Turing School of Software & Design Reviews
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Anonymous
Fully prepares you for a job
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My favorite thing about Turing is that they are continuously improving. They constantly iterate on the program by trying new things - keeping what works and scraping what doesn't. This attitude is what convinces me that they are sincere about giving you the best education and experience possible.
The education I got was incredible. I took a great job a few weeks after graduating, and by the second week I already had code in the production app. I was fully prepared to come into the company and start writing code immediately (without having previous tech experience!).
I'm incredibly proud to have been a Turing student. They have an incredible community and incredible staff. I would choose to attend Turing again in a heart beat. -
Emily
In a league of its own
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After talking with people who went to other coding programs, I realized just how special Turing is.
Two things:
1. Turing is a non-profit (EVERYONE on the team is there for the students, not $$$).
2. The program is way longer and more in-depth than almost every other program.
Honestly, Turing folks do want they say they do. They help (and rigourously push) you to become a solid developer in 7 months. Will you be showered with job offers upon graduation? No. Getting a job requires hussle, salemanship (show off all that great work you've been doing!), and connections. Turing can help with all that, but it will still be up to you to find a job that works for you. It's not easy. Taking time and money to change careers is a big commitment; budget at least a year from the time you quit your old job until your first developer paycheck comes in.
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Ryan
Best career decision I've ever made!
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Turing was a life-changing opportunity for me and I will forever be grateful for it. In my experience, Jeff Casimir and the Turing staff did everything in their power to help provide an environment where students not only become sought-after developers, but well rounded people.
Jeff cares about providing an environment where student success is prioritized. Period. Not only does he and the staff continuously improve on the curriculum EVERY cohort, but he is not above fixing a toilet or installing a ramp for students that need it. Something you don’t see in a lot of leaders.
The support that I received from the staff was BY FAR the best I had from any post-secondary education I’ve been apart of. There were many nights / weekends where they sacrificed their own personal time to help my classmates and I work on problems and issues we were stuck on. They don’t just tell you that student success is important to them, they show you by the commitment they put towards their students each day.
As everyone else has already said, Turing is VERY HARD! It demands a lot of your time and you will be mentally tested everyday. For 7 months, you will have to commit to becoming the best developer you can be. You will have to sacrifice time with your family and friends (I’m a husband and father of two), but the education you get in return is more than worth it.
I’m not going to tell you that everything at Turing is perfect. The process of receiving a mentor was somewhat confusing when I was there, but they have currently taken strides to improve that process and make sure that every student has the ability to get a mentor in the most efficient way.
Overall, the decision to go to Turing has been the best career decision that I have made. I received a job offer before I finished school and am loving my job. None of this would have been possible without the help, guidance, and support I received at Turing!
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Gustavo
Be ready to work hard and be pushed past your limits...
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General consensus:
Turing is one of the most challenging endeavors you will ever pursue. It is seven months of intense software development training and personal assessment. Each day you will be pushed beyond your mental and physical boundaries. Some days, you will question if you have the stamina to successfully complete the program. In the end, however, you will recognize that attending Turing was one of the best decisions you ever made!
Personal experience:
I went into Turing with zero programming experience. I had only completed a couple of online Ruby tutorials but knew immediately that I wanted to pursue software development. If you are new to programming and are considering attending Turing, here are a few personal recommendations.
First, be 100% certain you are ready to place your life "on hold" for seven months. Have your finances in order and minimize the number of distractions outside of Turing so you can focus entirely on the program.
Second, prepare as much as possible before starting the program. For example, I had not touched a Mac in over 22 years, so it was one more thing (on top of many other things) I had to learn during my first few weeks at Turing. If possible, I suggest you get Mac laptop and start getting familiar with it. Choose a text editor (Atom is very beginner-friendly) and learn some key bindings. Play around with the Terminal and enable tab completion. Being able to navigate your machine at a reasonable rate will help you keep pace with class lectures and exercises. Also, I would recommend completing a good Rails tutorial so you can get a better idea of its MVC pattern.
Third, if a certain subject area is not clicking, seek help! Turing moves fast so don't let too much time pass by before asking for help. Given that I was part of the first cohort (#1406) at Turing, resources were somewhat limited during my first two modules and that made the program even more challenging for me. It wasn't until halfway of module three that I was able to find a good mentor who was commited to helping me. Fortunately, Turing has since increased and improved its mentor participation and has also structured student "posses" in which students from cohorts ahead of yours can serve as helpful resources.
Instructors:
Each instructor at Turing is both an educator and a programmer. Their commitment to your individual success and the success of the program is unquestionable. They each invest countless hours preparing lectures, enhancing the curriculum, and helping students outside of normal hours. I genuinely admire their dedication and passion. Other programs experience high turnover with instructors, which can often lead to inconsistency and instability in a program's curriculum and overall success.
Community:
As soon as you're accepted into Turing, you become part of an awesome community! Many are recent graduates of Jeff Casimir's previous training programs and Turing, so they know exactly what it takes to get through the seven months. Others are seasoned developers and industry leaders who fully support Turing by generously devoting their personal time to help the program succeed. Obviously, I am extremely proud to be part of this remarkable network!
Your classmates:
Turing values its culture and its curriculum equally, so the administration does a great job of filtering potential students in order to maintain a healthy learning environment. That said, please understand that you will be in many stressful situations throughout the course of the program and it is essential that you and your classmates communicate effectively. Also, if you notice one of your classmates is falling behind, take the initiative to help him/her get back on track; it will be a great learning opportunity for you both and it will pay significant dividends as the course advances. And, since most of the assignments are group-based projects, ensuring that every member of the group can contribute similarly will lighten the workload and enhance the experience for everyone.
Summary:
Please understand that there is no such thing as a perfect software development training program. There is a lot to learn and there is never enough time. However, I can assure you that Turing has the best resources and systems in place to turn you into an employable developer by the end of the seven-month course. Just like anything else in life, if you go in with a positive attitude, work hard, and make the best out of every day, you will have a great experience. Good luck!
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Aaron Wortham
Can change your life if you are willing to put in the effort.
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I was CNC machinist when I made the decision to join Turing. Without a computer background I found myself struggling at times to comprehend some of the concepts that were being taught and asked many a 'dumb' question. I also had a wife and two kids and only got to see them on weekends during the 7 months. Because of this I put in roughly 70 hours/week during weekdays and took the weekends off to be with family. This program is everything they've advertised and can totally change the trajectory of your life. My income tripled from one year to the next and opportunities are so much bigger than what I had before. But do not enter this program thinking you will skate through to graduation and be handed a great high paying job.You will work your ever loving butt off. Just know that up front. If you are good with that than Turing is the place for you.
I have faced many a development challenge since I entered the industry a little over a year ago and found the training that I received to have prepared me fully to handle anything that has been thrown my way. Totally worth it.
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Alexandra
High Quality Program, High Quality People
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If you are serious about becoming a software developer and working in the field, attend Turing. I've always found that it is the people that make the program. The staff at Turing, including the executive director are some of the most hard working, passionate, and compassionate people I've met. They are serious about the work they do and the students they teach. They are continuously seeking feedback and making improvements to the curriculum and work environment.
