Coding Dojo

Well, they've continued to email me asking me to write a review, be careful what you wish for.

I attended to change careers, I have my bachelor's degree worked in my field for a while, but have always wanted to get into programming and wasn't satisfied working in my field. My experience will differ from other bootcamp locations because I attended one much smaller than the Silicone Valley, Bay area, Seattle locations. So the positive side is our teacher to student ratio was actually pretty good. With that said I'll start from the beginning of my experience and yes it's long but thorough (at minimum read final thoughts or point 10 at worst).

The interview went well it was your typical interview, I heard back not too long later I was "accepted" into the program. Of course, I was excited and ready to get started, then the start date was pushed back a few months, which made sense because it was the holiday season and not a big deal because it gave me more time to read/study. 

HTML/CSS

The first couple weeks are super basic HTML/CSS, use bootstrap it'll take of mobile for you and the exam for it is just replicating a static site, easy enough. However, there was not a focus on actually designing for mobile or design considerations and I'll chalk that up to the fact it's not a frontend/design bootcamp. Something I can go and learn on my own, but they could have talked about Flexbox and/or Grid. They do go over the basics of computers and how they work, so that's a plus for non-tech humans.

PYTHON

The first full-stack is Python, Flask, SQL - your backend, frontend, database respectfully. Our instructor was fantastic, quite knowledgeable, and you could tell she enjoyed teaching in general. So, she would be a fantastic instructor teaching anything even if she had zero knowledge of the subject. She also happened to be the person who created and wrote the Python section of the platform, which is why it was the best full-stack section of the platform (more on this later). 

Unfortunately the majority of our class did not pass the Python stack, part of the downside to a small class (despite our instructor) is not having as many people to help others get through the parts they're struggling or stuck on. Those that did not pass still came into campus and continued to work on Python as they were backlogged to the next class starting Python.

C#/.NET

The next stack we had a new instructor for Microsoft's C# ASP.NET core. Admittedly I butted heads a little with the next instructor they brought in. It got off to a rough start because the first day of learning this new stack was putting the remaining students together to do some bs assignment and figure it out. Working in teams is nothing new, however, I'd prefer to first read and learn some on my own, so I can contribute to the team and not struggle on an incredibly easy (in hindsight) assignment. I think it was 2.5 -3 hours for an assignment that according to the platform should take 20 minutes and we still hadn't figured it out. So that seemed like a giant waste of time especially with the number of assignments they ask you to do. Now the biggest gripe I have is the platform itself. 

Let me remind everyone still reading, this program costs $12K. And the platform, which I would as a student imagine it being similar to a college textbook full of all the knowledge you need to be successful in the program. Picture holding said college textbook, now randomly start ripping out chapters and pages until about half of it is left, and that is what your money buys for their platform content. 

If you want to learn C#, I suggest reading Microsoft's documentation and going through their tutorials because what little was in the platform seemed like it was plucked right off the documentation, or take an online course.

MEAN

This is MongoDB (database), ExpressJS/Nodejs (backend), Angular (frontend). I won't beat a dead horse, the same thing as C# take a college textbook and rip out half the information and there's your learning platform.

JOB ASSISTANCE

I will talk about this from the perspective of myself and our entire class including those that didn't originally get through Python and graduated later. For those of us that graduated on-time they brought in a really great career mentor, he helped with resume writing and gave us really great advice overall. 

Dojo brought in 4-5 different companies to interview with and I came to find out one company showed up sort of as a favor/community building because they had zero intention of hiring anyone from a bootcamp or any junior developers. Which, I'm totally cool with if I know that's the case and I can treat it like a practice interview just don't bs me. There was another company that had one guy working remotely at our location (again kind of a dead-end). One company never showed up, but I won't put that on Dojo.

The good news was I actually landed an apprenticeship, but I know they hired me because of my prior experience and education and I just so happened to finish this programming course. They didn't even work in any of the languages we learned for the position I was hired. My other friend landed his job going outside of Dojo and leveraging his connections with the company that wasn't hiring any junior developers. The other graduate took a little longer to find a job and it ended up being with someone he met there starting their own thing. 

