Deep Dive has offered a web development bootcamp for years - they claim 80% of graduates of that program get coding jobs.  They offered a new bootcamp in the Java language, when I was applying, and when I asked the director which bootcamp would more likely result in my getting a job in coding - I was not attached to any language, or any field - I wanted a job. She said that the web development job market was likely saturated after so many years of graduating students (please think about this if you’re thinking about taking the web-development course) and she said that I’d probably do better in the Java program.  I asked if my lack of a four-year degree would get in the way of employment, and she said that some employers - mainly public sector employers - would care about that, but most private sector employers would hire someone without a degree. It turns out that the director’s husband works in a programming business that writes Java code.

Since graduating, I have found that every advertised job has a requirement for a four-year degree - BA/BS - usually for a STEM degree, and often they state “MS preferred.”  I applied for these jobs, anyway - not just in NM, but also in TX, CO, AZ and UT, but without a degree on my resume, I got very few calls for interviews. Whenever I did get an interview, it would end whenever the question was asked and answered, “Do you have a four year degree?”

Recently, one of the administrators published an article online addressing the fact that the local software developers only advertise for programmers who have STEM degrees, which kind of acknowledges the point I’ve been making.

I feel taken advantage of.  The program costs too much ($9,000) for them to have “guessed” that the tech community would hire graduates who didn’t have four-year degrees.  I have asked them to comp me their other bootcamp - their “proven” web-development bootcamp - in light of the fact that I paid my own money for this bootcamp and that they are now publishing articles that acknowledge my point about the four year degrees mattering.  They refused to give me a free ride, and they refused to give me a discount. Instead, they say that they’re “working on” getting some financial aid from somewhere else. And when I checked back 6 months later, they are still “working on” getting financial aid from somewhere else.  Come on...

At its core, it is a dishonest organization.

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My experience taking this bootcamp was amazing. The staff and instructors are great! It's very challenging, but definitely worth it. 

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I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship to Deep Dive Coding. I spent 10 fairly grueling weeks not being able to make my car payment while I attended this program. In the end it was worth it. The program does have its flaws but, hey, welcome to the real world. 

Some advice to future students is to get familiar with Github, basic HTML/CSS/BootStrap, PHPStorm, API's, ERD's and what a Framework is. You will use past capstones to help you with your capstone. I am not sure what the future cohorts will offer training wise but here is my github and it may still prove useful.

https://github.com/agraham14

Try not to get frustrated. There are many guest speakers and a mock interview process. I rebelled against them initially but in the end took a lot from the experience as a whole.

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I was lucky enough to recieve a scholarship to Deep Dive Coding. I spent 10 fairly grueling weeks not being able to make my car payment while I attended this program. In the end it was worth it. It does have it's flaws but, hey, welcome to the real world. 

Some advice I would give to future students is to get familiar with Github, basic HTML/CSS/BootStrap, PHPStorm, API's, ERD's and what a Framwork is. You will use past capstones to help you with your capstone. I am not sure what the future cohorts will offer training wise but here is my github and it my still prove useful.

https://github.com/agraham14

Try not to get frustrated. There are many guest speakers and a mock interview process. I rebelled against them initially but in the end took a lot from the experience as a whole.

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Like most things in life - you will get a lot out of it if you put a lot of yourself into it.  The difference between this bootcamp and learning to code online is this:  You are paying for the opportunity to have experienced professionals guiding you who can answer your questions and give you feedback in person.  It is truly a bootcamp that starts off relatively easy and then quickly ramps up in intensity.  The course is prepared to give a student the elements necessary to be a well rounded web developer.  The languages taught are sought after and relevant right now.  In addition to learning to code - students are introduced into the tech buiness community and coached on networking, given job search guidance, and regular check-ins to make sure you aren't getting overwhelmed in the process.  After bootcamp students come out with a beginning portfolio, and an arsenal of knowledge and tools to continue growing their web development skills.

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Overall, I had a great experience at Deep Dive - the instructors were prepared and helpful, the curriculum was challenging but not impossible, and the environment was conducive to learning. My only complaint is that the professional development portion of the bootcamp lacked preparation for freelancing, which is a likely outcome for a student new to programming.

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Great school, has everything except barracks and showers, Tech talk and lecture on related topic after class

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Not worth the money.

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Having gone through this course, I believe that I got so much out of it. I am getting opportunities to use my new skills and develop them even further, a token to the success of the DDCB's instructors, and faculty. 

Thank you so much! :)

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The best things about this bootcamp: The instructors created a very challenging but very supportive learning environment. All three instructors put a lot of themselves into the course, care a great deal about the students, and are expert coders. The instructors are wonderful people, and really good teachers.

