DigitalCrafts

Hands down this has been one of the best experiences of my life. I was taught by an over-qualified, flat out excellent instructor who took every one of my classmates to the level they needed to be -- no matter his/her background. My instructor was hands-off with those those that wanted to be more independent and more hands-on with those who didn't and especially those who wanted the extra guidance. I chose this course over the others not only because the people seemed awesome(which they were), but for two other major reasons as well. 

1) Of all of the code schools out there, DigitalCrafts is one of the longest, if not THE longest; you get more bang for your buck, and I can't stress this enough, you NEED the extra time. If anything, at the end of it all, you will feel like 16 weeks isn't long enough. So, yeah, go with DigitalCrafts.

2) It's located in Atlanta Tech Village, which is an incredibly cool building with a trendy atmosphere and multitude of tech companies. This allows you to network with other people all throughout the week and some students end up getting hired by companies right there in the building.

To conclude, before we even graduated, we had two of our 15 classmates get hired by well paying and awesome tech companies right here in Atlanta with one of the two classmates having more than one job offer. If you want to get hired, DigitalCrafts will do everything they can to help put you in touch with the companies you want to get in touch with.  Even after we've graduated, we've continued to get tons of help from Jake one of the co-founders. He posts jobs into a job board all the time and is always looking to help us get hired. These guys really felt like a family and I doubt you could get such an excellent experience anywhere else.

I entered the program at DigitalCrafts after relocating and leaving a job in a mostly steady industry, so I was looking for a pretty serious experience that would be a good investment for my risk.  When researching coding bootcamps in Atlanta, for me the deciding factors were the personalized attention and communication I got from the staff and the price.  I was applying from out of Georgia at the time and I was able to chat with Jake and Max (founders) right from the website.  I sent numerous emails with questions and got complete replies right away every time.  This was not the case with other programs I talked with.  To me this showed that DC was invested in their students and distinguishing themselves from other programs by taking a local approach.  I heard this echoed by most of my fellow students later.

I was impressed by the syllabus and planned curriculum.  I went into the bootcamp having a solid foundation in Python, but really no other coding experience.  I was impressed by the rigor of the course and how often the curriculumn is updated and really really honed.  Toby was my instructor, and I was super impressed by his passion for teaching and mentoring junior developers.  It was clear from day 1 that his main goal was to instill independent learning skills in each of us.  He was always ready with an extra assignment or challenge if you finished early and they always focused on building your critical thinking skills.  Having spent a lot of time in the formal education world, he definitely ranks in the top 5 of educators that I've seen in terms of his devotion to his students and their learning outcomes.  He learned from our experiences every day and constantly made adjustments to his approach, which was great to experience as a student.

The one area where I feel like the DC program has room to improve is their formal job search prep activities.  In my opinion when I signed up, this was a significant portion of was I was investing in.  I feel like there was a lot of effort made on the part of the staff to connect students with Atlanta companies and sell employers but I did feel that it lagged behind the intensity of the technical program.  I found myself slightly off sync in terms of when I needed career advice and mock interviews vs when they were held.  

I spent weeks 12-16 of the program on the job market.  I went after full-time work with benefits and full salary due to my personal situation, and was extremely happy to recieve such an offer the day of graduation.  I had approximately 6 interviews, at different levels of formality throughout the job hunt.  Most of the employers I talked to seemed to be suprised/impressed by the longer and full-stack curriculum and I felt that the projects I was encouraged to undertake in the program went a long way in furthering my application.  

In the end, I was very happy with my DC experience and my resulting employment.  One of the best things about the experience was the comraderie among my cohort and how that was fostered by Toby and the DC staff.  I felt personally supported by the program and was happy and suprised to see the staff celebrating sincerely with us as each of us are finding employment.  Definitely felt like it was worth the investment.

 

1. Teacher - Without a doubt it ultimately boils down to how willing and able you are to learn. This requires that your teacher leading you through a whirlwind of knowledge and training know his/her stuff very well. Also, not just know the material, but be able to teach it to class in a way that will allow newbies to understand it and absorb it. DigitalCrafts has sought out great teachers for their program and I absolutely loved learning from the teacher I had.

2. Staff - The staff at DigitalCrafts does a great job to help equip students for the job market. They are very knowledgeable in this area and make it very clear what they expect from the students to help best prepare them for their dev role after the class. Their network of companies and knowledge of the job market are extremely valuable assets that you will gain access to upon being a DigitalCrafts student. This is exactly how I landed my first dev role.