As for those with us originally and graduated later, they had a different mentor come in and from hearsay was awful enough they brought in the guy who helped us. They had I believe 2 interviews and this was weeks after they graduated. One graduate went to another bootcamp because he was tired of the bs from Dojo. As of now and as far as I know, every single one of them is still looking for a developer job 9 months afterward.

FINAL THOUGHTS

1) It is exactly like a college course, you have assignments and you have an exam for each stack. I understand the point, but please explain how this is different than your "tYpiCAl EdUcATiOn" other than the amount of time I need to put in? The cost is pretty on point with a semester of college, so they got that right lol.

2) Not teaching the languages our city is hiring for - supposedly they do research on the area and teach the languages in demand in your local area. Most of the jobs in my area are for Java, C, C++, weirdly the languages CS majors learn and we didn't hmmm. And a company out here, Intuit, recently started adding at the top of their developer roles something like ****Computer Science degree required****.

3) Data dump anyone? Yes, it's cool to learn a lot of different languages, but I would have rather spent half the time and money learning one full-stack well. Not 1 in 3 weeks because the 4th week (if you pass the exam) is project week. Not a single one of us ever put together a project the entire course. I started one once and realized I bit off more than I could chew. 

4) The instructors after Python stack had the knowledge of the coding dojo platform and no real-world experience from my recollection. Some questions I asked, were answered but didn't really address my coding problem. Or it was "Why don't you look it up and tell me what you find?"...so you're telling me you have no clue?

5) A huge disconnect on defining what we learned e.g. yeah you learned jQuery, while maybe not widely used anymore, we used it once maybe twice. It's like telling someone you're a nurse because you've taken someone's vitals signs a few times.

6) Not making Git a mandatory section to learn, it was provided optionally and it's really easy to learn, but it should have been mandatory.

7) Data Structures, algorithms are every morning, but there is a huge disconnect between different data structures: what they are, how they work, and how they are implemented in real code. We did go over every data structure, but because of the pace you touched on it 1-3 times throughout the course (again Data Dump) and more complex ones are naturally towards the end. Perhaps my own fault, but the morning algorithms seemed more like an exercise in whiteboard interviewing and not understanding the data structure itself.

8) Did I mention Data Dump? Because of how shallow the knowledge of the platform was and how fast-paced I started taking a few courses on Udemy in the same languages we "learned". And the depth of these online courses is uncomparable.

9) Their platform is straight garbage, every stack's beginning assignments are struggling to learn these concepts and being excited you finally figured it out. Then roughly the 2nd week you learn, oh that's not how you actually do it. I'm sorry come again?! Why if we start with zero knowledge do you start by teaching us the wrong way to do something? Pretty sure we're all capable of learning the concepts while doing it the right way from the beginning...just a thought.

10) Straight from their site "On a national scale, our alumni land a job in 180 days after graduating,"

Sure sounds a lot better than "On a national scale, our alumni land a job in 6 Months!!"

I'd wager 10x the $12,000 Coding Dojo tuition the least tech-savvy human could, in 6 months learn one full-stack, have more portfolio projects and land a job in their city taking online courses.

Cost-benefit-ratio: Let’s say you take one course each for database, backend, and frontend and another tying them all together and you pay full price for each course 150$ (relatively typical cost, courses on sale can be as cheap as 10$-20$). 4 x 150$ = 600$

600$ v. 12,000$ (more in most areas now) = 11,400$ in your pocket, you’re welcome!
Take a few more online courses, why not take another 5 courses, now you only saved 10,650$ bummer lol.

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Coding Dojo is an excellent resource to level-up your knowledge for full-stack software development. It empowers your to learn how to build software from scratch and deploy it live on the web. The on-site experience consist of daily morning algorithms and three intensive Full-Stacks, which helps you learn popular in-demand coding languages, frameworks, databases, and technical skills to help you break into the industry or level-up and learn coding hands on. The instructors are top notch with industry and boot camp experience to guide, challenge, and mentor you through the process. I would recommend  Coding Dojo to anyone who wants to learn software development hands on and upgrade their coding skills.!  Read less

What a rewarding and incredible journey it has been to earn black belts in Python, MEAN and Java at Coding Dojo! Coding Dojo is a unique coding bootcamp that teaches three full technology stacks in a single 14-week program.

