Cultivating Coders

This 12 week bootcamp provided me with full stack development skills to continue my education in coding. I am grateful for this program in Albuquerque. The instructors are excellent and helpful even outside of the class time. I had 0 knowledge of coding going into this and was able to keep up and learn in the class and on my own. I will continue to use the skills that I have learned in my next job.

An excellent opportunity to immerse yourself in coding.
This course makes the intimidating concept of learning how to code outside of school accessible. Without a doubt, it requires a great deal of work and attention personally to become competent in the material, but those teaching the class were flexible to our needs which is what so many working-class adults need as they gain new skills.

If you're looking for some help and guidance as you look towards coding as a new future for you, but know that a traditional institution isn't what you need, Cultivating Coders is a great place to get a foundation of knowledge and meet a passionate community. 

Be ready to work outside of class hours and be unafraid to ask for a lot of help. This, in many ways, is a self-paced course. It's on you to use the resources offered to you to keep up and pursue your own interests. The team is caring and capable though, always ready to help with the small or big stuff.

The bootcamp was intensive and required you to be commited. Though I had heard about 'coding' didn't really know what it is was and that it entailed so many different fields (web, phone etc). The instructor required us to put the work in and be dedicated, and we  were told before not to miss any classes right in the begining. There was a local company that was interested in recruiting from our class so the focus shifted for a while on the technologies they were using in order to prepare us. The company also came in to talk about their work which I appreciated. I liked that we were given enough time in class to finish our projects and were able to get hands on help from the instructors. The curicculum is designed in such a way that you can start getting small projects on the side  by week 4 (frontend). And we were also introduced to many online job portals (I didn't know people could work completelt remotely!) and went  through sample job postings to see where we fit in.

This bootcamp is for people who are serious and want to get employed in the industry. You get a laptop and the skills to get a job using the laptop.

And we also got lots of snacks which was appreciated!

I had lots of fun meeting a new group of students from my area. Cultivating Coders has allowed me to expand my mindset as well as my experiences and skills. I highly recommend this boot camp to those looking for more opportunities in their community. This program helped expand my interest in computer science. The instructors I had were Dana and Kyle. Very friendly and also very helpful. We learned new material weekly and were able to create a web page after 8 weeks. Being apart of cultivating coders has opened up doors I never thought were possible. 

As a working professional I was slightly apprehensive about learning to code this far into my career. However, I do thoroughly enjoy problem solving so I was up to the challenge. The coding camp was an amazing life changing experience. The curriculum was very modular and presented at smooth comfortable pace. I liked how we went into depth with topics and did not proceed until the majority of the class expressed we were comfortable to proceed.The instructors various styles and attention to each student’s needs were outstanding. The student to teacher ratio was really low allowing plenty of time for additional explanations of topics in small groups and individually. Topics were presented in a fun engaging manner and I enjoyed the blend of group and individual projects. The class comradery was very cohesive and I like how were worked in teams. Instructors encouraged us to research and problem solve as well as work together to share successes. I look forward to dev projects from the camps cohorts I have witnessed what we can build. It has transformed how I look at the web and applications and far exceeded my expectations. Homework was assigned and projects were due. Hackathons with real bounties were exciting evenings in class. Learning environment was incredible and even snacks were provided. We were introduced to a larger local dev shop and even had an introduction to internships. If you enjoy a challenge and love to problem solve I would absolutely recommend this camp.

I'm a recent attendee(for lack of a better term) who has participated in Cultivating Coder's summer bootcamp in New Mexico; I have to say,  In terms of the material we went over, it was certainly a lot to take in, and it was refreshing to know first-hand what coding is like! Although, because I have never coded in my life until this point in time, it was difficult to grasp the material, which was because either:

-There wasn't enough time to really feel out how to formulate a line of code, or what it means, as we had brief explanations given to us about what certain parts did. The problem with this, I think, is that because in terms of coding, because there are a multitude of ways to create a functioning code, it becomes rather confusing if there is no "right way" to code. 