The staff works hard to ensure that the curriculum is relevant and up to date with the latest industry standards and best practices. In addition to teaching and fine tuning the curriculum, staff members are involved in the tech community, hosting meet ups, speaking at conferences, and participating in tech initiatives around the US.
Turing has an amazing community of people, including alumni, professional developers, corporate executives, government officials, and founders of tech startups. These 'friends of turing' are influencers in their fields who use their influence to give back to the community and advance the careers of new developers. They share their knowledge and insight with current students, often making themselves available to mentor over a google chat, cup of coffee, or a drink after work.
The program is very challenging. There is a steep learning curve, but if you work hard, hang in there, and reach out to the turing community for help when you need it, you will acquire the necessary skills for a great career in software development.
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Krista Nelson
Not just a school, a community of amazing people!
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I was over worked and under appreciated in my last job, and was looking for a career change but wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I heard about Turing and wasn't sure quite what it was but knew it came with a great reputation so I went ahead and applied just to check it out. CHANGED MY LIFE! What a difference one year can make!
Why I love Turing - the people!Jeff: Thank you to Jeff for creating such an amazing community and bringing all of these great people together. He cares about so much more than just pumping out devs, but giving back and making an impact on the tech community as a whole. He has stood up for me and lead me to some amazing oportunities including the connection to my job now. He can be tough and will push you to your limits but he has the best of intentions of pushing you out of your comfort zone and onto the next level.
The instructors: The instructors are amazing, and I can't thank them enough for all that they have done. They care so much about their students and take the time to find ways of explaining things in a relatable way, even for those with no programming background. There is no judgement for things you don't know before coming in. If you put in the respect and effort needed, it is more than returned back.The mentors: I think it shows the amount of respect there is for the Turing community by seeing all of the awesome Ruby/Rails/JS community members that give up lots of their time to help students for free. I learned so much from the mentors I had while I was at Turing, and I continue to grow and solidify my skills as I mentor students currently in the program.
The students: You will spend A LOT of time with your classmates. Spending that much time with any group, there will be cases of friction of course but that was by far the most respectful group of people I have ever met. There is a lot to cover, and each student may choose to focus on different aspects. Getting to see what your peers work on is a great inspriation and opens so many doors to expanding your knowledge. Check out a demo day if you want to see what the students are up to.Overall notes
Course was hard, be preparred to not do anything else for those 7 months. Just as nothing in life is perfect, it's a high stress environment and surely you'll run into some roadblocks but making through those just makes you that much stronger of a person. Couldn't be happier with my choice to go to Turing.
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Allie Larson
worth it if you want it
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I went into Turing without any programming experience, and graduated in December 2014. As of this writing, I have been a software developer for over a year, coming up on a year and a half. Here's my review for anyone thinking about Turing: if your serious about wanting to learn how to be a developer, you should absolutely do it. No question about it.
Turing is hard. Really hard. One of the beautiful things about it is that even if you have no development experience, you can still succeed among people who do. You will come out of the program better equipped than a lot of CS degrees.None of the reviews are lying about that. But you have to work.
You will be expected to do a lot. Turing is very project oriented, so the answers aren't handed to you. You won't get hand-held, you won't have 'blow off' work. You will probably fail at some stuff, and you will learn to fail, relearn, and keep on moving. Thats how software development is, and you are learning to be a software developer. On top of technical skills, you're expected to be involved in the community. You have to speak in front of groups. You have to think critically about tech as a whole, and your role in it. You have to learn to collaborate, how to communicate, and a host of other things that I didn't personally think were going to be difficult, but were.
Where Turing stands out is in their community. The staff is second to none. They put hours and hours of time into the curriculum, and the students. They don't always make decisions you like, but they do make decisions that make you better. They change the things that don't work. Students have access to a huge group of developers who are willing to mentor on anything from technical skills to general work/life balance advice. Mentors work with students one on one, and it's an invaluable experience to be able to sit down with professional developers and learn from them, starting basically from day one.
Turing taught me to be a developer. While I tend to focus on Ruby/Rails/Javascript currently, I don't believe that the education I received only equipped me for those specific languages and frameworks. The bulk of the learning was totally language and framework agnostic. I would be very confident going into a role where I don't work with any of those tools because of the education I received at Turing.
As far as job hunting, I had signed on to a job before I officially graduated. This is 100% thanks to Turing and the community, as a few engineers from my current company came directly to Turing to interview potential candidates. I can't speak for the job hunt after the program completes, except to say that everyone in my cohort is employed as a developer.
If you're looking for a program to teach you technical skills and only technical skills, Turing might not be for you. If you're looking for a class to go to for a few hours a day and then go home, Turing might not be for you. If you are looking for a 7 month program to be fully immersed in a skill and in a community, to be challenged beyond what you thought possible, to make connections that will last you the rest of your career, and to have the best skills possible going into a new career, Turing is for you.
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Rolando Navarrete
Never worked so hard and learned so much before.
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Overall:
Turing was one of the best decisions I've ever made. The school was everything that I hoped it would be. I was challenged everyday, it has probably been one of the most productive seven months of my life.
I'm now happily employed at an innovative startup in Santa Monica, which was one of outcomes that I dreamed coming out of this program.
Looking back at my experience at Turing I can say that I had a blast, if you would have asked me while I was attending Turing I may have not been that enthuiastic.
Turing was a real difficult program, and I believe it has gotten a bit more difficult (a good thing). At times it may feel like Turing likes to torture students, but the reality is that Turing's goal is to make sure you get a job offer, and that becomes very diffucult when a student doesn't have experience working through difficult problems.
I can't thank Turing enough, Turing has set me for a very rewarding career path I wouldn't have otherwise.
Instructors:
Extremely knowledgeable. Some people will say that the instructors don't make themselves available, but the truth is that they do their best to allocate their time efficiently to help as many people as they can, which means that the more clear and specific your questions are, the better the instructors can help you. I've seen instructors go out of their way on many occasions to help out students, which meant coming in before classes and staying after classes.
Curriculum:
Very intense. This is one of the longest programs out there, clocking in at 7 months it moves fast and keeps you busy every minute. Tip: Turing just launched a front-end course that if given the chance to do over I would choose over the back-end course (https://www.turing.io/programs/front-end-engineering)
Job Assistance:
The job hunt was a bit tough, but the key is to keep sharpening your skills and meeting with as many people as you can while on the job hunt. Networking at meetups, asking people out to coffee, and sending out those resumes will eventually pay off.
Conclusion:
My advice would be to do some programming on your own for a few months, if you really enjoy building things and solving bugs then this program is for you. Do as much prep as you can for this program, trust me you will hit the ground running.
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Brandon
Turing gives you opportunity
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Turing, exactly what I was looking for in higher education. This school is hands on software development from the start. The process is grueling, challenging, exhausting, and rewarding.
At the time I applied, I was working in construction and sales. I was pretty unhappy with my current career and even more upset with the standard college education system. I was pretty skeptical of the idea of Turing, because I had been burned by other short term trade school style programs. Let me just say, Turing's focus is on creating developers. Developers who are prepared and ready to start working the minute they graduate. This program really did change my life, but it was the hardest thing I have ever done.
This school is not going to hold your hand. You are taught how to think, solve and research a problem. The next 7 months of your life will be with your head down in the code. By the end, Turing will give you all the skills you need to successfully land a job in the tech industry, which is ultimately why you attend a school like Turing. Tech interviews are vastly different then any other interview process I have been through. They typically involve proving your worth with coding challenges and a full day or multiple day interviews. Just know, you will be ready!