From the admissions advisors, to my instructors and also the teaching assistants who were available whenever we needed them, to my cohorts and the career specialists that have been incredibly supportive. I am a self-sufficient software developer with hands-on programming experience though the in-depth three-stack curriculum, our industry-tested learning platform, hands-on assignments, career support and much more. I feel ready and fully prepared to transition into a new phase of IT. I have the skill set to learn new languages quickly and I can create entire websites from front to back.

Oh! and I have never been as proud of ME as I am right now...I did it! Thank you Coding Dojo! Read less

This course has a natural way of increasing the will to write code and then write more code. The structure of assignments,lectures,disscusions is perfect because it helps you a lot to understand and learn programming.
Definitely this course is the right choice to start learn programming or learn things about programming that we think we know. Read less

 Took the Online Part-Time Bootcamp and had the best learning experience. I found the materials very helpful and comprehensive, everything was explained in such great detail. What makes the course of a higher quality are the assignments you have which strongly help you in learning by doing. There are the required assignments which when completed give you a solid understanding of the concepts, but if you want to dig even deeper you take the numerous optional ones. Don’t panic if you get stuck. TA-s are ready to help, weekdays or weekends you can always count on someone to help with your code. The instructors are also very friendly, positive and ready to help, but most importantly they are very good at explaining the material in the lectures. This course is designed in a way that makes the learning fun, I personally spent hours of studying without feeling tired, all I felt was the joy of learning new things. But the feeling of coming up with a real project at the end of such short time and showing it to your loved ones is indescribable. Coding Dojo also teaches you team working discipline which I think is a key concept of being successful at a job or in life. If you want an organized bootcamp in which you want to start coding or level up at it, Coding Dojo is the right place to go!  Read less

Being a part of Coding Dojo Bootcamp was very beneficial, and i would recommend it to anyone who is trying to get in the coding industry.The lectures, materials provided and above all the tasks we had throughout the course helped me level up in html,css,js,python.. Read less

Great Bootcamp for a beginner to learn to program, starting from very basics to advanced concepts of programming. 
Besides the perspicuous curriculum, what helped me in this Bootcamp are: 

• A lot of assignments which are great to practice skills every day, and 
• Projects to deal with real problems in web development.

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This course is perfect for someone who is looking to learn programming. Everything starts from the basics and builds up to complex concepts of the specific technologies. The best part is that there are a lot of assignments and projects and you get to practice everything you've learned. Read less

It's a great place to get started in programming. They have good instructors that are always there to help you with any questions that you may have. It is a fast paced curriculum so be ready to put in a lot of work and dedication to get the most out of the program. Read less

I went from knowing nothing about coding to being able to design websites. The amount I learned in three months has helped me become a self sufficient developer who can teach himself new skills and learn as I work on new projects. Its not a silver bullet you won't go there and become an expert but as long as you put in the time during and after(can't emphasize after enough) the bootcamp you will get the opportunity to change careers. And career services really helped me market myself, building a resume, linked in profile and provide advice on companies. Read less

I had a great experience at the bootcamp! Before deciding to come here i was looking at a few other bootcamps in the bay area, mostly in Berkeley and San Francisco. From speaking with my friends in the field, they said the bootcamps in SF and Berkeley had actual connections with companies and would help you get placed into the programs if you fit the qualifications. Job Assistance was something that was important to me. However, when i spoke to admissions coordinator at Coding Dojo, she said that there would be some assistance in the way of how to interview, resume building, and how to job seek. This made me a little discouraged about Coding Dojo. However, ultimately I decided on Coding Dojo based on proximity to my home in San Jose and because it was FULL STACK. To my knowledge, Coding Dojo is the only full stack bootcamp in the bay area. This was key for me because I wasn't sure which side of software I wanted to be on (front vs backend), so I figured I'd go full stack to figure it out. The curriculum seems current based on the research I've done on current coding languages/technologies. The instructors are great. Each stack has an instructor that "specializes" in that stack. The instructors are well educated, seeming to know a little bit about everything on top of their specialties. They are attentive and helpful and guide you in the right direction if they feel like you need more information or education on a certain topic. Another great key aspect of the coding dojo is their focus on algorithms. Algorithms is key to get a job so at the dojo, we get practice every morning, sometimes twice if you ask for algo in the afternoon. This practice gives you practice talking out loud, problem solving and presenting your solution.  