-We had to ask multiple different questions, as we were anticipated for a good majority of the camp for things that we did individually, as opposed to doing things more so as a class when the people there almost had no knowledge of coding to begin with. It would be helpful, I think, if we were able to go over things as a class much more formally than what was done. Another thing would be to give the class daily assignments that they would have to do after the class, in order to get a better understanding of the material and content, but also to ensure that not everyone falls behind.

-Not everything we were promised was given to us. Specifically, when we were told that we would be able to use Oculus Rift headsets to learn how to code in virtual reality. Though I didn't have a problem with this, all things considered when learning the general process is much more important than moving onto more advanced curriculum. Although I did anticipate that we would go through that material, regardless.

Since I'm still new to coding, and what it entails, I take the class with strides as a hope to actually be capable of having more opportunities to learn in the near future, and to hone my skills that I've developed in the camp even further!

This Web development Bootcamp could not have been any worse.  If you are skeptical about the veracity of my extremely negative comments about Cultivating Coders along with its owner, Charles Ashley, I'd advise you to check out the Cultivating Coders website: you'll discover that Cultivating Coders lacks a basic curriculum, a syllabus, and even fails to provide a basic outline of the material to be covered in its Bootcamp.  

Personally speaking, I registered for the 2016 Bootcamp taught at the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce.  The class consisted of 11 students -- each and every one of whom found the Bootcamp experience horrific.  According to owner, Charles Ashley, the course was to focus on the MEAN stack.  MEAN refers to Mongo DB, Express, Angular, and Node. The students received Certificates of Achievement following the completion of the Bootcamp, specifically indicating (demonstrated) competence with respect to each of these four technologies. Ironically, however, the instructors failed to offer any instruction on either Mongo or Angular.  After receiving numerous student complaints/grievances, Ashley initially offered to take an additional weekend of time to teach Mongo and Angular. Ultimately (and predictably, however), Ashley predictably failed to keep this promise.

The job placement rate among these 11 students continues to stand at 0% -- a rather remarkable feat.

At this point in time, Cultivating Coders no longer offers Web Development Bootcamps with one exception: Cultivating Coders offers Bootcamps to minority Native American, High School students -- students who lack the sophistication to discern that Cultivating Coders is nothing more than a sham, a scam, and taught by fraudsters.   

In sum, Cultivating Coders instructors are entirely incompetent.  They don't even take the time to prepare their lectures beforehand.  One of the instructors and co-owners of Cultivating Coders no longer works for this company: his first name is Charles -- I cannot recall his last name.  

While I can go on and on about this sham and scam that goes by the name, "Cultivating Coders," I'll stop by simply and strongly advising potential students to refrain from enrolling in Cultivating Coders Bootcamps.  PLEASE: TAKE THE TIME TO CHECK OUT THE CULTIVATING CODERS WEBSITE.  You will find that Cultivating Coders entirely fails to provide any information about its Bootcamps -- a strategic decision by Cultivating Coders, so that it's more difficult for students to hold Cultivating Coders accountable.

Key facts to take away: (a) with the exception of several Native American High School students, zero Cultivating Coders' former students have found employment as Web Developers; (b) with respect to Cultivating Coders' most recently offered Bootcamp -- Web Development and the Android Platform --  suffice it to say that the entire class of students had signed a petition decrying the horrendous course instruction; (c) PLEASE CHECK OUT THE CULTIVATING CODERS' WEBSITE --  YOU'LL DISCOVER THAT THE WEBSITE CONTAINS ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION ABOUT THE CULTIVATING CODERS' BOOTCAMPS.  That's enough for now.

Cultivating Coders is currently in the completion phase of their Android course in Albuquerque NM. Each student spend approximately $7500.00 -7900.00 for this course.

Charles Ashely was forewarned early on that the instructor was effectively not versed in Android technology, all the computers provided as part of the purchase totally failed in its ability to handle the software, the instructor was often absent, did not fulfill promises such as supplying comprehensive write-ups for material he did not teach, did not supply any (none at all) teaching material, no homework, no practice on what little was taught...the list goes on. Charles Ashely's answer to this problem was to present himself to the entire class to criticize the students for "being the worst class....hey, you came to me not the other way around".....

