The Firehose Project

      I've started my course in June this year, so somewhere in a middle of the programm now. It's amazingly well structured. From the very first lesson you deploy your web apps and make them not only functional but a good looking also. This is great. You can tell that curriculum is a very well thought and the Firehose Team are very responsive and attentive. When I got stuck with something and posted a question Ken Mazaika responded literraly in the next couple of minutes. Deffinetely recomend! 

I had reached a turning point in my previous career when I came across a lifehacker article on boot camps. I found the concept appealing, and in-person bootcamps like Hack Reactor sounded awesome. However, the logistics (ie moving there for the duration of the program) and cost put that kind of program out of my reach.

While researching alternatives, I came across The Firehose Project. I exchanged quite a few emails with them and eventually gave their 2 Week intro a shot. This was free of charge. This went well and after only a little hesitation I started the full-time program. The program consists of 3-4 Full-Stack web apps, separate coding challenges throughout, plus a group project at the end. You can look up the program details elsewhere, so I won’t repeat them here.

A big positive is that that the team is always working on the program. Some are minor tweeks, other a big section additions or overhauls. They don’t just sit on something that works, they are constantly working to make it better.

It is an online bootcamp, but I still felt well connected. Every time a had a concern and emailed Ken or Marco, I received a reply very quickly. The online office hours were always worth my time, even if I didn’t have a question.

In regards to mentorship: I’m not going out on a limb when I say that all the mentors really know there stuff. Once a week, you will get 1 hour of quality time to pair program or talk about code with a very competent developer. How much they care about you beyond that will vary.

You will have a seperate mentor who will act as the project manager for your group project. For me, the group project was mostly positive, although the end of the project was during the December holidays which made completing the project difficult. You do have the alternative of doing your own project as an alternative to the group project. Talk to the staff to figure out what’s right for you.

Today, I’m working as a developer and Firehose played a major role in that. But don’t think that paying for a bootcamp and just going through the motions will get you a job. Personal initiative and continous learning is critical.

In closing, if an in-person bootcamp is feasible for you, give it serious consideration. But even if it is, take a look at Firehose. Above all, do your research and ask a lot of questions.

I am on my sixth week at the Firehose Project, and so far I am really enjoying it. I had spent a few weeks researching bootcamps, including here on CourseReport. I wanted online and part-time.

There were two main reasons I was sold on Firehose:

1. The free two-week bootcamp prep course. I got sucked into it because the curriculum is so well-written. I figured they must be confident in the quality of their curriculum to offer this wonderful prep course for free, and that really impressed me. 
2. The agile team project. This showed me that they really value teaching how to work as a developer beyond just the coding itself. (This is also true as they get you into reading and writing blogs.)

My one concern before starting was that one mentor session per week wouldn't be enough. Now that I'm in the bootcamp, I have personally found that one per week is just right for me. I don't know that everyone will feel the same way -- I think this really depends on each person's learning style, so it's important to really know yours when making this decision.

There's a lot of material to conquer. I spend 25+ hours per week (on the accelerated track). But finishing a project or a challenge is so satisfying, and after almost six full weeks, I already feel confident that I can create basic web applications. Also, the community is active and friendly. There's plenty of support and general discussion in the forums, office hours, Slack, and Google+.

I haven't started the job assistance stuff yet, so I can't comment on that. But so far, I am very happy with Firehose.

There are a lot of bootcamps out there, but not a lot of good ones that are fully online. I joined the FirehoseProject last year and it was a life changing experience. Prior to joining the bootcamp, I had experience with HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I joined because I needed to move beyond the basics. Firehose will help you review those 3 skills but will teach you a lot more. Algorithms and Ruby on Rails. 

The best part of the bootcamp is that they teach you both of these two skills. Not just a website but a web applicaiton, and critical thinking. My goal to land a position and after hard work I finally did. I honestly give credit to Firehose and the push that this community gave to me.

I started The Firehose Project in Feb. 2017 with the intention to change careers and develop my existing programming skills to a professional level. Before I joined the programm, I did a lot of research on what would be the best coding bootcamp for me, and I was straight away overwhelmed with the options that I had. So after spending a good 2 weeks going through reviews, blog posts and even starting some of the free coding camps out there, I decided to go all in. I quite my job as an Engineer and started the Firehose Project.

It soon turned out to be one of the best decisions I've made in my professional career so far.

The reason for choosing the Firehose Project were mostly related to their preperation course and a personal interview before the actual course started. I could ask all the questions I had to a 'real person' (not only watching a recorded Youtube video as with some other boot camps out there) and got a good idea of what the real course would look like by going through the preparation. In addition to that, The Firehose Project's curriculum included not only lessons about Ruby, jQuery, CSS/HTML etc. but also hours and hours on algorithms andTest Driven Development (TDD). 

I am now in the last 2 weeks of the course and currently involved in a remote agile team project. After endless hours of coding, mentorship and reminders from my wife to eat, shower and sleep, I can now say: Through The Firehose Project, my passion for coding transformed from an initial spark into a wild fire. Looking back, I never would have thought that I learn as much as I did within just a couple of month. Thanks to the two founders Ken and Marco who are constantly helping their students (via weekly office hours, slack chat as well as via email and as mentors), I am now confident not only to enter the real life coding world (and they even prepare you for that with a big job preperation at the end of the course) but have also already started to help out other coding students.

If you asked me if I chose them again , I'd say: without hesitation!

I have been only using Firehose for a little over a week. I have tried other bootcamps and the thing that sets this apart is the communication and philosophy the Firehose staff use to keep future programmers engaged and also supported when hitting the wall...and sooner or later you hit the wall when learning to program. The fact that I was often supported as well as given positive reinforcement was great and made bette rby the fact that if I had a question it was almost answered before I asked it. I think there are many good and some great coding schools out there but the ones that communicate actively as well as push in the positive way and direction are the ones that shine. So far my experience with Firehose has been extremely positive and it keeps me working through the prep work feeling that if I go furthur I will be well supported in leaning all I need to learn...and some things they will make me awrae I need to learn.