3. Curriculum - The curriculum is current and needed by the job market. All of the skills we learned during my class were very relevent. It was very cool to go from a complete newbie learning a bunch of new skills, to then looking at the job market and saying "Oh awesome we are already learning this in class."

I would highly encourage any of my friends to attend DigitalCrafts if they are interested in learning web development. It takes a significant amount of work and perseverance but will definitely pay off. 

I came to DigitalCrafts because I felt that I needed a serious, dedicated boost to push me through a learning plateau that self-study and even a five-month front-end internship couldn't help me overcome. I did a lot of research and chose DigitalCrafts because of the good value, extra month (most other bootcamps last 12 weeks, not 16), focus on full-stack JavaScript (not Rails), and the fact that it was based in Atlanta where I knew nobody and would have no distractions.

It turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. 

The concept of these bootcamps seem almost too good to be true. People from underpaid/low-paying fields enroll in a program that lasts a few months and then go land with a job that pays double or triple when they were earning before. It's easy to get wrapped up in the payoff, but what often gets overlooked is how much hard work and grinding is truly necessary to get to that level. DigitalCrafts offers a program that facilitates the best possible path to this new career. There's nothing "magical" about it -- it's up to you to put in the effort -- but everything is set up so that if you do your part, you'll come out on the other side with the chops, abilities, and mindset of a web developer.

The most prominent aspect that sets DigitalCrafts apart from the pack (and I've felt this way since I first reached out to them in July of 2016) is the authenticity of the program. It's an organization run by people who sincerely want their students to succeed. Period. While I was there, I always felt at home and at ease with everyone on staff. The administrative staff was constantly checking in with us and also hosting events, bringing in people from the industry, and overall doing everything they could to offer us the best possible learning experience. The instructors are phenomenal and are incredibly dedicated to their students. It was clear that they were there because they loved teaching and I learned so much, even having come in with a decent amount of prior experience.

The most critical thing I learned at DigitalCrafts was how to think. The key to success in this field is being a good problem solver, and this program really taught me how to approach real-world challenges and produce viable solutions. Prior to DigitalCrafts, I had always concerned myself with the tools and the final result without much consideration for the process, but this program changed my perspective and I am now far more confident in taking on unknown bugs, challenges, and new technologies than I ever was before. It made me a much more flexible and adaptable developer, which are two traits that worthwhile employers really want in their candidates.

I strongly recommend DigitalCrafts to anyone who has had enough exposure to the field to be absolutely sure that they want to pursue it as a career. I'm extremely happy with my decision and consider it to be one of the best investments I've ever made.

Going to DigitalCrafts was the best decision I've made in regards to career choices.  I came from an I.T. background and quit my job as a Desktop Admin at a major Houston based hospital to attend, and I was terrified.  I spent hours reading reviews, talking with different bootcamps in Houston and Austin, and talked with my wife about where to go and what to do.  I spoke with graduates from the program before making my decision, and every single one of them had a job in the field, and every single one of them said it was the best decision they made. 

Damian, the instructor in Houston, is an amazing teacher.  Every day class was lively, packed full of learning, and tons of laughs.  Damian graduated from a top 5 computer science program, and has been working in the field for over a decade.  The amount of knowledge that he has, and his ability to pass it along to the students is remarkable.  I can’t speak highly enough of him!

I decided on DigitalCrafts because they teach full-stack development, they're placement rate was outstanding, and the reviews were very good.  It was very reassuring how forthcoming Jason, Max, and Jake were in my initial conversations with them.  They are all very honest about how difficult the program is going to be, but how much it can pay off, and it paid off for me!  I got a job offer as a Software Developer at a fast-growing Houston company only 9 weeks into the course.  The salary that was offered to me was a 50% increase to what I was making before DigitalCrafts, and the earning potential as a software developer is exponentially higher.  No matter how you chalk it up, it was a good investment.

If you're considering going to a coding bootcamp, I can't recommend enough DigitalCrafts.  Setup a meeting with Jason, and learn about the program. Talk to graduates of the program, read reviews, do your homework.  For me, the more I dug, the more confident I became that DigitalCrafts was by far the best coding bootcamp in Houston.

-Cody

I am 8+ weeks into my 16 week course at the Houston campus' 1st Cohort. I can't stress enough the amazing value of the DigitalCrafts bootcamp! I already received and accepted an amazing offer from a fantastic company right after the completion of my first capstone project, which was a 2 person full stack project using Python, Flask, MySQL, and Bootstrap. I can honestly say that I have learned more in 8 weeks than I expected to learn in 16 and I feel well prepared to tackle whatever challenges come next. If you are reading this then chances are you are trying to identify the BEST coding bootcamp for you. CourseReport is one of the reasons I decided DigitalCrafts was the one for me and that was hands down the best decision I could have made. I have seen several projects from students of other Houston programs and the depth and breadth of their learning as evidenced by their final projects is not nearly as impressive as our first projects.