The curriculum is always changing, as is the tech market. Try not to get too caught up looking at specific languages when deciding on a bootcamp or code school. The point is to learn a marketable skill, and don't worry, you'll pick up other languages quickly after attending Turing.
My biggest complaint used to be that I didn't have enough time with JavaScript. I had been teaching myself, and my last module seemed to zoom past it. However, I am working with JS every day, and Turing gave me the skills to pick up other languages and programming paradigms.
You may not always agree with everything at Turing, but I think you will agree that it works when you get out!
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Tim M.
A hard 7 months for a great career
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Turing was a challenging 7 months. The amount of new information I learned was staggering and the curriculum has grown significantly since I was a student. If you manage to find the time and patience to pull through, an amazing industry will be opened up to you. You'll get out of Turing what you put into it. They can prepare you for a hard industry to enter and one that will expect you alone to find the answers to challenging problems - even at your first job. If you deside to go to Turing, you won't walk away with a high level understanding of a few framworks. They'll give you the knowledge to progress in this career.
Before I came to Turing I had essentially zero programming knowledge - a book on HTML and one free online course. Now I am developing a Ruby application at an awesome company. A few long nights is nothing for career in software development - Turing is definitely worth the work.
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Trey
a life changing decision
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Before starting Turing, I had been trying to learn how to program for about 2 years. I had worked as a wordpress developer and had a barely sustainable career hacking php templates. I ultimately found Turing and now I have a fully sustainable career doing something that I absolutely love.
Most of my own feelings about Turing have already been articulated here by my peers, but I do feel like my biggest takeaway from my 7 months at Turing is how to solve problems. Yes, Turing directly teaches you how to work with Ruby/Rails/JS, but I think the ancillary benefit of learning how to think like a developer is the more important takeaway. I work in devops, which Turing certainly does not explicitly teach. Others from my graduating class work exclusively in React, Meteor, or even Go. This is a testament to Turing's ability to prepare you to work in ANY sub-field of web development. Turing teaches you how to learn and, more importantly, how to think.
Turing prepared me for a career in programming more than I could have previously expected. I'm excelling at my new job and I've already contributed multiple times to a few high-profile open source projects. I have at least 5 family/friends that are trying to get into programming in some capacity. I push all of them toward Turing because I know that it's the best program in the country. If you want to become a great developer, apply to Turing.
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Alex Jensen
What I wish college would be
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Turing was exactly what I wish I could do in college. As a high school student, I took a few intro programming classes to get me interested, but the system was awful for me. I got an hour of each day sitting in class, most of the time not paying attention to the teacher and working on my own, which actually helped quite a bit. Almost all of my learning toward programming was in that time I got to spend fooling around on my own. But then my hour would be up and I'm on to the next class that I can sleep in.
After high school, I knew I wanted to go to college for some kind of computer science, but I wasn't very fond of taking a lot of other classes in college that I probably would never use. I went to speak a computer science professor to plan out my next step in life, and he recommended I check out Turing. This was exactly what I was looking for: a very focused and specific education without any of the typical schooling nonsesne.
Hopefully that's enough background to understand my actual review.
Overall Expirience: 5/5
I was excited every single day through the entire 7 months to show up in a basement with no windows. The community, including both instructors and students, at Turing made it easy to want to learn more. Everyone brought their best, which I appreciated quite a bit. Everyone was able to stay motivated and put in a ton of work 5 days a week.
Instructors: 4/5
I began at Turing as one of the first few "guinea pig" classes. When I started there, a few instructors were very evidently new, having hardly any teaching experience. If they had stayed that way the entire 7 months, I probably would have rated this category lower. Every instructor was there because of a passion to teach, and not for any other reason. I saw instructors hired that came in honestly as awful teachers. Then after only a month or so, there was obvious improvement and huge drive to improve as a teacher. I graduated about a full year ago, and I'm certain all of the instructors, including new ones, either are great teachers now, or working hard to become one.
Curriculum: 3/5
When I was at Turing, all of the curriculum for the first few months was very fleshed out and worked well for everyone. Further along, the projects got much more vague, as did the teaching for new material. Keep in mind again, I was attending very early on to Turing, so I assume this is improved quite a bit by now.
Job Assistance: 2/5
I'm a bit of a special case for this section in the fact that I was just out of high school and never had a job before. I had never learned about or had to do any job searching, interviewing, etc before, so I was fairly lost on starting this up. Turing did plan a few job fair-like events, helped with some resume writing, but I hardly got much more out of it. I won't put all the blame on Turing though, I could have been more helpful to the process myself, but overall I struggled heavily looking for a job between my age, my 0 expirence, and the resources provided by Turing.
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Will Faurot
<3
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I graduated from Turing in December of 2014, officially making this review long overdue. It also puts me in a bit of a unique situation. Yes, I finished the program over a year ago, but I've been deeply involved with the Turing community for the better part of two years. Seven months as a student, the rest as a mentor. There are several reasons I've stuck around for as long as I have, and I'll do my best to express those here.
If you're looking for a tl;dr, here it is: if you have a chance to attend Turing, do it. The instructors, curriculum, and all of the amazing people I've met along the way enabled me to become the kind of person I've wanted to be for years -- both personally and professionally.
It really did change my life.Before we get into too much detail, there's one thing that's particularly important to me -- the Turing community. I was fortunate enough to see Turing grow into what it is today: a thriving, open, and kind community of educators, students, alumni, and friends. They're the reason I am where I am, which is why I'm doing my best to pay it forward. I've been a part of Turing get-togethers in at least four major US cities, and I've barely scratched the surface. If you do decide to attend Turing, the community will be your biggest asset.
Though my work took me away from Denver well over a year ago, I think my proximity to Turing over the years gives me a good foundation to speak to the program's values as well as the current state of things. Turing began as twenty strangers in a basement -- little did I know how many lifelong friends would be among them. And a lot has changed since then.
The staff has grown at least four-fold, the curriculum is constantly evolving, and plenty of new initiatives like student-led workshops have been introduced.My thoughts here will draw from the whole of my time at Turing, both as a student and as a mentor. Be forewarned that this review will be overwhelmingly positive, because that was the nature of my experience. Take from it what you will.
I want to emphasize that I mean every word.
Instructors
Many of Turing's instructors have professional teaching experience -- they were teachers first. As an educator, technical expertise is only useful if you're able to share that knowledge effectively.
I saw them continually go above and beyond. They put in long hours, often with little recognition. Staying after-hours with students, running workshops, acting as a project manager for student side-projects, and organizing extra-curricular activities like teaching computer science to middle-schoolers. To me, they are friends and mentors who genuinely give a shit. I appreciate them, and I can say with certainty that you will too.
Curriculum
It was immediately clear that Turing's mission was to train application developers. I appreciated the curriculum so much precisely because it was project-driven. We touched on computer science fundamentals, but what I really gained at Turing was the ability to solve problems. More specifically, the ability to solve problems in the pursuit of writing production-quality software. We focused on specific technologies, but my biggest takeaways were language/framework agnostic. We learned how the web works, how large web applications should be structured, service oriented architecture, how to communicate via APIs, etc.
