San Diego Code School

I've been asked by numerous students via LinkedIn, Slack, and text message to write a review of my experience because they “know [I’ll] be honest,” “don't need the ‘employment services,’” and they are afraid to share their true experience for fear of retaliation and/or ostracism, yet want prospective students to “know what they are getting into.” I hadn’t written anything to date because, honestly, I couldn’t find myself caring too much about speaking up for the people who watched what happened to me and other students in real time happen and never stood up for us—yet sent plenty of private messages of “support, empathy, or solidarity.” Because I am a person for the people and believe in standing up for what is right, however, I’ll share. I keep receipts; screenshots, text messages, and audio recordings, so, denial is cute and all, but receipts don’t lie. Watch—my review won’t get a response from the owner because, how can you respond to this?

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I relocated to San Diego from Texas days before the beginning of “class” solely for the 4-month membership to a dimly lit and poorly maintained co-working space with little to no parking-- I mean, “full stack immersion bootcamp." What I got was the opportunity to constantly be torn down, belittled, mansplained, patronized, gaslit, and discriminated against (ask me about how Michael Roberts pulled me into his office one day to share how he thought I would be more ‘grateful’ for the opportunity to get into tech as a black women and more ‘mindful’ of “playing into the negativity” of others’ complaints about sexism and lack of resources because, “as a minority and member of the LGBTQ community, you would think [I] would be more sympathetic to his position as a black man trying to run a business.” Yeah, I don’t know wtf that has to do with code school, either, but he had this conversation with me MORE than once. Fun times. Even more fun times because I have many of these conversations recorded.)

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You will be given access to a ‘curriculum’ that you are expected to go through at your own pace—but somehow always be told you are behind and disappointing them, to then be told that, while you were not, truly, behind, that this was their way of ‘motivating,’ and that it usually works for most students to get them to graduate early. Lol what?

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Oh, and don’t be fooled. This is not a “school.” The owner/“mentor” (because a teacher he is not) will constantly remind you of this and how he is NOT a teacher, but a ‘guide’ lol a guide to help you decipher the grammatically incorrect and error riddled GitHub repositories and out of date or broken links to Facebook lives or TED talks about some old man’s journey to create a system/program/app you will not be learning about in your course, I suppose—though, he doesn’t do that, either. He will stare at you blankly until you just walk away. His “assistant,” [name redacted], will then come to you later, privately, quietly, to answer your questions and agree that the errors render much of the course useless to someone with no CS background. Privately and quietly, though.

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You will be lured in by the price and promise of a flexible schedule, coaching, support, mentorship, and post-graduate employment assistance. You will not receive any of the above. You WILL receive, however, sometimey access to a co-working space with harsh lighting, no parking, a room full of people you are never introduced to—yet expected to befriend and ask for help, only to be shown how to google the answers to the plagiarized “lessons” in your curriculum because “[they] don’t get it, either,” and an extremely rude and homophobic woman who isn’t fit to bag your thrift finds at the local 25 cent store, let alone handle your… what does she even do, honestly, besides process your non-refundable payment and sit in on meetings she admits to having no knowledge about to play the mommy dearest role and utilize basic Psych 101 tactics to attempt to break down your self-esteem so that you can be “rebuilt” into their version of an obedient, low to medium wage worker.

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This is a very low budget boys club, the mecca for boys lacking in testosterone and searching for the opportunity to not feel like an incel for once in their lives. There is no integrity to be found in this back alley basement, and, if you are a woman (especially if you are a member of any additional minority class), keep a box of tissues in your bag, because you WILL be bullied, ganged up on, and made to cry, multiple times. Your intelligence will constantly be insulted, your sex will constantly be brought up, and your ideas/input will be mocked and laughed at, regardless as to whether or not you are the ONLY one in your group completing the exercises correctly.

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At the end of the day, people with little to no adult life experience, people with very low self-esteem, infantile men who are eager to fit into the "boys club," and women who are okay with being belittled, discriminated against, and love being mansplained how to "be the kind of woman the guys in tech will like" will find themselves happy to write a non-descript 5 star review of their experience in exchange for the promise of networking opportunities in a circle in which the "instructor" is still an outsider of himself.

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I can't in good conscience recommend this experience to anyone who makes their own money; if your parents still pay all of your bills and you can afford to waste 8+ weeks of your life being bullied and spoken down to (by someone of below average intelligence-- feel free to ask for stories because, WHEW, these folks were FUNNY), knock yourself out. I suppose your trip down depression lane would make for good blog reading or an entertaining train wreck of a YouTube channel.

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Google is your friend. As are peoples actual job histories. Do your due diligence. Anybody can be who they want to be on the internet. Including [name redacted]. Playas eff up. I took this L like a champ and moved on. Didn’t even threaten any legal action for their many breaches of contract and discriminatory practices. And for those of you who attended this school and witnessed the things I shared here and did nothing about it (except reach out to me privately), please understand that your silence makes you complicit in all of these egregious acts (and, in such a litigious society as ours, liable for damages as well. Receipts, remember?).

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You are responsible for your success. You are also responsible for your life decisions. Should attending SDCS be one of your life decisions, please find me afterwards and tell me your stories so I can laugh at your pain—in solidarity, of course.

