Coding Dojo

I am a front-end developer and I took the remote course and dropped out around week 9 out of 12, about the time we were learning the second stack. About 30% of the class also dropped out.

My boyfriend started out on-site and then switched to remote the first week. He never got any money back even though the price difference is $6k. He had zero experience and even though they said that was ok, he had a very difficult time. I tried to help as much as I could but the pace was very hard for me too as I had a full-time job. They tell you full-time workers can do remote but I think that would be very difficult for most people. It was for me. Needless to say, he dropped out before I did.

My instructor told me that some people didn't deserve to have his support because they weren't putting in as many hours as he liked. Mind you, these are people who paid money, but the instructor justified giving some students more help than others based on his subjective assessment of their effort. No regard to how new this content could be for some people. I found this to be particulary cruel and unethical.  He could be passive agressive and non-responsive as well. A couple of times my cohort wanted to call him out on being non-responsive but we didn't.

All in all, I believe they tried to teach too much in my opinion. Better to learn one stack well than three stacks on the surface. I'm very disappointed in the experience. The only way I would recommend it is if you have some exposure to full stack dev already and/or can isolate yourself from the world because they don't give you everything you need - this is under the guise of "we want you to struggle so you will learn more on your own and look up stuff," which is code for "yeah, we know the curriculum has gaps in it so cut us some slack." 

I can say whole-heartedly that this program should be avoided - save yourself the money! I attended the camp in Seattle earlier this year and was horribly dissapointed with the experience! Here's the rundown:

* Lessons are mostly self-taught through videos with the majority being done by the companies founder. While I don't doubt that he knows the technical stuff I do not belive he has any background in instruction and that shows in his videos. They are low production, single take videos that are more confusing to watch than anything else and he is often incosistant with his terminology and grammar which creates added confusion later. 

* If you know nothing about web developement you will get lost FAST! Several people in my group came in with a complete blank slate and fell behind so quickly it wasn't even funny; with 1 or 2 dropping out after the first 1.5 months. They fly through the basics and fundimentals.

* They attempt to accomplish TOO MUCH! That is how they justify their high price tag - they advertize that you learn a tremendous amount of stuff in the 3 months you are there; namely three full-stacks. The issue is they go through it all too quickly and never teach you anything usefull. I spent the most time on the LAMP stack and had no issues with the related assignments and belt test to that stack. Try and look for jobs with those skills and you quickly realize you know next to nothing. They show you where the "on" switch is with these technologies but don't teach you anything useful with them. In fact, at the time I took the class, you leave having built nothing useful to use on a portfolio - they don't even include a course on MAKING a portfolio. 

* Most of the instructors are former students. So again, their ability to actually function as teachers is sub par at best. I had about a years worth of experience when I started this program and during the lessons about HTML and CSS (which they only spent less than a week on) the instructor had no idea what HTML5 tags were and asked me to stop using them on assignments/group work cuz it was confusing!

* There is NO job placement at all. They had a bulletin board in the building they said we should utalize but in the three months I was there only one job as added and they were all for jobs that required multiple years of experience and were beyond what was being taught in the program. They don't email you at all with job opportunities, they have no one working at the site with any connections to hiring managers or recruiting offices - you leave the program and you are on your own. 

* The issue of struggle/no-hand-holding: Here's the deal, everything worth having takes work. But the way the program markets itself as being super difficult where you have to struggle and invest the time if you want to be successfull, in my opinion, is a kind of an excuse to cover their butts. I was there everyday during the week from 8am to 5 or 6pm and did all the course work. But for 12k I expect WAY more from the instructors - as in I expected them to care about my progress. Instead you drop a ton of money and you get stickers...

Please do not attend this bootcamp. I'm giving a fair warning to anyone who is thinking about attending. Online instructions with outdated videos on old technology stacks with old versions with unproven instructors without industry experience, what can go wrong? Absolutely everything about this bootcamp experience has not been up to par considering that I learned 95% more from FREE sources online and plus the fact that there is no Job Assistance in the program. I will give one star for some instructors giving more Effort than others, but having them shuffled or fired, and the overall lack of professionalism throughout the whole experience leaves me wishing i never stumbled on Coding Dojo in my bootcamp search.

Beware of the sales tactics and supposed discounts for minorities and bring a friend? Seriously, this is suppose to be about programming and bringing more tech individuals into the workforce.

Do your research and you can see this is a very flawed curriculum, from the founder, to the instructors, to the staff, look at their LinkedIn profiles and make a decision from there,

Plus look at Coding House and Coding Dojo, you see why these are at the bottom.... eerily similar....

The students who are successful, well, why haven't they shared the negative aspects, not even one, makes you really question the curriculum....?

Go to an info session, I've been to a couple from different bootcamps, everything here is a Sales Tactic. That many languages in a short amount of time? Ask a working developer, Ask a technical recruiter? Ask a graduate about Coding Dojo

I attended Coding Dojo about two years ago. I never wrote a proper review about Coding Dojo, but the experience has really left a bitter mark, to where I honestly cannot recommend Coding Dojo to anyone. Hopefully they have improved by now, but from what I hear, many problems I encountered are still there. 