Here's a quick rundown of my experiences with each six-week module:
Module 1: Ruby
This was my favorite module, and arguably the most challenging. We covered computer science fundamentals, and learned Ruby/object-oriented programming in a non-web environment. We built things like text-based games, command-line applications, and a database management system. Working with plain old Ruby for six weeks was incredibly important for my development. Learning about things like paradigms, design patterns, and how pieces of a software system interact gave me a strong base to build upon when our cohort eventually moved our focus to web programming.
Module 2: Web Basics, Sinatra, Rails
During the first 3-4 weeks we built a few smaller web projects using Sinatra culminating in a restaurant ordering application built with Rails.
The two most valuable things I learned during this module:
* How the web works (clients, servers, protocols, etc.)
* How Rails treats the MVC patternThe concepts I was exposed to have proved useful to me on an almost daily basis.
## Module 3: Rails in depth
Here we explored more advanced concepts like multitenancy and complex authorization schemes. We also began to dive deep into JavaScript, as Steve Kinney, the resident JavaScript expert, had been part of the staff for a few months at this point. I enjoyed frontend development so much that I decided to do it full-time. With good reason, JavaScript has consistently become a bigger and bigger part of the curriculum.
Module 4: Performance, JavaScript
Here is where my cohort took slightly different paths. Some found they loved solving scaling/performance problems and pursued more advanced backend programming. Others, like me, found we loved building rich, client-side applications and dove into JavaScript frameworks like Ember. Either way, it was exciting to see how many of us found our niche as developers during our last six weeks.
The final module had a heavy focus on external APIs. One of my final projects aggregated music from sources like SoundCloud, Twitter, and YouTube.
API Interactions like this are a huge part of modern web development, and I draw on my experiences here often.Mentoring
The mentor program is dear to my heart. At Turing we were part of 'posses', small groups of students who were paired with as many mentors -- all of whom were freely volunteering their time. Pairing with mentors was crucial. I saw how professional developers went about the craft of programming, and I still incorporate what I learned about their processes into my own work.
Many graduates end up becoming mentors themselves. I've been fortunate enough to work with several students throughout the duration of the program. They went through many of the same struggles I did, and saw the same kind of unfathomable growth. All of them are now taking the world of professional software by storm, contributing real value to companies who are lucky to have them.
Jobs
Here's another place where the community comes into play. The Turing network is sprawling, and was the source of every single one of my fruitful leads.
I found a job about two months after graduation. Never once did I feel like I was on my own during the job hunt. I had constant support, with introductions being made, emails being sent out on my behalf, etc.
# Things I didn't like
No program is perfect, and Turing is no exception:
* Many people come to the program specifically for Jeff. If you're expecting to have him personally take you under his wing and carry you to developer excellence, don't. Some have expressed displeasure that they don't have as much exposure to Jeff as they would like. He will be a big part of your Turing experience, but he's just one individual. It's good to be realistic about what he can accomplish in his position as director.
* It wasn't communicated to our cohort that one staff member wouldn't be a part of the program. In the end, it wouldn't have affected my decision and by now it's water under the bridge. But this one stung, and I wish it was communicated to me up front.In closing
If you've made it this far, you know that I'm biased. I'll say this anyways: Turing is the only program of it's kind I'd ever recommend to a friend or family member, and it's the only place I'd recommend my employer hire from. This amazing and perpetually-expanding group of people changed my life for the better in more ways than I could ever express.
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Kyra Steenbock
Best life plan I have had
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I am still waiting for the day that I go into work and do not have the thought that “it really worked”. It is difficult to think of another plan I have had for my life, that went so smoothly. My experience as a Turing student went exactly as advertised, and in many ways exceeded my expectations.
The near seven months I spent at Turing were surely the most challenging months of my life. Never have I experienced so clearly what it means to feel uncomfortable with prolonged and intentional struggle. Without this struggle, I am not sure how I could have gained such a colossal amount of knowledge so quickly.
To do well at The Turing School requires self motivation and a stubbornness to learn. The curriculum and staff are there to guide your way, but it is up to each individual student to take advantage of offered learning opportunities. The best, and most distinctive aspect of Turing may be its collaborative and supportive community. The superb mentorship that I had the entire length of the program was crucial to my progress as a student.
When I graduated from Turing, I felt like I was just prepared enough to get a junior developer position. Which is exactly what I had hoped for - to gain the knowledge necessary to continue learning while being employed as a developer. I ended up with three possibilities for employment, two of which the staff at Turing had put me in touch with, and the third, I only knew about because a Turing alumnus is a developer there. Now, I work with an incredibly supportive team, just down the road from Turing.
Despite the rigor of the Turing School program, I had the most fun of my life during those months. I left as a stronger, more fulfilled person.
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Alan Smith
If you're ready to be a software engineer, and willing to work hard, Turing is a great choice.
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SOME CONTEXT
Before Turing I had no experience with building software. I had my Master's degree on hold and was looking for something that was a better fit. I looked everywhere, I eventually happened upon web development through some friends. They told me if I was serious about becoming a developer, gSchool was the way to go (Turing didn't exist yet). In the process of getting more information about gSchool, I learned about Jeff Casimir and a new program he was going to start called Turing.
I contacted Jeff to grab coffee and talk about this new program. He generously gave me some of his time and he explained his reasoning for branching off to start Turing. I don't want to talk too much about Jeff or his character, because this review is of the quality of Turing's program. But since it's been brought up in other reviews, I'll quickly say this:
In the 30ish minutes I spent talking to him, the following became abundantly clear:
- He places enormous value on the quality of the curriculum
- His emphasis on pedagogy (teaching philosophy) permeates the entire program
- He cares very much about the quality of his students
- He is constantly experimenting and tweaking the program to make it better
I've spent a lot of time in the education world; learning, teaching, and creating curriculum. I can pretty quickly spot when something is the real deal. I was sold on Turing. That said, I wanted to be a software engineer more than anything, so I hedged my bets. I applied to both gSchool and Turing, and, in the same week, was accepted to both. It was a weird position to be in. gSchool was an established program that was churning out devs who were getting hired almost immediately, and now I was thinking jumping ship to join a program that didn't even exist yet. I didn't want anything to stand in the way of me being a software engineer.
I went with Turing because I believed Jeff and his team had my best interest at heart. And I believed they would make me the best developer I could be in 7 months.
I started with the first class in in June 2014. There was no furniture. There was nothing hanging on the walls. We built Turing from scratch. I worked harder than I ever have in my life, and I absolutely loved it. I had an offer from LivingSocial a week after I finished the program, and I started the following month. My team has been impressed with my performance from my very first day, and I absolutely love my job.
THE PROGRAMI don't like the term 'bootcamp'. Maybe it's because it's overused. I prefer calling the program an 'intensive', because I think it gets at the heart of what Turing is. Imagine taking several years of computer science knowledge and condensing it down to 24 weeks (27 including intermission weeks). That's Turing. It's a very high-octane environment. Everything you learn, you will use in the field. There's no time for fluff. There's no room for spoon-feeding. With that in mind, it's important to know that Turing is not for everyone, and there's no judgment in that.
The program has greatly improved since I went through it, but the same core principles are still in place. Here's what you should expect:
Turing is extremely practice-oriented.