I heard about the code school from a friend who had already graduated from this program. I mentioned to him that I was interested in programing and software engineering, so he told me to look into San Diego Code School. I did some reasearch that night and found their website where they advertised a 16 week full stack web development course with additional career services after the program. I signed up, went through their application process and joined the next available cohort. Going into the program i had no knowledge whatsoever of Javascript or web development, but Micheal, Margart and Ben are extremely helpful in keeping you going. Over the course of the 16 weeks students will complete more than 30 projects utilizing the M.E.R.N. stack technologies. When you've reached the 12 week mark, you will begin a month long internship where you work closely with product owners, managers and peers on real world projects. This internship acts as a taste of what its like on the job. The program was intense, but extremely rewarding, because by the end of it all I can confidently say that I can build anything I want with the skills i've learned.

  Why is San Diego Code School (SDCS) the best code camp in San Diego? The cuttting-edge technolgy stack you will learn, the access to a career network, the intimacy of the classroom- with instructors that are able to help you in real time in those moments you feel stuck, the camraderie of fellow students who share your goals, instructors who want you to get that job and not just stand on the other side of a transaction, and a unique North County location. Simply put, SDCS delivers a 'coding education' that no other school in San Diego of any sort (code school or traditional university) offers, even if they wanted to. 

     The passion of the faculty is genuine. It's in the moments when you encounter adversity (trust me there is plenty, this curriculum isn't sugar coated) when you realize how important it is to have instructors that care about your success. It's not a job to them. It's a mission. Personally, I started this school with mininum exposure to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It was once magic to me to simply change the colors of text on a screen. By the end of this school, I was creating full-stack applications that had responsive layouts, integrated databases, login and authentication functionality, automated tests, and were deployed on the internet all while using Aglie methods.

      It used to be overwhelming to contemplate where to even begin when it came to learn how to code. Now, I feel empowered to say I have a new set of skills as well as a newfound confidence in being able to learn addiitional things on my own, after having finished my education at SDCS. Truth be told, anyone can teach themselves to code. The information is readily available on the internet. But this just makes things so much easier! Being lead by industry professionals that mentor you, telling you what is useful to learn/implement, and perhaps most importantly- what is not, is an invaluable resource that will jumpstart a rewarding and fulfillng career.  If you are thinking about a code school, I can't recommed SDCS enough! They have changed my life and I will forever be grateful to them!

When I was researching coding boot camps in San Diego my friend recommended working with Michael Roberts since she had completed his curriculum and got a job. That gave me confidence in San Diego Code School and in their program.

I just graduated, and looking back, it’s been a challenging yet great learning experience. The curriculum covers the most popular tools for building a full stack application, like JavaScript, React, Redux, Node.js, Loopback as well as GitHub, CircleCi. There are 4-5 projects required for each module, which provides a lot of coding practice. I now have an appreciation for the amount of  work I did - I learned by coding every day. The last four weeks you are teamed up with other students to finish the final project. That was the most challenging part since you have to use all the knowledge learned plus self-study any new tool you have to utilize for the project. This is also part of the reason I prefer to learn in a classroom environment rather than remotely because you get the opportunity to work in a team and learn from other students.

Michael is a very knowledgeable instructor and very good at showing students how to solve a problem instead of just providing you the straight answer. You do need to research on your own before asking for help. Now he is helping me review my resume and start the job search process.

I have a background in computer science, but hadn't worked in the field for a long time, so I needed to refresh my tech skills before re-joining the workforce.  Initially I studied on my own through online courses, but realized an in person learning environment would be better.  Thankfully I heard Michael Roberts speak at a Javascript meetup and within a day or two I met with Margaret and Michael and realized SDCS was just what I needed.  I signed up immediately and dove in. 

I appreciated that the course was self-paced which meant from the start I could quickly review what I was familiar with, like basic programming concepts, database design, and Javascript, but take more time to learn material new to me, like Redux, Express, Node, and APIs.  I appreciated the blend of learning and coding projects so that I could immediately practice what I learned.  You also end up with a portfolio of project work that is great during the job hunt.  The 4 week group project gave me real-life experience that was invaluable in transitioning into my job - our team of four experienced an Agile project, with daily standups, grooming sessions, sprints, Git workflow, PR reviews, etc...that are critical to my current success as a software engineer.

The other students were great and the environment encourages collaboration and learning from one another.  On Day 1 you might be asking tons of questions, but pretty soon you start answering others' questions, which just helps solidify what you are learning.  We pair programmed every Saturday morning, which is amazing practice for whiteboarding/coding interviews.  We also mob programmed every Sunday, which helps you learn to work with a variety of people who have different competencies and also pushes you to communicate technically effectively.  

I landed a job while I was still at SDCS, so I didn't take part in the post-course job services, but I know that Michael will support anyone's career search fully, as long as you are putting in the effort.  And Margaret makes sure everything runs smoothly and that students stay on track.  Michael and Margaret are people I hope to stay in contact with indefinitely.

All in all, my time at SDCS absolutely helped me launch myself back into software engineering. I highly recommend it.

I did the 16-week full-stack Javascript program and came in with little to no experience, just some code academy, and free code camp stuff. I had a great experience overall, my main concern was the general hubbub I hear about boot camps just wanting your money and not caring about you or your outcome. I found that to not be the case at all at SDCS. Michael and Margaret are VERY invested in how you are doing and progressing during the course and with your continued growth and job placement after. Michael even runs a "looking for work" group that accepts students from other boot camps whose career services are lacking. 

It's not a "hold your hand" kind of place though, they do have what I thought was a solid curriculum and are happy to help whenever you need it but a lot of the skillset they're teaching is how to be resourceful and how to have the tools to continue learning yourself after you're out. It's a good fit for people that are very hardworking and invested. Like a lot of things, it is a place where you can get out what you put in. 

I do feel prepared for the job search having finished. I have had a few technical interviews and haven't felt too overwhelmed or underprepared. 

Overall I recommend it highly.