The Best Boston Coding Bootcamps Of 2022

My thoughts about my time at Launch Academy. I thought the experience was great overall. This course was taken during the pandemic so it was mostly done online. There was an option to go in the classroom but it was the middle of winter and leaving the house didn't seem as appealing. All of the instructors were great. They did a good job of explaining the concepts and helping you if you needed it. You will not be spoon-fed information. There is a level of expectation for you to put in some work so be prepared to spend some of your own time to figure things out. Make sure you go into the program with a good basic foundation (html, css, javascript). We had a really good group within my cohort. Everyone was helpful and wanted to be better. I enjoyed my time at Launch Academy and will never forget the experience. 

This course was worth every penny. I learned so much and grew so much as a developer in this class. I would absolutely recommend this course to anyone looking to learn full stack Web Development. The Instructors and TA's are top notch, friendly, and helpful!

I highly recommend First Step Coding's  "Bootcamp Prep Course " as an introduction to the curriculum, and format you'll experience in a Bootcamp.
Andy and Shlomy were great instructors.  They have both technical expertise and teaching skills. The  final “interview” with Kurt at the end of the class put me on the data science path. The material from this course gave me a good foundation to start prepping for a bootcamp.
I just graduated from Metis' Data Science Bootcamp, and it all started with the Bootcamp Prep Course.

The Framingham State University Bootcamp helped me expand my knowledge into Web Development! I've always wanted to learn more about how websites worked and this program came around at the right time. 

The teachers work in the industry and are able to speak to what you would be required to learn and do in that field. All material taught is relevant to what the industry calls for and is a great starting point for a Web Development career and all paths you can take with it. 

The staff is 100% committed to your success and they go above and beyond to make sure that success happens! After-program career support connected me with tons of resources and got my resume and cover letter seen by real people, who are industry connections of the program. Despite the troubles COVID caused with hiring, they never stopped being active in my job search. There was always someone available to help me with networking contacts, resume and cover letter creation, or as a sounding board to bounce ideas off of. It's nice to have someone on your side.

Once the lockdowns eased and companies were feeling more comfortable, I was in a position to be hired immediately! As long as you put in the effort, you will absolutely get the full benefit out of this program.

I was looking for a career change at the end of 2019 and started researching web development. I loved that this bootcamp was local and offered one day a week in person classes. I was so nervous that I would end up in over my head (I had ZERO coding experience) but all of my nerves went away after orientation. I was so inspired by that first day of class. This isn't just a web development course, this is also a course in professional and personal development. My classmates came from all different backgrounds and that made this class so much more interesting! We were encouraged to discuss our different backgrounds and to celebrate and utilize each other's strengths. I always felt comfortable asking questions in class and was never made to feel embarrassed for not understanding something. The instructors do an an amazing job of balancing teaching technical skills and soft skills. I still can't believe how much I learned and all of the things I built in just a few months. I was so impressed with how quickly and efficiently they were able to pivot our class to 100% online when the pandemic started in March, they were still able to provide a number of interesting and informational speakers and engage all of us in meaningful discussions. All students are offered career support after graduation which was extended for many of us due to the tough job market during the pandemic. You will not find a more supportive group of teachers and staff who truly care about your future. These are people I know I will stay in touch with for years to come and skills that I will use for life. 

Product school was a great resource in helping me with my industry transfer into product management. My instructor, Toby Martin Hughes, was very informative and is definitely a very talented product management instructor. I am pleased to have attended this class, and look forward towards my career as a PM.

I've been slowly teaching myself to code over the years. 
Then slowly learning game development online with a Udemy course. 
This last fall I decided to really commit to being a builder in the coming Metaverse. I wanted to learn how to actually start working on my own ideas.
At first I was over my head. The pace of the course was crazy, I was learning so much, I was overwhelmed. 
But a few weeks in things started to click.
By the end of the course I surprised myself with what I was able to create for the final project. 
I'm no longer a wannabe VR developer, now I am a VR developer. I still have a long ways to go, but as a developer, not a wannabe developer. :) Thank you XR Terra

This is a long review, but I know how intense this process can be for those of you looking at attending a bootcamp. It has now been about a year since I decided to attend a bootcamp to change careers. I looked everywhere online when I settled on going to a bootcamp; I read every review, I watched every video on Youtube, I even messaged alumni of different bootcamps on LinkedIn, and eventually, I found my way to Codesmith. For the last 3 months since the program, I’ve considered myself lucky everyday I made the choice I did.
 
 Codesmith is without question, the best educational environment I’ve had the privilege to learn in. I’ve been lucky enough to go to good schools in the past, but I’m really proud, frankly, to say that this online bootcamp has really left them in the dust in key ways. I’ll make a note here that I was hired as a fellow by the program after my time in the immersive program, so if you need a grain of salt to start, there could be one. 
 