There will be lectures and walk-throughs to help explain concepts, but the bulk of your time will be spent doing actual programming. Some people complain about this approach by saying there is little support and oversight from instructors, or "I might as well have taught myself." While I understand the frustration behind this sentiment, my personal experience as a student and as a mentor of students in the program, has been that this is very rarely the case.
Instead, I find it more common to see students who don't effectively utilize the support they have available (mentors, instructors, other students, etc.) Improvements can certainly be made in this area, but it won't alleviate the struggle from the process, nor should it. One of the most valuable lessons/skills I learned at Turing was increasing my mental endurance. Learning to struggle through a problem and enduring the pain of being stuck for a long time (or flat-out failure) is one of the most important skills you can have as a developer (as is learning how and when to ask for help). And it is incredibly frustrating, especially in the beginning. I don't want to make light of that. But that skill is what has enabled me to continually grow as a developer.
The core philosophy that drives this practice-oriented approach is that the #1 thing that makes you a better programmer is programming a lot. The lectures and walk-throughs are there to make sure you don't have any potholes and don't run off the reservation. But the time spent actually programming is what makes you a better developer.
Turing is thorough.
This isn't a 9 week bootcamp. You be typing `rails new` for quite a while. You'll start with lessons designed to teach you how machines store, organize, and retrieve information. You'll spend a lot of time working in Ruby, but really you're learning how to solve computer science problems. Ruby is simply the context for solutions. The program is geared toward developing things for the web. But you'll dive down to see how a relational database works (by building one), set up and deploy to a VPS, and fully utilize the browser.
A lot of programs call themselves 'full-stack', and in some sense that's true. But there is so much more you can learn in an extended program such as Turing.
Turing is social-justice oriented.This is a natural part of the Turing ethos. Turing, by its nature, exists to make becoming a software developer more accessible to more people. In addition to this, the program is intentional about actively supporting and promoting diversity in their programs. There are many reasons for this stance, both moral and business, but at Turing you should know that social-justice comes baked in. You'll see it in (and hear it from) the instructors, staff, and a large portion of the students, alumni, and supporters. If diversity and social-justice isn't something you care about, or at least in favor of, Turing might not be the best choice for you.
INSTRUCTORS
I have a tremendous amount of respect for all the instructors at Turing. They are constantly critiquing and improving their lessons and are incredibly generous with their time for students. One of the stand-out qualities I appreciated while in the program was that they were not only good developers, but also skilled teachers.
THE JOB HUNT
I've already mentioned my personal experience with the job hunt, but I'd like to talk about it a bit more, because it can often be a confusing and frustrating bit for students. The hunt is not easy. You are still a junior developer looking for your first job in a new field where you likely have no relevant experience, and a vast number of companies will say they are only looking for seniors. That's the norm. Keep that in mind. There is no job lined up and waiting for you at the end. It's a hunt. And there is a lot of noise from people who finished a few online tutorials and apply for everything. But Turing gives you three tools for your job hunt when you finish (and it's important to consider them in this order).
- Your skills are a cut above the crowd. When you make it to the technical interview, the proof is in the pudding. You'll be ready. And instead of being 1 candidate out of 300 applicants, you're probably one out of three.
- The endurance you built during the program. The same hustle that got you through Turing is what will make your job hunt successful. You will probably have to apply to a lot of companies, follow up with a few, and decide on one.
- Career services and people to vouch for you at the end. The hunt is yours to own, but Turing (and the supporting community) can help you present yourself in the best light, prep you for technical interviews, and vouch for you as a person and developer when appropriate.
Turing has more specific data on job hunt numbers and statistics, so I'll let them speak for themselves on that. Personally, almost everyone I've known with reasonable expectations about finding a job and actually hustled throughout their job hunt has found work in under 90 days.
THE RESULTS
I mentioned earlier that my team has been impressed with my ability as a developer throughout my time at LivingSocial. I would also like to add that I felt well-prepared to work there as well. I submitted my first significant pull request within 2 weeks (the first week was largely up and running). While the scale of the applications I work on now is 50x what I was building at Turing, I was able to dive in almost right away and make significant contributions to our codebase.
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Tyler Komoroske
The place you want to be.
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Prior to Turing, I had absolutely no technical experience of any kind. I knew that if I was going to pursue a career in Software, I needed a school that was longer than 3 months(the standard length of most coding bootcamps). Since I lived in Denver prior to Turing, I pretty much narrowed down my choices to gSchool and Turing, both of which ran programs twice as long as most bootcamps. After reading many reviews, I decided to come to Turing. The reputation of Jeff Casimir(Turing founder) throughout the Ruby Commmunity was really the deciding factor for me. After graduating three weeks ago, I am 110% sure that coming to Turing was the best decision I could have made. I am currently interviewing with two different companies, and I honestly haven't even really started my job search yet.
Before I came to Turing, I was a Technical Recruiter for a company in Denver, and I was primiarily recruiting web developers. After evaluating hundreds of entry level candidates with my former company, I can honestly say that after 7 months at Turing you will be exponentially more prepared than an entry level candidate with a CS degree for a role in Software Development. Turing covers advanced computer science concepts such as linked lists, binary search trees, sorting alogorithms, etc, during the first 6 weeks of the program. The remaining 75% of the program is spent learning web technologies that employers generally expect mid-senior level candidates to know, but rarely do these employers expect an entry-level candidate to have worked with so many of these technologies in the capacity that you will at Turing. All in all, Turing students are able to bring much more the table than your standard entry level candidate in the field of Web Development.
The program itself is extremely hard. LIKE REALLY HARD. This is a program that will push you well past your breaking point at times, but they will absolutely be there to support you when this happens. I have a Bachelor's degree in Sports Management, and I can honestly say that my easiest week at Turing was still much harder than my hardest week during my Undergrad. If you decide to come to Turing, be sure that you are 150% committed to Turing for 7 months and nothing else. You really won't have much of a life outside of Turing, at least that was my experience.
This is an outstanding program, with smart, driven individuals who will challenge you to do your best every single day, and I could not be happier with my decision to come to Turing.
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Laura Whalin
Tough experience with great results
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I recommend Turing to strangers, to friends, family, and to acquaintances, because I believe the program is one of the best shots you'll give yourself at becoming a hirable developer. If you are motivated and have some inkling of hope that you can be taught to program, you have the makings of success.
My other recommendation would be to grab on and hold tight as soon as you are enrolled. It's going to be a bruising ride, but also the most thrilling of your life. You'll learn things about yourself, other people...and programming, of course...that you will not be exposed to anywhere else. A mixture of good and bad. You might emerge with some PTSD, but you'll also be so well equipped to handle anything that comes after it that recovery will be a pleasure.
My time at Turing ended almost a year ago, and I am glad I never have to go back. While I never question my decision to enroll, it was an intense environment I hope I never have to subject myself to again.
Turing is ever-evolving. The pros of this are that the school is continually striving to improve, and that the net sum should be a better experience for the student. I rank this pro extremely highly, and wish more educational institutions considered taking risk at all. The cons are that not all gambles end well, and you might get caught in the wake. You might be so caught in the wake that you see no effort to improve conditions until the next group of students comes around, or you might get caught in a process you disagree with entirely. You'll feel like a guinea pig, and you are, but one with a loud voice. Turing encourages you to be vocal about anything you are unhappy with, and I really feel they listen to everyone’s concerns and consider them deeply. I saw that time and time again.