Damian, our instructor, is AMAZING! He has decades of experience in the local area and has successfully launched private software as well. He is new to teaching, but you wouldn't know it! You will get stuck and frustrated from time to time and he sometimes let's you sweat it out, but it's for a good cause. He doesn't baby you but he does drive you to push through your frustration and find the answer on the other side. 2 out of 10 of us have already received offers and we are only halfway through the course- what more can I say?

Last thing: Go for it! If you do, the pre-work is extremely important and the people who neglected it have definitely had a harder time so DO IT ALL, but don't be afraid to enroll- its definitely doable. Good Luck!

I had a positive experience at DC to pursue my software development career path. My instructor Veronica was well-organized and detailed-oriented. We started to use Git on Day 1 and I cannot stress enough how important it is to get comfortable with using Git. The cohort was very fast-paced but we had notes from the class instructional time to refer to and we were assigned with daily lab practice and homework to reinforce the topic/concepts daily. When I work on my projects nowadays, I still can easily find my notes to refer to so you know how organized Veronica is with her instruction :) 

Outside class time, I also spent a good amount of time to just review the concepts. As this is a bootcamp, you will be prepared to become a full-stack software developer in a short period of time, and it is not easy to grasp the knowledge right away. My cohort mates sometimes studied together, or find different videos to go over the same topic from a different perspective. My instructor and TA were also very helpful and supportive to answer my questions and guide me through the journey. 

Overall, I would recommend DigitalCrafts if you know software development is a path you want to take! 

I attempt part-time web development last summer. I studied on basics before class start. Course start with about 25 people but at the end of first month we were down to 15. After basics, half of the curriculum is filled with they called “Exercise Day” which they split you into rooms and you are own your own for the rest of the class (3 hrs). Instructors and TAs are already in the industry working on their job, their perspective to boot camp is “side hustle”. They mostly exhausted because of meetings before class. Course materials are not up to date. Key points on programming sweep under the rug because they are not the content of course. Later I learned that the graduation rate is %7. This institution offers you a career that you are paying 10k to study on your own. Main reason I choose DC is comments on the web. I bey that they are bots and NPCs. Read them twice you will agree with me. As far as my personal experience, I throw off instructor just because I share my knowledge. I get with operation manager to help on something but she stop responding. Ridiculous. I decided to drop the class and study on my own. Now I have a job as a Frontend Developer. You are already paying for your internet don’t throw your money to this scam chain.

Within 3 months of graduating, I landed an awesome User Experience job at one of the top companies to work for in the US. My experience at DigitalCrafts was crucial in gaining the skills necessary to be competitive in the job market and start my new career. 

I graduated from DigitalCrafts' first UX bootcamp, and I believe all but 1 student in my class has landed a job already. Pretty cool to see! 

Overall, I thought the program was great. While I definitely had feedback for the instructor and the course, I would highly recommend this program to anyone who is looking to make a career transition into UX Design.

I want to start by saying that the title of this review is NOT hyperbole (and I'll explain why in a bit).

I weighed the pros and cons of taking DC's Immersive Web Dev course for over two years and am quite glad that I waited, even if partly by sheer (pandemic-induced) happenstance. You can rest assured though, as their new, fully-online model feels entirely fleshed out. These aren't passive "online classes" like you'll see in various university courses. You're paying for a dynamic, fast-paced learning community which you'll be accessing from the comfort of your own home.

While said convenience is extremely enticing, this isn't to say that you'll breeze through the course. Every morning, you'll be making your coffee, gathering today's ready-and-willing brain cells into a small pile, and then buckling up, as the information comes at you FAST. This intensity is a double-edged sword, of course. You'll be drowning in all of the excess water you're spilling when "drinking from the firehose" at times, yet you'll be SHOCKED at how quickly the bootcamp cuts through the BS and gets you writing WORKING code.

This is neither a joke nor an overstatement and should echo the title of this review. I started this bootcamp as a professional musician/beer brewer in his mid-30s with no more than a high school diploma and in TWO WEEKS had built a fully-formed, text-based RPG in Python using Object-Oriented Programming. Two weeks. Not two months (or years...). Two. Weeks.

If I can do it, so can you.

