Codesmith

It was reading these very same online reviews where I first learned of Codesmith. After seeing their outcomes on CIRR and attending a handful of free JavaScript -- The Hard Parts workshops, I chose Codesmith over other programs for what seemed like the exceptionally detailed attention they paid to the quality of their teaching and hiring program.

My experience was consistent with that initial sense; it was clear that the entire team had thought critically about how people learn and how to teach most effectively. And no small part of that effectiveness was due to the culture that had been thoughtfully created, one of warmth and encouragement that always seemed to be saying "This is new and challenging work, but we're there for each other and we'll figure it out together."

It's a remarkable community that, long after graduating and beginning work as an engineer, I feel lucky to be a part of.

I entered into Codesmith's CS Prep program with basically 0 formal experience with coding. I had done some self-study, but found i needed more of a structure. Though the program is only 2 weeks long, it definitely covers a large basis needed to start your coding journey. That coupled with lots of pair programing, and an awesome group project at the end, I actually feel like I understand why people love coding so much. Definitely would recommend taking the CS Prep program for anyone who is still very new, and not sure about a bootcamp setting just yet. It's challenging, and you get some practical experience. 

Everything about my Codesmith experience was exceptional- from the instructors to my peers to the technology, I found Codesmith to be worth every penny.
Some Background: I learned Python when I was younger, but I came to Codesmith with a Bachelors of Music and a year in the music industry under my belt.  When COVID-19 became our new reality, I was searching for alternatives to performing, and learned JavaScript as I researched bootcamps.  After completing CS Prep and passing my technical interview, I entered the NY immersive program (held online, to maintain social distancing), which I completed a month ago, and signed a six-figure offer today.
Instructors: While researching immersive programs, I was disappointed to learn that most (if not all) bootcamps are taught primarily by prior students, in the form of ‘fellows’.  While your mileage may vary, in my Codesmith experience this turned out to be an unnecessary fear.  The fellows were bright, eager, kind, and helpful throughout my three months in the program, and served as references during my job hunt.  These folks are typically only kept on for three-month  contracts after graduation, so I cannot guarantee that your experience will be identical, but Codesmith fosters a can-do attitude in the community, so I am hopeful that you will have a similar experience.  (Note that some of the senior instructors are full-time employees and industry veterans, whom I also found to be great teachers)
Curriculum: The curriculum at Codesmith is primarily centered around React, Redux, Node.js, Express, and PostgreSQL.  No other front-end frameworks are taught, and while MongoDB, AWS, and OAuth are touched upon throughout, the backend technologies other than Node are explored more shallowly.  Codesmith’s approach to curriculum can be summed up in a phrase they’ve coined: ‘hard learning’.  Enter my only gripe with my Codesmith experience- while the technologies they’ve chosen to focus on are excellent choices from a popularity-in-the-industry perspective, I do feel that Codesmith’s ‘heard learning’ approach sometimes leaves something to be desired.  In particular, as projects become the focus of your days, the ‘hard learning’ approach becomes a burden more than a boon, as your energy is primarily directed towards your projects and the curriculum begins to feel frustrating rather than constructive.  This is not to say that the experience is bad- rather, I simply found it to be a minor frustration that mars an otherwise enjoyable learning experience.  By the end of the program I felt that I had made great progress in the core curriculum, and that can be attributed largely to ‘hard learning’.
Projects: Perhaps the greatest part of Codesmith is the project portion of your junior phase and the production project portion of your senior phase.  In your junior phase, three projects punctuate the conclusion of the core curriculum, small affairs the last only a couple days each.  These are the perfect on-ramp to working in a team environment on ‘real’ software (at least, something a little more substantial than a tutorial).  The production project, however, is the crowning jewel of Codesmith.  Students are required to work in teams to develop an open-source developer tool or similar project, in order to give back to the community and nurture a deep expertise in one technical area.  By requiring these production projects to solve problems faced by developers every day, students acquire an intimate knowledge of a corner of the industry, experience that can be spoken to in job interviews with authority.  In contrast to other immersive programs, where final projects are often mock-applications, Codesmith’s approach ensures exposure to real problems you will encounter in your career (and it looks great on your resume, to boot).
Job Assistance: Codesmith’s hiring program is exhaustive, and stresses the realities of applying to engineering roles.  With lectures and workshops on interviewing, your ‘pitch’, negotiating, networking, resume development, and recruiters, the hiring program provides guidance on every step of your job search, and continues indefinitely post-graduation with weekly workshops for grads in the job hunt.  Mock interviews with grads help to ease you into the experience of technical interviews, and the daily emphasis on algorithms and data structures throughout your three months prepares you well for mid-level interviews.
Overall: Codesmith was life-changing for me, beyond a new career and a new job.  The people in my cohort were curious, intelligent, and bound by the common goal of bettering their lives.  I cherish many of the friendships I made at Codesmith, and I can’t wait to give back to the Codesmith community in the years to come.