The camp that I attended started in November 2013, finishing in February 2014. It was a 9 week program which focused on HTML, CSS, Ruby on Rails, and PHP. It was at the Mountain View location. 

THE PROS

- I managed to land a job as a front-end developer after graduating

- I learned a lot about PHP, Ruby

- The knowledge I gained acted as a springboard to leap off of

- I made some lasting connections with my cohort-mates

- Lunch and dinner are included in the program, and delivered every day

- Weekly afternoons in the park were organized to give ourselves breaks, get some fresh air, and get some exercise

THE CONS

- 90% of the material is done through an online self-guided tool, which contains videos, quizzes, and assignments. There were daily morning lectures, but they were unorganized and were still being slapped together up until the instructor began the lecture. Most of the learning was through powering through these assignments. They enforced loose deadlines and reviewed assignments regularly, but that was it. The program essentially amounts to you staring at a computer screen for 8-12 hours a day, going through the online assignments, and asking for help from a TA when you have a question. Rinse and repeat for the entire program. 

- The content might not be enough to land you a job. I know at least one of my cohort-mates ended up going to another code accelerator after Coding Dojo. 

- Your experience varies drastically depending on who you're sitting immediately next to. They sat us in groups of 4. I was fortunate enough to be sitting with a group of fairly smart individuals with some coding background, so we made a great study group. The other groups, mostly made up of complete beginners, struggled big time, and most of them dropped out.

- Over half of the group dropped out by the end of the camp, because they couldn't keep up with the self-guided material. Only about 25% of campers had a project to show during demo day. 

- We were only taught PHP and Ruby, with very minimal javascript. In fact, the instructors hardly even know any javascript themselves. Granted, this was in a time where Javascript and the MEAN stack was only just becoming the next big thing, but you'd think that for a code accelerator they'd prep you for what employers will be looking for. At the end of the bootcamp, our instructor told us all that we should learn Javascript and the MEAN stack to land a job. Well, what the hell did we pay you guys for then?

- Instructors and TAs are all Coding Dojo alumni. Everyone that works there is someone who finished the Coding Dojo bootcamp recently. They create videos to update the online learning tool, lead lectures, and share what they just learned a few months ago. Which means, none of them have any industry experience, wisdom, or connections. None of them can be labeled as lead developers or anything. Maybe except the man who runs the entire show (Michael Choi), but seeing as how he spends his time running Coding Dojo, I doubt he has any industry developemnt experience either. How can you expect to learn anything useful from people who've never actually worked in the industry?

- There was no help in the job search. None. Zero. Zilch. All my job hunting was done on my own accord with my own effort. The dojo offered no connections and no recruitment, beyond some basic pieces of advice from the instructors. During our demo day, no recruiters showed up. 

- One of our instructors was laid off in the middle of our camp, who was replaced with another instructor. This put a huge dent in our learning flow, to the point where many people simply couldn't get back into the rhythm. 

- All of our instructors were laid off at the end of our camp. Our TAs, our instructors. Why, I have no idea. One person who replaced them was a coding dojo alumni, who was an instructor-in-training during our camp. Goes to show how things are run. 

All in all, I really hope that things have improved by now, but from what I hear, many of these problems are still in place. 

My best piece of advice I can give is: if you're the type of person who is self-motivated, can take on a challenge, and can do above and beyond what is asked of you, you might be able to excel in this program. The nature of this program is that it's mostly self-guided, so you get out whatever you put in. If you want a mountain of homework dumped on your head and to put money on the line to motivate you go to through it all, go for it. If you want a polished and well-organized learning experience, look elsewhere. I personally would have preferred a guided learning experience, rather than just doing homework 8-12 hours a day. What was I paying them for, anyway?

I was able to push through the bad parts (read: pretty much everything), learn all I could, and land a job. I can't say the same for an overwhelming majority of my cohort.

With how poor our experience was, it felt like I was robbed $9000 and 9 weeks of my time. Everyone felt this way. Everyone was pissed. By the end of it, everyone wanted a refund. Most of us dropped out. Most of us didn't have much to show for the past 9 weeks. Some of us even went to another coding bootcamp after. None of us got any help with the job search. 

I do not recommend Coding Dojo. 

This is not a program that will foster a solid learning experience. Please save your money, study and apply to a more legitimate program e.g hack reactor or dev boot camp. I went through this program and can describe the experience as a factory. A MONEY MAKING FACTORY. THESE PEOPLE DONT CARE IF YOU LEARN OR NOT .... THEY CARE ABOUT TAKING YOUR 12 GRAND!!!!!!. AVOID CODING DOJO... YOU CAN LEARN THE SAME AMOUNT GOING THROUGH AN  ONLINE TUTORIAL (~$100 DOLLARS) INSTEAD OF INVESTING 12 K INTO THIS BS. SAVE YOUR MONEY PLEASE!!!!!!!)