No matter what the path, the end result is the same as long as you remember what you are there for: to learn how to program. That is always happening at Turing, and it's done well.
My last words are for the parents out there, especially mothers. You will have enough time to devote to this program if you prepare beforehand. Have some heart-to-hearts with your partner and get them 157% behind you. Call in all the favors your family and friends owe you. Make some freezer meals. Nix the word "housecleaning" from your vocabulary, and even sometimes "bath" and "bedtime story." You're going to miss a few things, but not really a lot, because you'll also discover you have a capacity far beyond what you already thought you had. Because that's what we mothers do...we make it work.
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Jeffrey Wan
Turing opened doors for me and got my life/career back on track. Super thankful student.
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I wanted to quickly write a fact-based review of the Turing School. I will later state some opinions. But first, I wanted to quickly say that I think a difficult responsibility of review sites is maintaining objectivity that is useful for the reader who often is trying to make a difficult education/life decision. It seems like there's always this kind of unhelpful, subjective, and unfortunate (it's never great to see unhappy people) back and forth between people that kind of muddles the facts and it quickly becomes difficult to determine the relative weight of anything. For example, the character/personality evaluations of Jeff seem oddly out of place.... I don't think software engineers can/should be making clinical evaluations of people. But, even worse, one review of that type quickly casts a shadow over the program's objective value even though the review sounds more like a subjective evaluation of Jeff. So, I'd like to quickly just try to state some facts about the program, followed by my opinons, and the program's affect on my own life and career.
First some observations and facts:
- Everyone who graduated from my cohort currently has a job in software (I recently checked Linkedin and even the students who struggled in a module or two now have jobs). My cohort started with 15-17 people and only 2 people did not finish the program. One of those 2 people re-enrolled in another program and seemed to harbor no ill-feeling towards the staff or community. Another, a friend of mine, seemed to have some personal problems during the program and was unable to succeed. Of the remaining members, everyone currently has a job in software as a software engineer. I think two members took longer than average to find jobs (over 4 months), but they also had strong preferences for living location (they had significant others in specific cities).
- Turing's pedagogical approach is a mix of project-based learning, self-teaching, lectures, and one-on-one Q & A. It seems to be an effective variety of techniques. It is lighter on theoretical computer science material and textbooks, but for the purposes of the program (job hiring and foundational knowledge), I don't think this is a problem. Turing enables you to teach yourself this information aftewards. Java, which lends well to computer science principles, is easy to learn after Ruby.
- There is a mentorship network that is extremely accessible and helpful. My main mentor at the program was a Thoughtbot developer named Elliot Winkler who is the most generous, helpful, and patient person I've ever met. He somehow is able to divide his time between multiple students and is incredible in breaking down more complicated topics (API design, the event loop, Javascript promises, metaprogramming, dynamic programming, and Javascript sorting/filtering) into smaller, more understandable chunks. The relationship that Turing has with developers at companies in Denver (Thoughtbot, CaptainU, Quickleft to name a few) and Bonobos in NYC allows Turing to access mentors who are experienced and generous with their time.
- Turing set up multiple job fairs during my 7-month time there. One was an in-house hiring job fair where students met with potential local employers. Another was setup by Brad Feld (principle VC at Foundry). Another was an in-house visitation and hiring from the Bonobos engineering team.
- The cost of the program is cheaper on a per-day basis than the competitors out there. If you get held back multiple times (this does not happen to the majority of students), that's the only time when your costs increase past the point of competitors. Again, this does not happen to the majority of students. To suggest anything else is disingenuous. The program is also longer than the other programs which I think is necessary for a skill as complex as programming. Turing does not cover living expenses like food and housing with the tuition cost... but I don't think that should be an expected duty of a programming school.
Some subjective observations:
- Communities of people are hard to manage. In my personal opinion, it's almost impossible to have a large community of people without having some small, base level of disagreement. It happens everywhere: homes, universities, companies, and friends. It's unfortunate, but we are so different and emotion-driven that disagreements and conflicts eventually come up. On top of that problem, lay on top some extremely rigorous learning material, job-hunting stresses, project deadlines, and self-improvement struggles and there's now some real (and unfortunate) potential for personal disagreement. So, the fact that some negative reviews of Turing exist shouldn't be surprising. It's almost expected. I would expect that at every school, company, or bootcamp, there is almost always some disagrement and conflict. But it shouldn't detract from the fact that Turing provides a long-term, relatively-cheap, and effective program for programming education with a strong and supportive community.
-With that said, Turing was one of the best learning and community experiences I've had since college. I learned a ton, had fun, made several friends, and was inspired by the students and staff around me. I think I finally found my people and my industry.
The personal impact Turing had on my life and career situation:
- Prior to Turing, I graduated from Amherst College, worked in HFT and finance, and had product experience at startups. Even with this decent headstart, I couldn't break into software and product roles at more successful and established companies because I lacked the technical expertise and experience. I was at a career standstill. After enrolling and finishing Turing, I was able to land a job at a company called Andela, a well-funded Spark Capital portfolio company, where I worked as a software engineer and programming teacher. The company teaches Nigerians how to code in order to eventually have them work as full-time software consultants. Even though I was living in Lagos, I was paid an American salary and worked under Obie Fernandez, author of the Rails Way. It was the adventure that I signed up for and the friends I made and the experience I had was eye-opening. After my contract expired (I signed a short-term 5 month contract with Andela since I knew I wanted to eventually return home to my friends and family in NYC), I obtained a job at Blue Apron as a software engineer in NYC. It's my best job to date. None of this would have been possible without Turing; they enabled me to solely focus on programming, rediscover my work ethic, and successfully pivot away from finance.
In regards to my review and other reviews on the site (both positive and negative)... I think the negative reviewer actually put it best: "The 'truth' is subjective...", so read and believe at your own risk. I prefer listening to the facts.
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Lori
Tough but Worth It
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Turing is a fast paced, grueling, software development school. I enjoyed learning a new skill set and discovering how to solve interesting problems with code. The experience was not all butterflies and rainbows. There were moments when I was elated because I solved difficult problems. Those were usually followed by moments when I was pretty sure the sky was falling. It is tough if you have no background in programming, but it is very do-able.
Turing provides a solid teaching staff, challenging curriculum and life-saving mentors. When I interviewed for jobs, I felt confident in my abilities. Turing prepared me well for my role as a junior developer.
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Sebastian
Looking for best in class?
