The Best Scottsdale Coding Bootcamps Of 2023

 

This bootcamp was wonderful. The University of Arizona had incredibly warm and welcoming staff that were there for us students every step of the way! The TA's, instructor, and tutors were consistently available to us. My instructor was very passionate about coding and taught us so much valuable material we will use for life.

This was challenging doing alongside a full-time job, but they helped make it work and I am forever grateful for that.

 

I have successfully completed my 6-month journey through Arizona State University FinTech Bootcamp! I enrolled in the program with no prior coding experience at all. My background consists of construction and about a decade of day trading experience. I was not sure what to make of the Bootcamp at first as I had never done online education before. I was not very tech savvy in general. The first day of class my instructor asked me a question, he said Why are you here? I thought about it for a second and explained I am there to change careers, I am tired of the physical labor, busting my back all day in the blistering heat. He told me to remember my why and stay focused. I knew it was going to be hard but I decided I was going to trust the process. With the support of my classmates and my amazing tutor/mentor Johnathan I took it one day at a time and little by little started to learn how to program. I became very passionate early on in the course and used that passion as motivation to learn as much as I could. It is a fast-paced course and definitely not for those that are not willing to put in the effort. For disclosure and full transparency, I put in easily 20- 30+ hours each week of outside class time to really absorb everything but I was more than willing as I was determined to learn and remembered my "why".  My Instructor Estevan and teacher assistant Derek were very informative and insightful, they offered office hours before and after class which I attended every one. They could not have been any more supportive of me throughout the entire journey. They knew my background of having No background as it relates to programming and were more than willing to match my effort and support me by answering any questions I had. I realized that the experience is what you make of it so I asked as many questions as I could think of and kept detailed notes. By asking so many questions in office hours and taking detailed notes of the problems I had I was able to start helping other classmates debug their errors in class. Helping others allowed me to instill within myself what I learned. I am proud to say I was announced as one of the Top students in the class upon completion as I maintained an A+ average and missed no classes or assignments.

Being a day trader for nearly a decade I have been keeping track of tedious statistics, manually, first on paper in a notebook then eventually in an excel spreadsheet. Early on in the Bootcamp I realized I could use my skills to automate the tedious and very time-consuming tasks that were required of me. Around the 10th week of the bootcamp, I started working on a personal project to utilize for my day trading. I decided I would implement the skills I was learning in class, putting these skills to practical use in real time really ensured I was comprehending everything. By the end of the program I completed my day trading application and currently use it on a day to day basis to help myself make trading decisions. 

I would recommend this bootcamp to anyone that has an interest in learning Python. You can 100% do it through this Bootcamp as it offers you all the support you need to thrive. You have to have the tenacity from within yourself. If you want to further your education there is no better place in my opinion. The support and staff are professional knowledgeable experts in the field with a bleeding passion which is contagious.  I enjoyed the program and would do it all over again. 

My 2 cents:

Attend office hours 

Meet with your tutor weekly

Re-watch all the recordings of the classes

Take detailed notes

Work on your own passion project

Support your classmates

Always remember your "WHY"

If you want to achieve success Arizona State University FinTech Bootcamp is highly suggested.

I have recently completed the bootcamp so I can not give a fair assessment on Job Assistance yet as it is not applicable to me currently. I can say they do offer excellent resources and provide support in preparing for the career hunt!

 

Going to Codesmith was one of the best decisions I have ever made! As I am writing this I just finished my first day as a software engineer making 3 times more than I have ever made! So I can tell you that Codesmith really does what they say it does.

The tuition alone is worth it for Codesmith's hiring program. They help you hone a resume that you can be proud of! They teach you how to reach out and get interviews even in a horrible job market. And they provide continued support after you graduate. I did not come from a tech back ground either. I mostly worked in the service industry and government. 

The thing that impressed me most about Codesmith was that it wasn't designed to take you from zero to hero. You actually have to work hard to get in. They have a free program called CSX and weekly free trainings that will get you to a junior level skill set. Once you are in the program you hit the ground running and they start developing the skills that will take you to a mid to senior level engineer. You learn the stuff you really can't get from YouTube videos or medium articles. You work with other humans and develop technical and empathic communication skills. As you grow as an engineer the challenges get bigger and bigger. Then to cap it all off, you and a small team of engineers build a production level application that is designed to impress other engineers. I can guarantee that you will look back on your journey and be shocked at who you have become and what you can accomplish! 

It is not an easy program. It is not easy to get into Codesmith. You will work your ass off and you will hit a lot of blocks that you have to work through. But those challenges literally made me a better man and they made it so that I could handle the challenges of the job hunt and now the challenge of onboarding as a Senior Engineer (I don't know how it happened, I wasn't anywhere close to the smartest in my cohort, but I landed a Senior Fullstack Engineer roll - I am still in shock). I was in the part time program and it was a wonderfully fulfilling nine months that I will always cherish. I made life long friends. And honestly, it is the fact that it is not easy that makes Codesmith so valuable. I genuinely feel like this tuition was the best money I have EVER spent!

This program helped me learn and grasp concepts I could not on my own so fast. Gained familiarity with Routing, Switching, Dynamic routing along with Firewalls, VPN's and troubleshooting. 

From the moment that I begin my journey last August to working towards attaining my certification I was excited. It is not an easy decision to learn a new skill or pursue a different line of education. It is easy to know that after the hard work that you have done you can be the professional and an influence to others. I am so glad that I found this program and made the sacrifice to work hard to learn a new skill.
The hard skills that I have in data analytics were fined tuned as I moved through the Academy assignments. I have admit that I hit many roadblocks in studying but the mentor resources that are available gave me the support and confidence I needed to reassure me that I could do it. I am so appreciative of the work that the instructors, my peers and the mentors provided and I hope to be an influence and shoulder to lean on for any future student of Data Science that may need it.

Jacqueline Thompson