The coding assignments, the work-along demos, and the team-based capstone projects were extremely good. The instructors were very good at constructing and leading those sorts of hands-on coding experiences.

The worst things about this bootcamp: In the first three weeks, there were way too many lectures, and students spent way too little time coding. On several days, lectures took the entire 8 hours! All-day lectures are not an effective way to teach, because most students can't stay focussed on difficult technical material for that long while being passive. I was surprised that the curriculum was designed with so many lectures, since the instructors are not very good at lecturing, but they are great at leading hands-on, active-learning sorts of exercises.

The course is very intense, as it should be, and there is a lot of material to cover in 10 weeks. However, the time taken for passive lectures could have been greatly reduced by simply organizing each lecture (and by spending less lecture time on jokes and trivial asides).  Also, the instructors could have used a "flipped classroom" approach, where students watch online lectures (e.g. from Lynda) at home, and nearly all of the class time is used for active, skill-based exercises.

TL;DR  I learned a great deal by attending this bootcamp. The course has serious flaws, but the instructors have the skills they need to improve the course.

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I enjoyed the DDCB experience, however, for someone will very little programming experience going in it was difficult. I was lucky to be on a team that had some programming knowledge before coming to the class, otherwise I would have been lost. The instructors were great, there were times though where the main instructor went off on stories that took up more time than they should of. The curriculum was truly extensive, but we are given so little time on some subjects that it almost didn't feel like learning, we were exposed to a language then we were expected to go do it. Yes, they do expect you to learn on your own using documentation but it was hard to get help when it was needed. You will be doing a lot of the work on the weekends and I do highly recommend it, but good luck getting any of the instructors to respond to questions. Our group all met together on Saturdays which was extremely helpful. If you can, encourage your cohort to do the same, I think I had one of the best cohorts out there. The job assistance was extremely helpful and even now that I have graduated I am still getting notifications of jobs and internships. Can I say that I feel ready to go get a job after this program? No. What I can say is that they have opened the doors to a whole new world of possibilities and have given me a foundation which to continue learning from. I appreciate all the insight the instructors have given me, and I loved how great the staff was in my time at the camp. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would have to give this course a 7/10. Great people, just not great for those barely starting their programming journey.

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DDCB is a valuable, challenging program that can get you started in the tech industry. Like other bootcamps, it requires full commitment in order to reap the highest benefits. The career assistance is excellent - I was employeed in a month after I started looking for a job. There are also alternative options, paid internships and similar portofolio building opportunities that DDCB provides in order to help students bridge the gap in experience so they can be employable. 

The course work is solid and you'll be exposed to fundamental principles of programming. Your best bet is to learn how to learn. You can't expect to be spoon-fed, but if you're willing to put in the time and effort you can graduate with enough knowledge and a polished portfolio piece to get you started. 

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The Deep Dive coding bootcamp does a good job of exposing you to a lot of technical information. The problem is there's ALOT of behind the scenes magic that you aren't exposed to or that isn't even hinted at during the course so when you graduate you're left scratching you're head on things like database connections and other issues that are extremely relevant. 

Also, Javascript is the number one programming language on github and most highly sought by employers, but we spent less than half of a day learning Javascript and learned some Angular as we went along but with little to no formal instruction. PHP was the extreme focus of the course but is harder and harder to find jobs in, especially in the Albuquerque area.

The lead instructor is great, except he goes on lectures and rants that no where near deserve the time spent on them in relation to the importance of hands on learning needed to leave as a competent web developer. The assistant instructor was almost worthless as a technical assistant, as she was proficient in only front end languages and even then seemed lost or had an inability to explain some concepts with any understanding. 

The time spent on "guest speakers" and non technical related things amounts to ALOT more of the course than you would think, and keeps you from learning more technical issues later in the course when you are in deeper technical water. 

Another big issue I had with the camp, especially in retrospect was that everytime you had a technical problem to overcome the instructor(s) would basically just fix the problem with little to no explaining overall. Also, the camp makes ALOT of assumptions about your technical background where it comes to programming. The problem is, many come into the camp with little to no background and don't get a thorough understanding of some pretty basic programming concepts. 

Job placement or assistance seems almost non-existent unless you're friends or close to the people passing on the assitance emails and opportunities. I think the opportunites should be much less discrimantory and have heard from other graduates that they feel the same. 

After meeting and speaking with many graduates and following their quest for employment in a casual manner, I'm sure that Deep Dive mispresents the employment numbers and opportunities that graduates have. 

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