If you must be stuck with them, the advice is to lick their boots and never complain about anything in the slightest way or else they will be very suspicious and judgmental of you. That's what happened behind the complainers back at our cohort. Whether coding dojo did well or not, how would it benefit you if you don't praise the bootcamp you already paid $9,000 for?

Of course you would definitely learn SOMETHING at coding dojo!!! But it won't be a ton (unless you do your own research like everyone else said already). So if everyone can just do their own research at home, why even attend the bootcamp? They don't even believe in "teaching" you but for you to teach your own self through google, yeah of course you need to teach yourself idiot, but not from free sources like google and codecademy for $9,000. Should coding dojo worth $9,000 then? I felt like the instructors try to make us look very unappreciative when we already learned their stuff, but at the same time, it was nothing that should be overpriced. Also, why did they lie on their website, especially about the hands on experience that will be so different from going to a university? There are at least 2-3 staffs helping but there are more than 10 students, not everyone got the same amount of attention especially if the staff likes to go chit chat somewhere else. Of course if they have such a good platform that can teach anyone so fast, they are afraid everybody would copy&paste or snapshot them to share with friends and family members, so they wouldn't want to come up with a well accomplished platform, but sell their instructors to teach instead. Good luck if you have a horriible instructor, yes, once you are stuck with coding dojo, you will rely over 90% on self-study and peer helping, do not complain that you paid so much for only 10% of help from the dojo and be appreciative of that until you graduate and have a job and then complain and betray their 10% help.

I've been a graphic designer for about 10 years now, I decided 3 years ago that if i wanted to make it in the industry I had to learn how to code. So I started doing online training. HTML , CSS3, Javascript, Wordpress theme development etc. Websites like www.teamtreehouse.com and www.lynda.com really helped me get started.... all this sites are great and I really recommend them... but the problem is you have no one to ask when you have questions and this created holes in my learning where after 3 years I didnt feel confident to apply for Web development jobs. I was pationated about web development so  I decided to quit my job and go to Coding Dojo (HUGE RISK).

*The first thing I have to say is... Coding Dojo is not for everyone. If you know nothing about coding and you expect to leave the course with a great job right away you are wrong. Unless you are a brainiac and a SUPER fast learner (web development learning takes time)

*If you have some experience and you are passionate about coding then Coding Dojo is for you. LONGGGG days of coding and lots of practice WILL make you a better programmer. But is ALL UP TO YOU. they wont push you. What they will offer is an environment where you can be surrounded by like minded people and where you can code 12 hours a day if you wanted to. 

* A regular day at the dojo is as follow: around 9am algorithim class. When I say class I dont mean they will "teach" you algorithims. What they will do is give you an algorithim problem that you have to figure out how to solve in a team of  3. This can be scary, but with the help of your cohorts and with time you get better at them. 

You will do this for about and hour, hour and thirty minutes.

Then you have a short lecture about the days work and whats expected for that day

then you go into the platform and start working on it. The platform is basically a combination of Videos, quizzes, and assignments. They are no different than any other video training out there. again, the difference is the environment you are and awesome group of people that surrounds you. 

In the afternoon you get annother short lecture about what youve been working on that day etc. this is the time to ask questions....

and really you do this for 3 stacks at the end of the stack you have to do a project in teams or as an individual to showcase what you have learned.

So here is my final thought: Is not about the platform, is not about the three stacks, hell is not about coding dojo.... This is about putting you in an environment where you have NO CHOICE but to learn or better yet where you are surrounded by people just like you and learning together.

Can you learn all this at home YES. can you learn it without spending all this money YES. iT will take you longer for sure.. you will have learning holes thats true. So if you are going to attend the coding dojo KNOW you will get what you put in.

Take the three months to learn and forget about any other aspect of your life and you will be succesful.

PS. I got a job 2 weeks after I was done with an AMAZING salary that I would of never be able to get if it wasent for me going to coding dojo.

If you have questions please feel free to email me :) 
 

Pros:

- Learn 3 full stack web technologies and be able to put them on your resume to show that you know a lot of stuff

- Able to surround yourself with peers who work hard

- Free coffee, fruits and granola bars!

Cons:

- In the end, you're not really good at any particular technology or skills. The job market unfortunately usually only cares about how good you are at particular skills rather than how many different things you know little about

- Instructors have very limited knowledge of web development. None of the instructors (except Michael, the founder, which will NOT be teaching you) has real industrial experience. Most of the instructors are coding dojo bootcamp graduates, meaning they never worked a day as a web developer outside of the bootcamp. 

- The learning platform has a lot of errors that leads to tons of confusions and frustrations. 

- Algorithm "classes" are not particularly helpful. The instructors are often just as confused as the students. It's not really their fault because it's a hard concept to teach and there is no shortcut, only dedication and hardwork over long period of time. 

- The average salary of graduates is misleading. More than half of the students will drop off from the camp before it finishes. The ones that stays till the end often have a hard time finding a job also. Sure, if you are a super star coder that works 100+ hours a week then yeah it's probably no problem to easily get a 6 figure job after graduation. But the majority of the students coming in with none or minimal coding experiences and it's hard enough to keep up with the courses letting alone learning it well enough to land a dream job.