Towards the end of my first stack, a new career advisor was hired and straight away it seemed like more was being offered to job assistance. He's brought in recruiters and posted job fair and internship type opportunities pretty often. I would say at the start of the bootcamp, i would've given a 2 star review for job assistance, but now with the new career advisor, its a 4 star review for job assistance. I've recently been graduated for about a week and have had a lot of assistance from the career advisor. In about a months time, i could see the job assistance going up to 5 stars.  Read less

Like others have said, it can be difficult at times (it is a bootcamp after all), but the sheer wealth of knowledge you gain is worth it. I already had the feeling I got my money's worth after the first stack (Python). Learning platform can be a hit or a miss, but it is ever evolving and instructors fix and update things on the fly when mistakes or shortcomings are pointed out. I was lucky enough to have a great cohort and instructors. Will surely miss them.  Read less

The experience is great so far. After completing the Bootcamp, I am more confident to look for jobs knowing the technologies in the job description. I feel like I can learn anything in a short amount of time and everything is achievable if I give effort and time into it. However, job assistance after Bootcamp is quite lacking. Read less

The Coding Dojo onsite program has been a once-in-a lifetime experience. The instructors were amazing, caring, and knowledgeable. I don't think I could have asked for a better learning experience and I'm glad I picked Coding Dojo for my journey to becoming a software developer. Read less

When I first started at the bootcamp I was nervous but so glad that I was accepted. It took me two tries to understand and pass the exam for Python. Then I went on to learn Java, that was too hard for me to understand so I had the option of skipping Java and went to the MEAN stack. I was a bit overwhelmed with all the different servers and the syntax of Angular. I tried as hard as I could but I couldn't get a grasp on Angular. So I was attempting to retake the stack and when I finally got to, the stack was changed to MERN. It was great, I understood React a lot more than Angular. I'm a slow learner but once it came all together if made sense and it was fun to build a Single Page Application. I'm glad I ended up passing and graduated from Coding Dojo in Burbank.  Read less

The Coding Dojo experience has been nothing short of excellent. The instructors are extremely knowledgeable and helpful. They're driven to see you excel. The learning platform is very informative and useful even after graduating. I would recommend this boot-camp to anyone knew to coding.  Read less

So I waited to write this review until after I had been out looking for a job for awhile post graduation. I didn't feel comfortable really putting together my thoughts on the program until my knowledge was put in context of the broader professional world.

I graduated from the program in late November of 2019. I successfully completed all three of the stacks(C#, Python/Django, and MEAN). The coursework itself gets you up and running in each stack and as they do so you really start to understand the interconnection of the peices at a more fundamental level. The course itself will not make you a Software Engineer, it will however get you to a great place to jump into a Junior Web Developer position.

The "platform" as they call it is the meat of their program, mostly guided learning through the progressive steps of developing in each stack. The brevity of the platform topics is GENERALLY a plus but in some instances is quite frustrating as they can leave you somewhat in the dark as to the inner workings of some more abstract concepts. They also implement a style of teaching they refer to as "gap" learning. The platformw ill sometimes withold some critical information in an effort to develop the student in terms of being self sufficient. In most stakes this approach was great, but in others the gaps were a tad large. 

The onsite instructors are awesome, very knowledgable at what they are teaching and passionate about coding and web dev. Many of them are graduates of the Coding Dojo program. I had some reservations regarding this when I enrolled, but quickly came to realize that they know their shit and know how to get you thinking like a dev.

The career services in the post course period are "okay" i would not rate them as excellent though I do feel the contact I had was great. In general I got the impression they were just stretched beyond capacity. The best guidance they gave was in terms of my resumes structure/style, how I should approach my github, and what my linkedin should look like. 

In the end Coding Dojo is not without flaw but it 100% got me from 0 to employed in the industry in 6 months.

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