Weeks later, Charles Ashely still had not addressed the concerns. Finally and without any choice, our class signed a petition against him and the instructor (John Borden) asking for an explanation, a refund and / or solution.

Charles Ashely now wont even present himself to the class to at least offer an explanation. This is not a business person doing good for himself and others. Charles found a cash-cow and as long as he gets your money, the rest is not consequential. This is the impression he leaves. He has not addressed the class petition against him.

Make sure your contract allows you a refund in the event the same occurs to you. More so, attend a program from a well established entity and with a respected reputation.

Cultivating Coders and Charles Ashely are not worth the time or effort. Do not attend.

The first week I thought I would die..but the teachers really were receptive to my needs and took an active role into helping me build my dream site and my dream future...I now will have a chance to have a future where I can be financally succure and live a better quality of life. I now have a way to take my talents and reach the dreams and asperations that could never have been reached without this class...Thank You so much for believing in me=)

If you have the opportunity to attend a Cultivating Coders boot camp, do it! Cultivating Coders literally changed my life. You will learn the skill set to build responsive websites. This skill set includes, but is not limited to mySQL, PHP, JavaScript/Angular, NodeJs, CSS and HTML. The lead instructors Charles Sandidge (who is also co-founder and CTO of Cultivating Coders) and John Borden are exceptional. They truly care about their students. Not everyone learns at the same pace. Charles and John adjust the curriculum to keep everyone caught up. They will even stay after hours if you need help. Charles also introduces the students to the coding community by letting us know about meetings that are held around town that further our development. We even took a field trip! The assistant instructors, Krieg, Aarick, and Dana are always there to help you one on one. They make sure you understand the material before they go help another student.

If you want to learn a skill set that will reward you with a great career, Cultivating Coders is the way to go. I plan to continue studying coding with the help of my mentors, Charles and John who I now call my friends.

Great intro course to coding! I went in knowing almost nothing about writing code. I came out with a firm grasp on building and launching responsive web sites. The teacher/student interaction was great. Help was always readily available even after hours! the networking also will be very helpful to my future as a web developer. Thank you John, Charles, Krieg, Chase, Dana, and Kyle for all the knowledge!

Dam Cap'n~

This is one of the very amazing an awesome bootcamp that i ever took. I now have the ability to work on some computer/ websites, knowing how to start one up from scratch an making it look the way that i want it to look I have some good skills in the backend of website building all thanks to this bootcamp. This is one job that i would have never seen myself in, but all thanks to my great instructors i now a Web developer.

I've really enjoyed taking the Cultivating Coders Bootcamp classes in Farmington, New Mexico. Learning about mobile and web developing curriculum has changed my life in a way that there are more opportunties than I have had before I graduated the course. I'm really thankful for this opportunity to help my family become financially stable. Also being able to take and share this knowledge of computer coding to my family members whom may be interested in the program is a true honor. 

I strongly recommend the Cultivating Coders Bootcamp program for any individual who is interested in computer coding. It will change your life for the better, and more opportunities will be available. 

Ahe'ee, thank you to the Cultivating Coders Instructors and fellow classmates for the love & support to get through the 1st 8 week coding bootcamp together, and for that I am truly grateful. . 

I have to admit Cultivating Coders has given me the opportunity to learn web designing and development that i couldnt in my area due to lack of financial aid and courses offered in my area especially to Native Americans. It has changed my life in such a way that i will never forget the choice i made to learn these skills that i never thought i would learn.​

It was an intense 8 weeks of coding. It was definitely fast paced but i kept up. I learned the Full Stack Web Development of computer coding including HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and MYSQL. The instructors were awesome and clear about what was being taught. 

I would highly recommend Cultivating Coders to anyone that wants to learn something new, interested or want a change in their life.

I believe i will stick with Coding throughout my future since nowadays coding is everywhere.

