaningful growth requires challenge and stress.
The self-taught road was challenging but not as challenging and meaningful as my experience Coding Dojo Bootcamp.

But was it worth it? Let's see.

Spending 100k on a degree when you can get into the same field with just 10k sounded very attractive. It wasn't until right before I finished the camp, I realized the same resources/information, and people willing to hoop on zoom with you and teach are available for free or far less.

• The inexperienced teachers ( aka previous graduates ), 
• Unresponsive career service team,
• Learning platform shutting down, and 
• The lack of attention to detail with updating and managing the content we were learning from was very disappointing.

But with all that said, it was still fun! Some of the teacher's eccentric personalities over zoom made my mornings, I loved fast pace learning along with the building projects, and I also made some good friends.

So was it worth it?
For me, it was not. even after the scholarship knocking the price down to 9k. 

For 14k there's an option to get:

1. 3-months rent
2. Three $12 full-stack courses and on a discount day on Udemy or another course site.
3. One $12 or free Youtube Algorithm & Data structure course
4. Join coding communities and pay 100 for schedule time or even free sessions with the experts you meet.
5. and many more free resources and content update and taught by a trustworthy professional working in the field direct

But don't take my word for it. Until you experience it for yourself, how could you ever know?

Regardless of whether or not it was worth it, I'm grateful. I enjoyed learning with all of my teachers and classmates! 

I am a recent Alum of Coding Dojo. I completed the bootcamp less than a week ago. First I would say that you get out of it what you put into it. I was apprehensive about coding bootcamps but Coding Dojo put my fears to rest. I had some experience in coding but not much. After the first week at Coding Dojo I knew that I made the right decision. The curriculum is challenging and fun. There are plenty of assignments to keep you busy  and for those that come in with more experience there is quite a bit of optional material. The instructors were phenomenal and were always up to date with current industry standards and tech. I would recommend Coding Dojo to anyone who is wanting to learn coding and is looking for a challenge. 

During this 14 week immersive bootcamp I gained a great, wholistic overview of what web development entails. The program is certainly time intensive- in addition to 2-3 hours of lectures per day the assignments and readings require more like 60 hours per week, but you truly get out of it what you put in and if you commit yourself to this program you'll find by the end you've gained a great taste of what web development is all about. Personally I came from a tech background so I was somewhat familiar with the terminology and tools; for students from non-tech backgrounds, I'd highly recommend spending a bit of time before the program getting familiar with the terminology through the prework and online tutorials. Devoting at least a week to the pre-work is essential to making sure you start out on a solid foot. Luckily the online course material is very helpful and thorough even for true beginners.

I found the instructors and team of TAs to be very helpful and accessible despite the pivot to a fully online program. Although completing this program doesn't mean you're guaranteed a job upon graduation, you'll gain the tools and resources to grow your development skills even after the course concludes.