I didn't get to the end of this ordeal alone, obviously. Our instructor, Veronica Lino, basically walks on water. She can't help but be a teacher by nature, as her passion for writing "dope code" is matched only by how much she just wants to see her pupils succeed. Because of her guidance, I'm looking forward to many years of crafting "buttons that BETTER work". ;)

Pieces of advice for folks seriously considering DigitalCrafts' Web Dev track from someone on the other side, you ask?

1. DO THE PRE-WORK. For a metric, I left my job almost exactly one month before the start of the bootcamp, took a long weekend to recalibrate, and then spent 6-8 hours per day on the pre-work, at least 5 days-per-week. I felt "slightly over-prepared", but that also may have been because I had a bit of experience with HTML and CSS from my old job. I guess my point is that if you wait and just kind of lazily stumble into the pre-work a week or so before "Day One", you WILL start off behind your classmates and you may never catch up. Yes, it moves that fast.

2. Don't be afraid to ask questions that you deem "simple". It's very likely that a number of your classmates were wondering the same thing and "looking it up later" is a waste of your time.

3. Assemble a diverse team. You'll be coding in pairs as well as groups, so get ready for collaboration. If you only focus on your immediate strengths and don't acknowledge your weaknesses, you'll code yourself into a corner. The folks in your future cohort will be coming from a WIDE range of professional backgrounds, so don't be afraid to let opposites attract. (Word-to-the-wise: Well-crafted/-timed puns SLAY in a coding bootcamp...)

4. Studying, writing your own code, banging your head against your keyboard, searching the web for code-you're-simply-too-green-to-understand-yet, and then finally completing projects just in the nick of time while your imposter syndrome approaches levels of mania will be your life for the entirety of the bootcamp. The course is advertised as 35 hours-per-week, but that's just the classroom time. I was averaging around 60 hours-per-week in front of my computer and this bootcamp is like any type of schooling: You get out what you put in.

5. Use your extended network, as sparse as it may be. DC's Career Services team will pack an incredible amount of battle-hardened insight into a short amount of time (and the "Job Postings" Slack channel is mana from the heavens...), but don't forget about the folks you already know. For instance, I reached out to an old acquaintance that I hadn't spoken to in over 5 years simply asking for advice concerning the job hunt. He not only congratulated me on the feat of completing a study program as grueling as this one, but also said that his company was about a month away from publicly announcing the search for Jr. Devs. Having that one personal connection can pay dividends, as he was not only certain that I'd be a bang-on cultural/social fit for their growing enterprise, but he also said that he'd personally deliver my assets to the hiring manager before the positions were officially announced. And, thanks to DC, I've got an industry-ready portfolio and resume ready to go.

6. Finally, have fun! Frankly, since you aren't getting paid, you won't feel inspired to work on a project that you aren't invested in. You'll be surprised how far you'll push yourself when being proud of your work (and growth!) is on the line...

This isn't a TED Talk, so I guess that's enough, heh.

So, what's the bottom line? I went from feeling borderline trapped in the service industry to being in the running for a job with a growing team that Delta just invested $75,000,000 into simply by giving DC's course my all. I would've laughed you out of the room in September of 2021 if you had told me that I'd be writing a sentence like that in this review, but it's like my dad used to say, "Luck is just what happens when you set yourself up to succeed."

(TL; DR: If you're wondering if the price tag is worth it - it is.)

Let me start off with the key thing I wanted to know back when I was haunting Course Report in December 2020, trying to decide which bootcamp to attend. I graduated DC at the end of May, started a 3-month internship with an amazing company in mid-July, and in late September, accepted their offer to stay on as a full-time software engineer. DigitalCrafts (like probably most of the other schools on here) encourages its brand-new grads to come to CourseReport to leave a review, which is why so few of the reviews have any info about job outcomes. I decided to wait until I had a full-time role so that my review would also include that data.

I chose DigitalCrafts because I wanted a decently-long, instructor-led bootcamp with good career assistance, and that's exactly what I got. There are definitely cheaper bootcamps out there, but they are generally some combination of:
1) shorter curriculum / fewer skills taught
2) zero post-bootcamp career support
3) more of a contract agency than a bootcamp, but willing to teach you a bit for money before sending you on their worst jobs

DigitalCrafts is fast-paced, and you will put in a lot of work, but you get out of it what you put into it. There are no grades; you either pass or fail the program as a whole based on your final resume, portfolio website, and capstone project. In the full-time immersive program, there are daily in-class activities and a daily assignment, but again, nothing is "due" or graded. But if you choose not to do the work, you're only hurting yourself and wasting your money. There are four projects in total counting the capstone, so you get a good amount of experience working alongside others to build an application (one project is solo).  In addition to the instructor, there are also TAs (or in DC-speak, "Developers in Residence") ready to help with any questions both in and out of class; there are office hours nearly every day.

