The Best St. Louis Coding Bootcamps Of 2022

Claim Academy was the best decision I could have made. I decided to go to Claim Academy after my first semester of grad school at a 4 year university. The program I am enrolled in is suppose to teach a complete beginner coding skills. My university failed phenomenally, with most of my beginners java class averaging a 68 on an open note open book final exam. I decided to find someone who could teach what I needed to know. Claim Academy not only taught me Java, but also taught me tools I needed to ace interviews and get call backs. I have an interview every day next week from recruiters that reached out to me through my association with Claim Academy. I can't thank them enough. If you're lucky, you'll get to have Brandon or Nife as your instructors and Dannohh as a mentor. This is a solid team of instructors regardless of who you get though. Each of them is dedicated to you understanding the material. You just have to put in the work, and everything will fall into place. Do yourself a favor and choose Claim Academy.

I went to a 4 year university and majored in business but had no real passion after graduating. I’ve always had interest in tech which lead me to do research on software development, which ultimately lead me to Savvy Coders. It was the best career decision I’ve ever made. I landed a job in tech about halfway through my cohort. The curriculum and staff are amazing and it will instantly make you employable with good pay. It is a massive time and energy commitment, but it is worth it. Be willing to put in the work and take time outside of class to learn and practice the material. I can’t recommend Savvy Coders enough. 

Boot Camp was kind of special  opportunity for me to come closer to tech world, at the start I didn’t know where to start ,how to go about it, most of my colleague’s  seems to have clues on almost every topic while my world was quite, dark and silent. Through boot camp across well dedicated team  Instructor and TA's  that really help me to overcome all this challenges  and now I see myself starting new career in the tech world. Special thanks will also go to Teacher Assistant (Jessica ) for her patient support and extra time she took to ensure I catch up with everyone God bless you. To anyone who want to join please this the right place to start the team will shape you.

First off, I will say I graduated and was placed into a job by LaunchCode. I am very grateful for the opportunity, and it's worked out very well for me in the 2 years since I was hired. 

The good:
If a classroom environment is right for you, then you will likely do well here. I learn better in a classroom, surrounded by like minded individuals. I have too many distractions at home to really focus and teach myself, though I had gotten fairly far with some Python a year or two before applying, and have been using HTML and CSS for over 20 years now. 

It's completely and totally free. My only expenses were a new laptop (only because I spilled water on my perfectly working one about halfway through the course) and transportation/commuting costs. They achieve this by partnering with the companies in the area they're located, and promising them developers who have gone through their program for temporary apprenticeships. This reduces the risk for their local partnered companies, as these are $15 an hour positions for 3 months. If a few people come in and prove themselves, then they're likely to take more LaunchCode graduates. Compared to comparable programs, which can cost $10k or more, this is probably the most important positive of LaunchCode. 

Several of the teachers were really great teachers, senior level software engineers with experience in the language that they were teaching. My teacher for Java could easily have been a Computer Science professor at a large university, and often would point out and correct some inaccuracies or suggest better practices than the examples in the course material. 

The bad:
The course materials are confusing, lacking, or at times incorrect. I'll preface this by saying the material is constantly changing and evolving from "semester" to "semester". However, where it usually is pretty good at telling you how something works, there was almost no coverage of WHEN to use something. Real world examples would be super beneficial, but are usually absent. You can really only get so far with a basic understanding of each of the puzzle pieces and how they work by themselves, but no real knowledge of how to fit them together to build an application that is efficient, maintainable, and scalable. Again, my course was 2 years ago, and was only the second (I believe) time it had been run in my city, so this could have changed by now. However, I have a friend who is in the current class and has shared the current material with me. While the material has been updated, some of it is still worded in a fairly confusing manner.

You will be teaching yourself a fair amount. The course only meets in person twice a week for at most 3 hours. Often, less than half of it is actual lecture time, with the remaining time used for "studio" aka the lab portion. I'd say over 75% the time, I was out the door in 2 to 2.25 hours. There is only so much lecture that can really be absorbed in a single day for most people, so I understood this, but when you're only really being "taught" for 2 to 3 hours a week, they can't cover everything that is important. But, I do feel like that is partly by design. Again, this is a completely free program. They're looking for not only the best and the brightest, but the hardest workers and the ones willing to teach themselves, as this absolutely IS a skill you need to succeed in any development position. There will always be new libraries, new languages, new tools, etc that you will be expected to teach yourself. We started with 250 people, but dropped down to about 110 after unit 1 of 3 finished. More trickled out over the next two units, so I'd say only 60-80 people actually finished the LaunchCode 101 portion. However, the people who do finish have shown that likely fit into a few categories that are marketable to companies looking for developers:

All three of these "types" of people are valuable to a dev team, especially if you think differently to other people that stereotypically fit into a developer role. Someone who isn't naturally inclined to programming will bring insights that those who are naturally gifted won't think about. 

However, that leads me to my final, most frustrating negative. LaunchCode's apprenticeship program/job placement unit, called LiftOff, is not technically part of the base LaunchCode course. It was a 4th, optional unit, for people who wanted an apprenticeship. And apprenticeship is a pretty good word for it. It's really just continuing on the job training for at least 3 months. Many times this turns into an offer for a full position at more than $15 an hour, but other times it doesn't, and you go back into the program until another company picks you up. I'm honestly okay with all of this, as I feel it is fair and gives the people who work well on teams a shot to impress the company they are at for 3 months, guaranteed, for livable compensation. 

The main issue is that their list of apprenticeships is not fair, is not revolving, and if you don't land a job in the first 6 months afterwards, you likely won't through LaunchCode.  Search for LaunchCode on any job listing website, and you'll find dozens of postings advertising not LaunchCode, but their apprenticeship program. If you have all the skills necessary, you can apply and get accepted, while doing no ACTUAL work in any of the units. So, they're filling the list with people who have Computer Science degrees but haven't gotten into the industry yet, and as someone who took a free boot camp, it's very hard to compete. Additionally, I learned that a local company has a deal where they are guaranteed the top 15 from each semester for first interviews, and they hire 5 of those each year. If you're in the group of 10 that interview but aren't hired, you're nearly guaranteed to be placed within the first few months of finishing LiftOff. These are the "best and brightest" to them. I put enough work in to interview, but not be hired, and was placed at a job less than 2 months later. It seems that most of the rest of the positions are filled by the non-LaunchCode apprentices. My TA for the third unit had taken LaunchCode the year before me, but still hadn't been placed anywhere, and hadn't had any interviews set up by LaunchCode in 9 or 10 months, all the while job postings are going up on every imaginable site advertising the apprenticeship program. 

I just feel that it's a bit dishonest to pass yourself off as training these great graduates who go on to do great things when in reality, it seems like a small percentage of those they actually teach are showing what LaunchCode can do. They need to work on standing on their own merit, and maybe that's the slow play, get integrated with partner companies, and show the types of people that can come in (even if a bit dishonestly), they give themselves more staying power in that city, but it just doesn't seem right to me. 

However, I do know of many people who did not get placed by LaunchCode that did end up in development positions or in positions with a fast track to a development position, so if you're in the final graduate list, you do have what it takes to come in at a junior or associate level. Just be expected to prove yourself and strive to be in the top 15. 

Overall, I have to say it worked for me. My pay has increased by well over 50% in the 2 years since I completed the course, and I am much happier than i ever was in any other job. I finally feel like I have a career, and part of that is thanks to LaunchCode. 

If you can look past the negatives, and realize that getting what they offer for absolutely zero risk to you except your time, you will see that this is easily one of the most accessible programs out there. If you are a self-starter, good at learning on your own, and determined to change your life, you'll do fine. 

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!