This was literally the best decision I've made in my entire life.  I knew what coding was, but I was not familiar with it.  Just due to the fact that I was never introduced to it.  Coding is an art, and I'm a very artistic person.  So I'm more than thankful that cultivating coders has given me the chance to and provided me an extraordinary skill set.  I only plan to extend my knownlege in coding with the help of my amazing mentor's at cultivating coders.    

The best career decision I've eve made.

This unbelieveable curriculum is fast paced but, full of much needed infromation.  Cultivating Coders has the best instructors and support.  Taking the leap and join the 8 week program has changed my life.

For completion of the Cultivating Coders bootcamp, I learned the full stack.  In which includes; PHP, HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap, Angular.js, Javascript, MySQL, Database Administration, Server Administration, Version Control and Objected Oriented Programming.

I was offered a postion with one of Cultivating Coders partners just a few weeks after my graduation. I would be crazy not to reccomend Cultivating Coders to any driven indiviual who is looking to take thier coding skills to the next level.

Cultivating Coders Bootcamp was everything I expected and more. The course curriculum was well thought out and implemented. The 8 week bootcamp was exciting, challenging, and rewarding. Learning the most I could during the 8 weeks provided a foundation where I can begin my career in web application development.  I am grateful for being apart of the first graduating class of Cultivating Coders.  

My overal experiance was "it was ok, fun but ok". There were a lot of times I felt pushed and not enough time to focus on what we learned. It wasn't a huge wast of time, and I understand that there wasn't enough time to go over everything, but I do wish that it was planned slightly better. Not EVERY student learns the same and 3 months I feel was not enough time to have students feel comfortable about what they are learning, especially people like me. It was difficult to try and study outside of class due to no internet access. Coming into this like the others that have no coding experiance, I found it really difficult.

Another problem I have is the fact we would use websites that we would be told to use throughout the whole course and then just switch gears and intantly to remember something we only had a day to go over.  I feel that we were expected to instantly know things after a day, then on the next day told not everyone knows everything. It felt like a contradiction.

The last negative is with the instuctors. This goes with the teaching lessons. Google helps, but NOT ALL THE TIME. I would ask for help and they just say "google it". The reason I would ask for help is I dont know what to google, or just need a good push in the right direction. Sometimes I just don't know what to type or just google, especially if i'm frustrated and if I been working on something that should have taken "an hour" but I taken longer to figure it out. 

The positives is I'm glad I stuck with it and don't regret joining. I learned some skills that I can possibly use in my future. I did enjoy the fact that we got to choose our projects and have fun with them. The time of the class was nice, (meaning the time of day) and enjoyed getting to see presentors come in and show off their work like RS21. 

So yeah, My time here was "ok, fun but ok".  there were lot of good times I had here, and got to learn new things. I would recomend this place to those who just want to get a basis for understanding coding.  To those who want a full career in this field or something, either find a new class that would be longer,  or actually used code in the past so that you would have a head start and can understand a bit better. Once again I'm glad I came and don't regret joining. It poorly planned, and hard to follow instructors, especially for me.  Also there wasn't no VR that I'm kinda upset by because I want to go into gaming so VR would have been fun, but i'ts whatever.

(Most of this punctuation is gonna be wrong because im doing this fast becuase how upset I am about this)       

This was the biggest waste of 12 weeks than anything else could have been. I felt a HUGE lack of help after i fell the slightest behind. Once i was behind there was nothing i could do. I should have just quit there at that moment. I paid 9,000 to be told to google my question intead of gettin gin person help from the one I paid. I couldve learned the little that i did all online for FREE. I was honestly very hurt through these weeks of this bootcamp. I felt like i was neglected after i fell behind. I was given a project where I had to create a cirriculum for next summers bootcamp on a subject that i had no idea what it was. Im sorry Charles your a cool guy but I feel like you need new Teachers. How does someone expect me to learn a whole coding library in under 2 days when i cant even learn some basic crap in a week????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I had the unfortunate opportunity of enrolling in the "Android Bootcamp."  The instructors were awful, and the entire class of students ultimately found it necessary to sign a petition, demanding that owner, Charles Ashley, provide a full refund or some explanation as to why the course was so incompetently taught.  Ultimately, Ashley blamed the students for signing up for the course.  He stated that the students came to him, rather than the other way around.