Some context on me for reference:
I aim to transition into the tech field for software development/engineering; I am working full-time in a somewhat connected position within an unrelated field, so I am aiming for the part-time remote intensive (PTRI) for now given current situations with COVID.

 I enjoyed CS Prep and would recommend it to others. That said, this course requires foundational knowledge of JavaScript. Some exposure to functions/execution context, callbacks/higher-order functions, recursion, and closures will help you retain more information during the course as well. I found that this course doesn't teach those basics but rather provides a place to practice and flesh out thoughts/ideas with sample problems. Luckily, those basic/foundational materials are free on Codesmith's YouTube channel and are indeed helpful.

If you (like me) did not have that exposure to the concepts I mentioned previously, then you'll struggle but can catch up over time with enough work.

The best part about CS Prep was the pair programming and inherent networking within their Slack channel. The pairing was by far what helped me learn the best. 

Save yourself the time and energy I spent on researching bootcamps, and choose Codesmith. Before choosing Codesmith, I attended in person information sessions at every bootcamp available in NYC on Javascript, Python, Java, Ruby, Android, and iOS at Flatiron School, General Assembly, Fullstack Academy, Grace Hopper, Pursuit, Hack Reactor, and Galvanize. Codesmith stood out in the CIRR report with the highest salary post graduation because they elevate you to qualify for mid level to senior level jobs. Having viewed every Codesmith Meetup video tutorial, I found Codesmith to have superior teaching method using graphical explanations. I asked every bootcamp, "how many Data Structures and Algorithms questions do you cover", because that is the bread and butter of technical interviews. Most of them said zero, which explains why some graduates can't get job offers. CS Prep, the 2 week part time class, covers 2 easy level questions per night. The Immersive covers 1 easy or medium question per day. Since CS Prep is free (tuition rolls over) if you later join the Immersive 3 month full time or 9 month part time class, there's no reason not to take it. Lastly, Chris was my CS Prep instructor, and he is incredibly knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and patient. In 2 weeks, he significantly improved my understanding of recursion, OOP, higher order functions, callback functions, and closure.

After taking the CSPrep course, I have become even founder of the Codesmith path. I started knowing nothing and worked my way up through their csx program to prepare for the 2-week CSPrep course. The content taught was rather good, but what I found most valuable are the ideas they instill - instead of just teaching the code, this course also taught me how to become more well-rounded as an engineer, including being able to efficiently communicate with peers and how to get past a block in your logic. Overall, I really do enjoy this program and am looking forward to taking their full program.

Codesmith's online CS Prep course is a must take for aspiring software engineers who come from non-technical or non-programming backgrounds that are looking to apply for the full-time programs.

After majoring in math in undergrad and working in finance for 5 years, I decided to take the leap and pursuing Codesmith due to the quality of the curriculum and the stellar outcomes. Very quickly, I realized that passing the technical interview was a major challenge and milestone. The CS Prep program only runs for ~2 weeks, but during that time students learn about callbacks and higher order functions, closure and object oriented programming. We pair programmed on a daily basis and each collaborated with a group to create a project at the end of the course (my group made Yahtzee).

The enthusiasm and dedication on part of the instructor and other students was highly motivating and allowed me to quickly accelerate my coding ability, while developing relationships and genuinely enjoying the process. After CS Prep, I was able to pass my technical and will be participating in the NYC full-time immersive.

Would highly recommend the course to anyone interested in the full-time programs!!

I just finished attending CS Prep I must say I learned so much in such a short amount of time! The course itself was only two weeks and it can feel like it going definitely a little too fast but you are given all the recording of the classes to go over as many times as you heart desires!  My instructor Matt was great, he was so caring and really wants you to succeed! I would message him with all my concerns and struggles. He would would write back with resources.  I recommend this course to everyone, it is a great way to learn basics in javascript in such a short amount! If you are planning on attending the immersive program and are having trouble with certain areas, definitely attend! This course will give you the clarity you need to move on to the immersive program! 

I'm trying to enter the industry so I was looking for the right boot camp to enter and wanted to get my JS knowledge to a respectable level. Running into and watching Codesmith's YouTube videos and subsequently joining some of their free workshops - I truly appreciated the teaching style they utilize which goes into greater depth in explaining what exactly is happening with our code. It really meshed with how I like to learn.

I had been immersing myself with hours upon hours of YouTube tutorials thinking and hoping that with enough repetitive exposure, the concepts would hold.  And yes, they do... eventually. I'm the kind of person though that would usually say/think  "Cut to the chase - what is actually happening here?? why? ... and how can I really control that?!" Codesmith was one of the few resources that I came across who would whiteboard solutions out and not just simply show the code and console. To me - understanding syntax and concepts is one thing, understanding what the engine is really doing and being able to communicate the whole process in a technical and professional manner is something else.  Their approach spoke to my inner engineer and discussed what exactly is happening and why. Javascript for Beginners remained true to its name, sticking to fundamentals in its curriculum. This is not meant to be a slight, since if you're taking this course you're obviously a beginner.  However, it was that Codesmith style of teaching which really helped cement those fundamental concepts in a way that code-only instruction never could.   