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As I was going through Turing I always remember thinking that it was a great program because I was being challenged and being put in a position in which I had to work hard. I also remember thinking that my perception would probably change after the program ended and I started writing software professionally. This did happen but not in the way I expected. I was thinking I would be hit with a slap in the face of sorts, the same one a lot of people experience after a traditional 4 year degree, and have to face the fact that I still didn't know anything about writing software. After all, how much can you learn in 7 months?! Well, you learn enough to join a software development team and contribute right off the bat, along team members that have been writing software for decades. Some of them might even have cs master's and/or phd degrees from some of the best universities in the world! This can be intimidating but eventually you start to realize that a Turing education is at the same level of some of the top universities in the world and in some ways it's even better. I'm not saying a 4 year degree or master's program at a top university is similar to going to Turing. It's two completely different things. Do your homework before making a final decision. Ask Turing what the differences are if you would like to know; I'm sure they would be happy to answert tha question for you. When I was researching schools I remember choosing to go to Turing because it seemed like the best program of it's kind. I packed my things and moved all the way across the country to attend. Today, after chatting with people of many similar programs at NYC, SF and Miami, coding with them at meetups, and having worked as a professional software developer for a few months after I finished Turing, I'm glad to say my opinion hasn't changed. I still think Turing is the best program of it's kind. I'm obviously biased as I attended the program, but if my brother wanted to get into tech, I would tell them to go to Turing. There are things they teach that you don't even realize you are learning until you start writing software professionally. What I love the most about the group of people running Turing is their determination to always improve. They never stop asking students for feedback, brainstorming on how they can increase the quality of the program for the benefit of the students and trying everything they can think of to make a better all around person out of you.
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Amber C
Turing School is the best option for aspiring programmers on the market.
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I signed up to attend Turing last fall with all of the same trepidation and doubt that accompany any career change but, 7 months later, could not be more happy with my decision to trust the Turing school with getting me through this transition.
The Turing program is a 7-month course which covers the basics of programming focusing on Ruby language within a Rails framework as well as and Javascript basics within a community of driven individuals and instructors working together to push their technical boundaries and skills forward.
I researched a lot of programs before landing on Turing but what really made the difference for me were its length as well as personal recommendations that I received from people within the industry. When making the decision to study programming I consulted the development team in my workplace and was immediately directed to Turing; several of the engineers had friends who went through the program and recommended it very highly which was a big plus. Beyond those recommendations though, the Turing program is almost double the length of most others that I had looked at meaning I would have time to study programming on a much deeper level and cover concepts that other programs just couldn't offer. These things made a big difference to me and, since graduating and interviewing with several industry companies, I can tell that it makes a big difference to employers too.
Ultimately, if you are reading these reviews and considering a development program for yourself or a friend, there are a lot of factors that must go into your decision but, from my experience, this is the best value for your buck. The instructors are driven and committed to your success, the students are interesting and intelligent people, and the education is brutally challenging and highly effective. I would definitely recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone interested in going down this path!
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Matt
Great Decision
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When I first started looking into coding schools, I was focussing on bootcamps that were quicker and cheaper. I'm so glad I did not go in that direction. Even though Turing is seven months long, there was not a single day in my time there when I was not learning, pushing myself, and growing as a developer and as a person. Turing does more than just teach you how to code. They teach you how to be a developer that contributes to your team, your community and your craft. The staff and instructors are fun to work with and incredibly dedicated to student succes. As an orginization Turing is very transparent and open to change.
If you're looking to kickstart your programming skills and your career, and you're open to working harder than you probably ever have, look no further. Go to Turing and join the most impressive, thoughtful and driven network of individuals that I've ever been a part of.
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Anonymous
C'mon now
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First I just wanna say it’s nuts to see anyone stand up to Jeff. He has all of your money, you have to cover your own living expenses, and then the dude can bury you if he doesn’t want you getting a job in the industry.
But buyer beware? Anonymous? Jeff knows exactly who you are - he blew you up on slack a couple days later and tried to play it off like you’re crazy or something.
I wouldn’t have even written anything, but Jeff just had to Merriam Webster you like it’s some sort of high school English speech. “I don’t know what a sociopath means, but google describes it as… “ Are you for real Jeff? And then a bogus comparison to his staff (of mostly his own grads) ratio to K through 12!? We get it public school sucks - compare it to other bootcamps. Maybe galvanize, the other bootcamp that successfully sued Jeff after he started Turing.
Definitely heard the guy say to a room full of people he’s a sociopath. Also heard him tell a class their tuition guarantee wan’t real. That if it came down to the wire that they could just decide not to graduate them. See when their first payout on the guarantee came - like a year into operation. Fat chance that’s a coincidence. Somebody decided to sing so they opted to payout as a CYA measure.
IF you can keep your head down and not piss off Jeff you’re probably fine. If not and that’s probably an accurate review. Either way it’s super expensive and Jeff definitely doesn’t have a problem taking your money. No wonder everyone’s so scared of him. Non-profit. Psh.
Jeff Casimir of Turing School of Software & Design
Executive Director
Mar 27, 2016
There's a saying that "on the Internet, refuting bullshit takes an order of magnitude more energy than spewing it." I hate to have discussion about Turing to be sidetracked by discussion of my personal strengths and weaknesses, but here we are.- I've never "buried" anyone. There isn't a single person I've ever wanted to see not succeed in the tech industry. I have continued to support everyone in our community whenever I can. You'd be hard pressed to find a negative word I've ever said about a student because that's just not what we're about.
- This sociopath thing I just don't know what to say. If you're so convinced that I said it than so be it. I'd be curious to know what conversation you think this took place in.
- We ask for a lot of feedback from students and I don't recall student-to-staff ratio ever coming up. I can't really speak to other bootcamp programs because I've never worked there. Typically I see classes described as 18-40 students with 1-2 staff members. When we ran Hungry Academy is was 24 students, 2 staff -- 12:1. When I ran gSchool it was 24 students, 2.5 staff -- 9.6:1. You can probably find programs that run at 8:1 and others at 18:1. It's just not a big deal. The question is "when I need help is there (a) someone available in a reasonable timeframe and (b) does that person have sufficient expertise to help me?" If the answer to both is yes than the ratio or where that person gained their skills is irrelevant.
- I, nor Jumpstart Lab, nor Turing, nor any related individual or organization has ever been threatened with a lawsuit, had a lawsuit filed, or any other variation thereof. You've got bad information. If you believe otherwise I invite you to contact Chris Onan, CFO at Galvanize, who I've always had a good relationship with.
- The tuition guarantee is a pointless debate as the state regulatory body has changed their previous decision and now does not allow any form of guarantee. Against their wishes and in violation of their code we told all students who'd signed a guarantee that we'd still honor it, and we have. Why would we do that if we're so concerned with weaseling out? I believe we've fully or partially refunded four tuitions now. From a "CYA" perspective we could have leaned on the state's decision and not refunded anything, if that's what we wanted to do.
- For students who've left the program early our general policy is to "over-refund" them. If you drop out in say the 2nd quarter, the regulations say that we owe you 50% of your tuition back. We tend to refund 25% more than the regulation. Persons who drop out in the first two weeks we've usually refunded everything. Anyone who's ever asked us directly for any form of refund has gotten it. The reasoning is that a person who's dropping out or otherwise frustrated is likely in a financially vulnerable position. Maybe they're going back to an old job, old city, or whatever. But the bit of their tuition we can return to them is a way to help them make that transition more successfully.
- This meme of people being so scared of me is...I can't control how people feel about me. I'm not here for a popularity contest. I work hard, I expect others to work hard. I'm kind to people, I expect others to be kind to people. You'll never hear me yell. You'll never hear me point out someone's weaknesses. You'll never hear me bully. If you're a student in my program you'll hear what you need to hear to help you become a better version of yourself. Is that always fun? No. Is it difficult to grow? Yes. But that's what we do, together. I'm growing too.
