DigitalCrafts

I grew up in China and came to the U.S. for my master's degree in Sports Management at Florida State University. After working for both college and professional sports’ teams as well as Parks and Recreation departments, I knew that I wanted to work in a more creative and challenging environment where I could also have a positive impact on the community. Web development is a perfect way to combine these attributes while cultivating an invaluable skill.

I started off teaching myself coding through online tutorials and later joined my first coding bootcamp where I realized that I love programming and wanted to pursue my passion. Shortly after, I started the full-time immersive coding bootcamp at DigitalCrafts and graduated from the program in August 2017.

It has been such a great experience for me. Not only that I was able to get a job right after my program ended, but also that the tremendous amount of support I received from the staffs during and after my program. My instrucor is Rob who has 15+ years of experience as a web developer. He helped me to build a solid fundation of web programming and also pushed me to go above and beyond. I was able to build an Alexa app for my final project which I never imaged that's something I could do before the program. They also helped me during my interview process, giving me advice on how to negotiate with employers, helping me to make the right career decision. I could not have done this without their support. 

If anyone who is considering to go to a bootcamp, I would highly recommend you to check out DigitalCrafts! #DCforLife

When I first began to entertain the idea of going to a coding bootcamp to facilitate a career field switch, I was really nervous that coding bootcamps were some kind of scam.  I mean, afterall, how can 12-16 weeks of training prepare you for a coding job when you have to compete on the job market with 4 year college graduates with CS degrees?  Well, after doing lots of research, and talking to bootcamp graduates and my family, I decided to take the risk. Now that I've gotten through the course, I have to say that deciding to take the plunge and enroll in DigitalCrafts' 16 week bootcamp was the best career decision I've ever made.  Every single component of the experience was exceptional, and I can't recommend the experience enough to anyone that is prepared to work extremely hard and devote all of their time to coding for a 4 month period.  

The cirriculum is current, relevant, and in high demand in today's job market.  The instructors were extremely knowledgable, excellent communicators, and also really cared about each individual student's success.  There was always plently of time to receive one on one attention, and though the pace of the course is intense to say they least, you learn a tremendous amount which is definitely worth the price of admission.  In 16 weeks I went from knowing almost nothing about web development, to creating some really cool apps that I'm actually proud of.

The career support is also top notch.  DigitalCrafts really does a great job of teaching you how to craft your resume, portfolio, and various social media outlets in ways that make you attractive to tech industry employers.  Beyond this, they very frequently send out relevant job postings to students to apply to.  Perhaps most importantly,  DigitalCrafts also has a network of tech company partners who are looking to hire bootcamp graduates who they share your information with in order to help you get your foot in the door.  I can't emphasize enough how valuable it is for someone to make an introduction for you during a job search.  Without assistance like this, your are just another nameless face in a sea of applicants, which makes getting an interview much more tricky.

Thanks specifically to DigitalCrafts career support serives, after I graduated from the program on a Wednesday, I had a job interview the following Thursday morning, and a job offer that Friday!  I'm now a Software Engineer and I have DigitalCrafts to thank for helping me to make my career change possible.  If you decide to take the plunge and enter a coding bootcamp in Atlanta, I beleive that DigitalCrafts is your best bet.  They are the top rated bootcamp in the area for a good reason.

Before starting DigitalCrafts, I has a career in sales and business development. I had no former technical training and almost no coding experience. A few months before I enrolled in DigitalCrafts Full Stack Immersive program I dabbled with free resources such as freecodecamp and code academy but I wasn't learning as quickly as I wanted too. I needed to be in a classroom setting with an experienced instructor so I can learn more, quicker. For all potential candidates reading this, I'll give you why I chose DigitalCrafts over the other numerous bootcamps in the Atlanta are and my criticisms of the program. I chose DigitalCrafts because they offered a 16-week program as compared to the typical 12-week programs offered by their competitors. Honestly, you want as much time as you can get in the classroom with your instructor. My instructor Rob was absolutely incredible. I can't imagine having to get through a coding bootcamp with out him. He is both a great developer with so much experience in so many technologies and he's a great instructor. You are going to get frustrated in coding bootcamp, you are going to feel like you're not picking it up quickly enough, you are going to feel dumb, ad there will be times when you question your decision to quit ypur job, abandon your career, and go to code school fulltime. BUT you will be amazed at how much you can learn if you push through. It important to have an instructor like I had that is dedicated to teaching you the material and helping you understand. I had a very positive experience at DigitalCrafts and I had a great instructor. I would definitely recommend checking out DigitalCrafts if you're in the research phase of checking out code schools. Jake and Max will be very honest about what you can and can't expect from the program. They are both personally invested in seeing graduates find employment. 