I will say that I did have about a month of Javascript exposure via free online resources, so I didn't go in cold.  But I'm career switching and even with all those free resources, spending a couple of Saturdays or so simply interacting and networking with other hopefuls in the field would have been worth the price of admission on it's own. Add to that excellent teaching by a Codesmith grad was just gravy! Sophie was prepared, engaged, patient and informative. Because of the Codesmith workshops that I had seen and attended, there was a bit of a high bar already set in my head and she didn't disappoint! It was an example of where their road could lead.  If your goal is to eventually join their immersive program, the tuitions from their prep courses roll over so you really have nothing to lose!

If my goal was to just gain a bit of exposure or maybe explore some of the Javascript world, I believe the course would have been just as fulfilling. However, I would honestly say that it might get a bit too intense, interactive or technical if you're looking for more of an "anonymous hoodie in the lecture hall" type of learning experience. On the other hand, if you learn best by engaging and/or like to understand the dynamics of how things work, you should seriously consider looking into Codesmith. 

Last note - If you haven't already, do some digging. Codesmith reviews are practically flawless. In my own research, I didn't come across any other schools that came close to this kind of student satisfaction. My own review will do nothing to change that =)

I already had several years of experience coding but always wanted to fill any gaps in my knowledge of Javascript and React. I initially visited some NYC bootcamps, but found them to be too basic. But when I sat in on a free Node.js workshop by Will Sentence I was impressed. I always thought Node.js was a hard topic, but Will broke it down into easy to understand concepts. I also learned so much from "the javascript the hard parts lectures" that I decided it was worth it to quit my job and join Codesmith in hopes of learning how to become a better software engineer.
A big obstacle to entering Codesmith is that you must pass a technical interview. Each student needed to invest time learning thru Codesmith's CSX resources to develop the technical communication and problem solving skills needed to pass.  As a result, the quality and skill level of Codesmith students is above a junior developer even before they start. A big surprise to me, was that after graduating, passing the previous technical interview months ago gave me the confidence I needed to ace a few technical interviews, and let me cherry pick the job for me - 100% remote with "best 100 companies to work for" rating.  
Once I started class, I saw the care and hard work Codesmith invested into their curriculum and assessments to solidify our understanding and help us master the software concepts. Everything is done thru pair programming, so you get to continue honing your technical communication and make good friends among the cohort. It was a much more enjoyable experience working with different students than working alone.
After graduating, I learned many valuable lessons from our hiring team who showed us how to get the most interviews. This team promises to help you even after you found your first job ! When I got an offer, I was told that I should ask for more (?)  Our expert negotiator scripted for me what I was to say. I was very nervous, but I learned the art of how to properly ask for more and not risk losing the offer ! Trust the process.
Please note, everyone experience's is different. Since I already have experience, I got a lot more interviews with less effort, but there were a half a dozen other students who have no experience who got offers before me.

The program is intense but definitely worth it.  There is a lot of information given in a short period of time but there is a strong, supportive network of people around that all help each other.  
Starting out, you build on fundamentals like algorithms and data structures and grow from there, learning all of the core technologies you'll be working with on the job.  

That knowledge is solidified by working on solo and group projects, ultimately building a project that brings all of the hard and soft skills you learn through the course into a tool that is released to the world.

The most valuable parts are the Hiring Program and support of the Outcomes team.  Putting together a professional resume and presenting yourself as an engineer are the real benefits.  And getting check-ins and help along the way during the process are great ways to keep motivation. 

Trust the process, keep pushing and it will work out.

Before Codesmith, I was working in front-end web development (HTML and CSS) for about 4 years. There was a point where I decided to bring my JavaScript game up to the next level and researched extensively around for a bootcamp that aligned with my goals. When I attended a free Codesmith workshop, I knew that it would be the right choice for me. What hooked me in is their emphasis on technical communication, under-the-hood understanding, and cultural growth.
The software engineering program is a hyperbolic time chamber, where you learn 4 years worth of college education in 3 months. It’s set up in a way where they teach the practical side of computer science through a series of solo and group projects. The program is intense, and although researching, parsing, and implementing for 12+ hours almost everyday takes a mental and emotional toll, it’s a small price to pay for a lifelong investment in financial stability, emotional well-being, and a community that supports you throughout the process (even when searching for a job).
Now after several months of job hunting, I’ve accepted an offer to be a Front-End Software Engineer at a company that shares the same core beliefs as me. I’m thrilled to start this new chapter, and this achievement reinforces a certain mindset: as long as you work with diligence and positivity, growth and success will come your way. Thank you Codesmith for changing my life.