Based upon my personal experiences with Cultivating Coders, I'd admonish potential students to stay away from this scam -- i.e. Cultivating Coders.  

And the good thing is that there's another coding Bootcamp in the Albuquerque region, which has been operating for many years.  It's called "Deep Dive Coding."  It's taught in partnership with CNN.  You can find all of the details at the following website: https://stemuluscenter.org/. Compare the "Deep Dive Coding" Bootcamp's website which provides extensive and exhaustive info. about the Deep Dive Coding Bootcamp, with the Cultivating Coders website, http://cultivatecoders.com/ which provides zero information about the Cultivating Coders Bootcamp.

Moreover, while Cultivating Coders Bootcamp charges $8000 for 8 weeks of instruction, "Deep Dive Coding" charges $6495 for 10-12 weeks of instruction.  In addition, unlike students who complete the Cultivating Coders Bootcamp and who are typically unable to secure post-Bootcamp employment, the Deep Dive Coding Bootcamp enrollees on ave. earn $45000 per year after completing their Bootcamp.  Perhaps this is why Cultivating Coders refuses to publish or otherwise make known to anyone either (a) what proportion of graduating students have been able to obtain employment as web developers, or (b) even the median salary among graduates of Cultivating Coders Bootcamp.

To obtain a feel as to the many differences between Cultivating Coders Bootcamp, and the Deep Dive Coding Bootcamp, I'd urge you to visit the respective web pages.

This is what I know.  I completed the "Android" Web Development Cultivating Coders Bootcamp, and I'm close to 100 percent certain that zero graduating students have been able to obtain employment in web development.  Just prior to the "Android Bootcamp," Cultivating Coders held a Bootcamp at the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce.  I was told by a reliable source, but cannot independently confirm, that zero graduating students were able to secure employment as web developers.

Interestingly, Cultivating Coders makes it clear that it provides absolutely no post-Bootcamp employment assistance.  In fact, Cultivating Coders even acknowledges in writing that it provides absolutely no post-Bootcamp employment services.  On the other hand, Deep Dive Coding provides a host of employment services for it graduating students.

I will remain anonymous since I'm not particularly interested in finding myself the victim of the pettiness of Charles Ashley -- I've already experienced it..

I've read the reviews authored by former Cultivating Coders' Bootcamp students/participants. And some of them make me laugh.  For example, I've read the review from former student, [retracted]. According to the review, the class "even took a field trip." What [retracted] failed to note was that the so-called field trip consisted of the instructors and students visiting a sinkhole a mere 50 yards from the campus. In my mind, this hardly counts as a "field trip." Moreover,  Cultivating Coders admittedly offers absolutely no job assistance.  Just check out the description of Cultivating Coders at this very website:  according to this website, Cultivating Coders admits that it fails to provide any job-assistance of any kind.

It's ironic that many former students gave Cultivating Coders 5 stars with respect to the "Job Assistance" category -- since Cultivating Coders readily admits that it provides absolutely no job assistance.

If I were you, I'd place more confidence in the most current reviews authored by former Cultivating Coders Bootcamp participants/students.  

In sum, this Bootcamp is nothing but a scam. I'd like to provide 0 out of 5 stars for the various category "ratings". Unfortunately, I'm required to provide at least 1 of 5 stars. Suffice it to say that this Bootcamp was worthless.  In the end, the students typically don't make any payments in order to participate in this Bootcamp.  Instead, the Bootcamp fees are paid by the taxpayers of the State of New Mexico. 

Because I've seen that Cultivating Coders' employees have behaved quite vindictively, in the past,  I've decided to leave an anonymous review -- just to prevent Cultivating Coders from blackballing me at some point in the future.

ANONYMOUS