When I found DigitalCrafts my career was going nowhere, if not backward. After being starved out of full commission sales as a financial advisor in 2011, I spun my wheels working hourly for much less than I deserved with my bachelor’s degree. I didn't know where to turn. I had some technical background and an MIS degree, but my skills were dated. I couldn't seem to get back into IT. I found DigitalCrafts through their meetup group, and scheduled a meeting with Jake, a founder. Within a couple of weeks, I was signed up. I wouldn't say I was ready to go, because the pace of the course was staggering. I really had to get disciplined about working hard. By working hard I mean studying before and after class and on weekends. I would say my work week was 70 - 80 hours. We had an instructor with a Masters in CS from Georgia Tech. The DC team is still really small, and the founders, Jake and Max, are right there taking care of you. The Atlanta Tech Village is an awesome place to learn too. It took me a few months after my cohort to get a job, but I kept working hard. It finally paid off. I'm now a full-time software engineer at Home Depot in Atlanta. I am so happy to get my career jump-started again! I would recommend DigitalCrafts to everyone!

I just completed the 16-week immersive program at DigitalCrafts and it exceeded my expectations in every way possible. The instruction is extraordinary, the class size is perfect, the curriculum is rigorous and challenging (but doable as long as a student is committed), the professional/career support is extremely helpful, and the administration truly cares about the ongoing progress and success of every student.

I'd recommend DigitalCrafts to any prospective student as long as they are ready for a challenge and are willing to put in the effort and time necessary to be successful.

Attending DigitalCrafts has been a great experience. I decided to go to DigitalCrafts because I saw Max's answer on Quora comparing DC to other coding bootcamps in Atlanta, plus detailed student reviews from various platforms. DC has a more comprehensive curriculum and the length of the course is longer. After 16-weeks (probably much earlier than that), I'm pretty sure that I made the right decision.

Here are some aspects that I really like about it:

1. Instructor:

a. Our instructor Toby is very knowledgable, organized and fun. He is able to and is willing to drill down to every aspect of the topics and explore an variety of topics - in an highly structured way. He makes detailed slides for each topic and thinks carefully about what approach is the best for teaching the specific topic. When one approach doesn't work as well as he expects, he try other ones.

b. Students with different skill levels all get abundant and proper attention. Being a teacher for 5 years, I know how hard it is. Toby is worried about the slower students all the time, and he spends a lot of time and efforts to make them catch up. For the more advanced students, he also makes sure they don't get bored. He gives extra tasks that are one level up (or slightly above the students' level) to enhance their skills.

2. Curriculum:

a. The curriculum is designed to the cognitive curve of most learners. It starts with the most basic (and most important) things like data structures (strings, arrays, objects...) and algorithm. Two mainstream programming approaches - object-oriented programming and functional programming - are emphasized from the beginning.

b. Along with the fundamentals, we also learned technologies that are "cutting edge" and highly valued on the market (such as React and Redux), which is one of the most important reasons for employers to choose a boot-camp graduate over a college graduate with a CS degree.

c. Students have opportunities doing many projects with those technologies, including individual and group projects. Being able to do a group project (or more) is very valuable experience, since you would have to work with people in a real-world developer position. We don't always follow instructions and steps, instead, we get to create something from scratch. DigitalCrafts offers plenty of help and a very good environment.

3. Administration and career support:

Everybody in administration is nice and helpful. Students get a lot of career support such as how to create a portfolio, a resume, cover letters and opportunities for mock interview. If you learn coding by yourself, it would definitely be harder to seamlessly transfer from a amateur learner to a professional developer. DigitalCrafts has a network of employers that they connect you to. However, looking for a job takes a lot of efforts and networking. You have to work hard on it yourself as well.

I didn't come from a background of science and engineering, but I got an offer before graduation. I'm very happy about it. Plus, I find coding is beautiful and enjoyable. I'm glad that DigitalCrafts helps me to take the initial steps of the career change and a journey of learning a lot of interesting things.

My experience at DigitalCrafts was absolutely amazing. Before starting the program I’d been working in Government / Politics for about 8 years and had absolutely no exposure to coding.  About a year before I actually enrolled in DigitalCrafts I started teaching myself online but I quickly realized I needed a more formal education in order to break into the field. DigitalCrafts was exactly what I was looking for. Here are some of my take always from the program:

1. Length of the program – it’s about 4 weeks longer than most other programs. I think this is crucial. I ended up with a very solid portfolio and understanding of the topics covered that was easy to show off to potential employers.
2. Solid Foundation - I think DigitalCrafts places a bigger emphasis on fundamentals than other bootcamps. I feel like part of those extra weeks are spent on making sure students understand the fundamentals of programming before moving on to the more advanced and specialized topics like React and Redux. If you don’t really understand how functions and loops work you’re going to be lost when things get harder.
3. Support – the support of the founders (Max and Jake) and the instructors is phenomenal. I felt like each one of them was personally invested in me doing well and reaching my goals. It’s that kind of personal attention that I don’t think other bootcamps that are run more like a big corporation are doing.
4. Great industry – Bottom line is this is an amazing industry to be in. I never thought I’d be in a position where I’d be so sought after by employers. I actually didn’t apply to a single job but I had several companies and recruiters reaching out to me asking me to interview and ended up getting 2 offers before the class was over. That never would have happened without the instruction and guidance DigitalCrafts gave me.  