Post(??)-COVID, they have shifted to a model where instructors teach remotely, students can be either remote or on-site on any given day, and TAs/DiRs are on-site to help anyone who came in. (The part-time program might still have remote-only DiRs.)

Pros
- In theory, if you are driven, it is possible to teach yourself web dev using Udemy, Youtube, Coursera, and the like. In my post-bootcamp experience trying to pick up new/extra skills, there often comes a point where I get stuck in my code as compared to what they're doing in the video. If I can't figure out where I've gone wrong within 30-60 minutes, I get frustrated and give up. Having the instructors and DiRs at my disposal during the program eliminated this roadblock. Were there days when I just DID. NOT. GET the activity or assignment? Absolutely. But I was always able to get help and more in-depth explanations to get unstuck. At a minimum, it would have taken me much longer to learn these skills on my own, with much more frustration, and with more anxiety about whether I was choosing the right things to learn to actually get a job.

- The career services offered by DC are truly invaluable. Y'all it is hard out there for a newbie web dev! The market is absolutely flooded with juniors. It's even hard for brand-new CS degree holders. But DigitalCrafts works to build relationships with employers and can often get your resume directly in front of a hiring manager, as opposed to you applying through Indeed or whatever and maybe never even getting your application seen by a human. One of your 16 weeks of instruction (in the full-time program) is Career Week. Your instructor for the week is someone from their Career Services staff instead of your tech instructor, and they lead you through building your new tech resume, creating a portfolio website to showcase your skills, and learning tips and tricks about how to use LinkedIn and networking in general to your advantage.

- The benefits of the community don't stop at graduation.
: You retain access to your class's Github repo, so you can go back to the assignments at any time. The classes are recorded so you can download those and revisit them as well (though I do think Zoom deletes them after like 4 months, so don't wait forever to download them).
: They have a mentorship program you can take advantage of as a student, and you can still take advantage of it as a grad. (It's entirely possible to be a mentor and a mentee at the same time if you want!)
: There are monthly "elective" talks in the evening on new skills or career advice; these are also recorded so you can go back to them at your leisure.
: There are job fairs every few months with employers in the areas DC has physical locations, as well as remote-only employers. Both current students and alumni are welcome to attend.
: You remain part of the DC community on Slack; there's a dedicated #alumni channel and you have access to the job-postings channel among others. DC grads who've gotten positions often point their employers toward DC as a source of possible talent.
: Most crucially, Career Services staff are always there to help you out, not just with your first job, but your second/third/etc. They will review your resume/portfolio/etc at any time, and help get your name directly in front of hiring managers.

Cons
- It is on the more expensive side (worth it, but still) and they don't offer the income-sharing payment method that some other bootcamps do, where you defer payment until you get a tech job.

- They have physical locations in Texas, Florida, and Georgia, and remote students from all over, so their curriculum by definition can't specifically target what employers are looking for in your local market. You do learn how to learn as part of the program, though. Picking up another programming language after you've already learned a couple is comparatively not a huge deal.

- Some of the employers they post positions for / let attend the job fairs are not exactly places most people would want to work. Always do your own research - Glassdoor is your friend! Some are places who make you sign a 2-year contract at pathetic-for-SWE wages, others are places that aren't really jobs themselves but rather services (with a price tag) to help you find a job, etc. Know your worth and aim for something near that median salary that CR lists under "DigitalCrafts Outcomes".

Conclusion
In mid-December 2020, I was working in an entirely different industry and had never written a single line of code. Ten months later, I am an intern with an awesome tech company with a great cuiture, and will be a full-time staff member with them starting this coming Monday. I will be making slightly more in that job than I did in my previous respected, degree-requiring field, where I had enough years of experience that they were trying to push me into management.  Was DigitalCrafts worth it? Absolutely!

 Digitalcrafts Full Stack Development Immersive is designed to take individuals with little to no programming experience and make them successful software developers.

Being a retired military veteran I wanted to learn a new skillset, and Digitalcraft s FS program did exactly that. 

Digitalcrafts FS program tested my intestinal fortitude as well as my tear ducts lol, but it is sooo worth it, I could have never imagined that I would have learned as much as I did in 16 weeks.

If you are considering starting this bootcamp, wait no longer and apply today.  This is an amazing organization with amazing instructors, and support team that  WILL NOT allow you to fail.

Take the jump make the leap, you will not regret. 

Class 04-21 #veronicascodekids