 - Admissions: It is worth making a comment right away that getting into Codesmith is not easy, but it is NOT an unjust process like I experienced in other programs. I speak from experience as someone who applied elsewhere, tried to go through admission processes at other places (everyone should have options), and eventually conducted the literal technical interviews for Codesmith myself, the admissions process is doing its job well. I won’t get too lost in the details, but I will say that if you can pass the Codesmith technical interview, you have what it takes to become a software engineer. They test on every quality and detail that I was tested on in a real technical interview for the job I have now. That all said, don’t rush into this process. It is possible, having seen both sides of admissions, to brute force your way through, with time. Do NOT throw $20k into something before you are ready. If you understand, for example, how to add methods to a prototype so they can be inherited by other objects, you could be ready. If you have no idea what I mean by that, do not stress even a little bit; just take your time to learn is my point (:
 
 - Curriculum: The curriculum is fantastic. You will touch all the technologies you need to get a full-stack developer position: Javascript (you’ll be a pro), React, Node.js, Git/Github, etc. However, what you come to appreciate and feel confident in by the end of the program is that you could see any tech, any framework, even any new language, and given realistic timelines / expectations by your team “in the wild” could learn what is needed to solve a problem in whatever tech stack. This is really because — Codesmith doesn’t create cookie-cutter engineers; Codesmith creates first-class problem solvers who communicate empathetically and technically like senior engineers. If you want to understand why outcomes seem so high for this program compared to others, the answer begins with these 2 qualities above all the rest.
 
 - Portfolio: Not a ton to say here, although a ton could be said. It is worth noting that you will have a better time job hunting when you have real open-source products on the resumé. And Codesmith focuses on making you build real, open-source projects before you leave. You don’t want to pay for a program that is tutorial style really, because why not just spend $2k (at most) in Udemy courses and be done with it? Codesmith makes you build in small teams of engineers (like in the real world), on projects that are technically impressive and that are REALLY challenging. You’ll hear “hard learning” thrown around a lot in and out of the program, and there is no form of better learning than solving a bug you’ve been stuck on for 6 hours with a team; this makes a good portfolio for sure.

- Hiring Support: I have so much love for the hiring support team answering every ridiculous, anxious question I ever hit them with, day or night. Codesmith really points you in a direction at the end of the program and teaches you how to carry yourself in interviews in the tech industry. Tech interviews and getting hired generally as a software engineer is honestly very formulaic. It’s almost entirely behavioral / very ceremonial, which was somewhat surprising to me. Codesmith guides you through all of these processes and really do their best to ensure you have support networks (during and after the program) to guide you through the idiosyncrasies of the tech industry. I would NOT have gotten a job as smoothly as I did if it wasn’t for their mentorship.

- Management/Team: This part could be a never-ending rant. I think what you will find, even will find just by attending the free workshops, is that Codesmith is a community of really passionate people that are putting in the work for the right reasons. I truly believe Codesmith only works because the instructors and the management of the organization are people who are passionate about seeing people change their lives. Will Sentance is the founder and owner, and not only will he give your cohort a lecture at the end, but you will get several chances to hear from him throughout the program; could not be any more apparent this person cares about fostering a space for people to change their lives. Eric Kirsten is a senior board advisor that will lead you through the hiring program. Eric is another huge element of the “secret sauce” of success at Codesmith. Takes a certain level of tailored mentorship to get an engineer to negotiate $15k in base salary after only 8-12 months of studying the industry, and Eric will take a hands-on approach to make sure you get that. Phillip Troutman, he’s the chief academic officer, is another key player you’ll hear from often. Let me tell you, part of the secret of Codesmith is convincing students every day they can do everything and anything so that they actually go out and attempt insane feats of engineering; Phillip is the key to that happening. Every program has different instructors, but in the central remote program — Katrina Villanueva and Jared Lewis are *the* reason students understand the core curriculum so well. Their compassion and attention towards student success is without question what makes the CTRI immersive so effective. For the sake of not making this piece of the review endless, I’ll stop here, but yes, there are that many incredible people in this organization.

 - School / Life Balance: There is very little balance. This is my very real, very difficult con for the program that I would not hide from anyone. You will eat, sleep, and breathe Codesmith, which at times will be a lot to handle. This program is hard. You will watch your cohort go lows and highs of imposter syndrome almost daily. It can even feel a bit cult-like, I suppose, at times. But what can I say — you get a room of intelligent people together every day who want to change careers in a (seemingly) impossible time frame into a field that is really challenging and competitive. It isn't crazy to assume that process will be hard, but if you put the work in you’ll be so glad you did it one day. It took me about 10-11 months, from start to finish, from the day I decided to attend Codesmith, to the day I got a job offer.
 
 There are other great programs out there for sure, but if I was to do this all over again, I’d be right back at Codesmith.

I recently finished up the Coding Temple Part-Time online 12-week Bootcamp and had an absolutely fantastic experience with it.  Right off the bat, major credit has to go to my instructor, Christian, for his stellar job of communicating clearly and plainly for a coding newbie like myself.  From day one there was a very fun tone set for our class that took most of the traditional dry/boring-ness of traditional education completely out of the equation.  Don't let that fool you however, it was a very intense 12 weeks and requires a great deal of dedication, time, discipline, and research on your own time to truly get the most out of this course.  It's very much a "you get out what you put in" scenario so if you're taking the plunge I highly suggest going in 100% and not half-assing it.  

The structure of the course is well thought out and makes logical sense as you built a strong foundation of coding knowledge early on in the classroom and through daily challenges, homework, and projects.  If there were ever any students that weren't sure of how something worked or if there was ever any confusion on a topic, Christian was to-notch at figuring out a different approach to explaining it to us to make sure that we all stayed together on the learning journey and that no one was left behind.

Overall I will say it was the right choice for me to go with Coding Temple for several personal reasons.  Scheduling, timeline, availability of instructors/tutors, budget, and reputation were all very important in my decision to choose this bootcamp over the numerous other ones I looked into.  Enough about that though... if you're serious about trying to switch careers into software development you should go ahead and apply now!  console.log('Thanks for reading my review!  Best of luck out there!')