Note: This review is in reference to the first Houston cohort from November 2016 - March 2017, also with general thoughts regarding the program.

The Digital Crafts program in retrospect was a great decision and overall I couldn't be happier with that choice.  Initially, I was certainly a bit nervous about being the first cohort since that could possibly include many growing pains as Digital Crafts tries to get a foothold in the Houston market.  But those first few weeks definitely alleviated those concerns.  Be it a bootcamp or even traditional school, the most paramount part of the experience is the instructor.  I can’t even begin to describe how incredible Damian was in not only teaching us the material but understanding how to conduct a classroom with individuals at all different levels, temperament and managing to keep everyone engaged and challenged simultaneously.  We lucked out as a class to have him teach this cohort.  On top of that, he cultivated an environment where we all became closer and actually had fun, which I believe is a necessity in this environment.  A bootcamp by its very nature is intense, difficult, it can be draining and you have to understand knowing when to push or when to back off.  Damian understood this and paced the class perfectly.  I was constantly learning but never felt too overwhelmed.  Again that isn’t to say the material is not difficult but he just intuitively knew how to present it to us and how to push us to work harder when we needed it and how to relax things as necessary.  Damian was just amazing!  I can’t thank him enough for everything.

I will say this, much of what you get as with most things in life, is truly based on what you are willing to put in.  This couldn’t be any more accurate then for a bootcamp.  You have to understand going in that you’re going to sacrifice the next four months of your life to build a new career and that time commitment is non-negotiable if you want to achieve success.  Damian or any other instructor can only present the material and get you off on the right path but it is incumbent upon you to be willing to work hard and go the extra mile to truly find success.  The hours may say 9am-4/5pm but be prepared to work well beyond that and weekend if need be.  If you’re willing to take that sacrifice, Jake, Max and the Digital Crafts team will get you where you want to be.  The same applies for the career services aspect of the bootcamp.  You will not be handed a job coming out and it’s gonna be full time work to find one.  Digital Crafts will try and send out leads but it’s incumbent on you to make it happen.  Being new in Houston there isn’t much of a built in employee network.  I’m hopeful that will change for future cohorts but right now the onus is on the individual to look.  Jake has been incredibly helpful and will go above and beyond to make it happen but you’ve got to be prepared to work hard to land a developer job.  Overall, I was really pleased with the experience I had, I became really close with the cohorts in my class and ended up landing a job in a field that I’m excited about.  It’s a lot of work but it’s well worth it!

I started looking for a change of career early in 2016. By Spring I knew I wanted to get back into Web Design and Development and by July I had narrowed down that I wanted to attend an in-person boot camp.

Digital Crafts was just coming into Houston and they were offering something other code camps weren’t – Full Stack Development.  After the reviews online, speaking with Max and the campus director Jason and checking out other local competitors, I decided that Digital Crafts was the best option for me. It was the best decision I have ever made.

Being the first cohort in Houston I expressed my concerns to them about the instructor – Rob in Atlanta was getting great reviews and I had read other places (some right in Houston) where the instructor just wasn’t right and it ruins the experience. They assured me they are very thorough and selective– they make sure they find someone who fits their culture. And they didn’t disappoint. 

Damian, our instructor, made our cohort what it was. He was very methodical with his code but would explain everything in a way that the entire class would understand. If you didn’t understand something, he would make sure to give other examples or even talk one on one until you understood the topic.  I can’t speak more highly of Damian and the level of professionalism he brought to our class. He would teach us but also do the exercises himself. We would go over the answers and he would show us his thought process and how he would attack each problem. It was awesome to see him work and to be able to base it into the real world – not just the classroom.

Don’t think this is a class you can sit in on and just “get it”. You need to put forth the effort in order to get the most of your experience.  It’s stressful and at times you will feel overwhelmed. But the amount skills you will learn in the 16 weeks will make everything worthwhile.

I will stay though, the Houston cohort is still new, so naturally there are some things they are working out. But between the curriculum, the overall D.C structure and the level of passion the owners, Jake and Max have – it’s an amazing course and I would recommend it to someone that is looking to attend a boot camp.

DigitalCrafts was definitely worth my time and my money. To learn full stack development within 4 months is an incredible and challenging experience that I would definitely do again. DigitalCrafts is located in the Atlanta Tech Village, Atlanta's startup hub. There were ample opportunities to meet and network with those who work in the building.

After talking to a friend who attended another bootcamp, it became apparent that there are no others like DigitalCrafts. I joined DigitalCrafts shortly after receiving a psychology degree without any tech experience, and the curriculum at DigitalCrafts allowed me to entertain both front-end jobs and back-end jobs. They taught everything I know about coding and I'm happy to have received an offer as a software engineer one month after graduation.