If the original poster or anyone else has further questions or assertions you're welcome to email me at jeff@turing.io -
Anonymous
Buyer Beware
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If you haven't yet familiarized yourself with NESTA, you should. The point of the organization was to set standards for coding bootcamps that the students may be protected. While bootcamps weren't required to participate, Turing volunteered. They had 1 year to comply to a public audit and failed to do so. Turing's founder, Jeff, later published their own "audit" in order to "maintain transparency." Their internal "audit", however, hand-picked (and intentionally failed to contact those who had a poor experience) less than 70% of their total students, with a few red herrings amidst in order to show that their placement rates are much higher than they actually are.
Placement rates are also a bit of a misnomer in judging a camps success as you must graduate to even participate in the statistic. Alarmingly, Turing boasts a graduation rate of only 71% as stated by the Internation Business Times. Even that may be high based on what I personally witness and heard there in the basement.
Jeff personally stated that it was his mission to "lower graduation rates" as he feels that a more difficult program makes it that much more prestigious. However, this essentially means you're graded on a curve, so unless you're in the top 50% (and students here are both amazing and bright - easily the best part of the experience) you may be out of luck out of the gate.
They say you can enter without any prior programming knowledge, but in all reality the majority of students possess multiple years of programming experience so it's up to you to catch up while you're putting in the 80 hour weeks. While not impossible, it's made even more difficult with Turing's indoctrination days. 20% of your scheduled time here won't even be focused on coding at all, but instead listening to Jeff and others read highly controversial material that you either agree with or get singled out for "opportunities for improvement..." Seldom, if ever, were any contructive dialogues fostered. Rather, you accept Jeff's opinions as truth or you'll be forced out.
Also, the teacher to student ratio at Turing is the worst of any bootcamp of comparable length or less. Despite its "non-profit" claims, they are likely making significantly higher returns than their counterparts. This is due to overbooking of cohorts, relying on students to teach one another rather than be instructed, and the opaque statistics of those that repeat. *Spoiler Alert* an extremely significant portion of students repeat and do so at cost, meaning the 17,500 turns into the same 22,000 you'd pay for a superior program - gSchool.
A woman that repeated Turing's first module twice, but wasn't receiving support, is now excelling at gSchool and on pace to graduate this year.
In short, Jeff may be a smooth talker, but he's a self-described sociopath. I would recommend having an in-depth conversation with him personally before even considering attendance. He's more than happy to take your money, but if you'd like to have an actual conversation there won't be time.
And lastly, their governing body, the Department of Private Occupational Schools, is less than helpful if appealed to. They will take just long enough with their "investigation" that the statute of limitations to file a discrimination complaint will lapse and you will have successfully spent a significant sum in order to line Jeff's pockets.
Not to be entirely negative, the students and community are truly incredible (though the same can be said of every bootcamp I've visited). Most of the staff are solid individuals, but I don't believe they have enough say in how the school is run. It's all too clear that it's Jeff's way or the highway. Despite his former claim of superiority over gSchool based on not hiring their own immediate graduates, there are several on staff now.
You will learn quite a bit, but on you're on your own for the most part. The biggest take-away is that there's no safety net. You are at the mercy of a monster. Many will be fine, but think of your future and carefully examine what you hear. The "truth" is subjective, so enter at your own risk.
Updated on 12/12/2016:
It’s been a bit over a year at this point since I attended Turing, but I still regularly keep in touch with many of the people I spent those dark months with. Some suggested I just leave well enough alone and others pointed out that as a cult works - with one negative review, a dozen or so fabricated ones will arise letting the world know just how delicious the Kool-Aid is. Still others may suggest that I’m “indefatigable” - a word used by a woman I’ve never met in my life when Jeff lit the fire in their internal Slack channel to smear my name and alter the story of how I left. I thought it funny as I can’t imagine she’s had ten thousand dollars stolen from her in her lifetime, but I could be wrong. If it were so, is indefatigable the right word? Maybe bitter… I’ll give you bitter, but “indefatigable” has such a ring to it. Although it is a bit rude; I’m not sure it coincides with Turing’s mission of “inclusion.”
After some internal debate, what made me decide to write was the fact that just about every week on LinkedIn I’m viewed by either a current Turing student or a member of their community. Possibly just out of curiosity: “Who’s this monster that somehow made it to Turing and then said mean things about Jeff!?” Others perhaps to read an article that I authored: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/social-justice-terrorism-drew-conly?trk=prof-post detailing how Jeff essentially stole money from me under the guise of an education and with the age-old ‘bait and switch.’ Apparently the article made it at least to one of his “gear-ups” under the false description of dialogue. It was inaccurately presented without any defense on the side he chose to attack, which fits perfectly within his indoctrination methods. They were told if they ‘found it boring’ they could go on to another activity. I suppose Jeff has stolen enough money through his con that it’s become downright ‘boring’ for him now…
If you’d like to try his con, the steps to follow weren’t extraordinarily difficult to follow at least. You see, like any con - you need an angle; Turing’s? Particularly clever since you can’t beat it. Artificially introduce 3 categories of humans: Victim, Ally, Oppressor. If you make it into the cult, you’re placed into either the victim or ally category by virtue of their approval. The victim category is any and all marginalized folks specifically within the tech community and any other would-be recipients of micro aggressions. The ally category is, of course, a white person that realizes you can’t just stand on the sidelines. You blindly accept all claims that the evil whites are the oppressors (despite likely being white and possibly even having been oppressed yourself). And you must - this part is key - agree with all ‘anecdotal proof’ presented by Turing that slights and mean words significantly affect every victim on the planet despite evidence to the contrary. *side note - if you don’t know what a micro aggression is (spoiler alert - made up word by the alt-left to further ingrain division and render an individual in the oppressor category defenseless against baseless accusations) you may want to skip Turing altogether. It is a trigger-warning, safe-space haven. I hear they don’t allow meat at their BBQ’s for fear of offending vegans (seriously though).
In any case. Provided your social, economic, and political views mirror those of Jeff Cashmore’s for at least the duration you attend the program, you’re savvy. You stay in your respective victim or ally construct. Unfortunately this can’t be don’t quietly; a mere head nod simply won’t suffice - Jeff Cashmore, the dictatorial cult leader, demands compliance. Perhaps it’s in the form of some Slack chatter checking someone’s privilege (berating someone who’s at least white so they can’t claim discrimination). Perhaps it will be as rebuttal to a brutally honest, albeit trigger-warning-indiscriminate review. Or perhaps it will be to enlist the next cohort of alt-left drones that (a lot. Not 90%, but probably a solid 60%+) become damn decent software developers and thus elevate to another level of influence within society - that we may all be for censorship, safe spaces, and checking privilege Amen. Or perhaps there will be a wildcard request - but what the leader wants, the leader gets - lest you be excommunicated, shunned, and …. you guessed it - thrown into the ‘oppressor’ category.
The beauty of this con is as follows: The con artist (Jeff Cashmore) gets to pretend that he’s doing right by the world (however left that may be). He remains insulated by dozens, if not hundreds of his followers, as an ‘ally’ - nay - savior - while any dissension among the ranks is met with potentially life-altering ‘punishment,’ which is completely “justified,” as the recipient will have been labeled an ‘oppressor’ (no punishment is too severe for an ‘oppressor’). Righteous. Where do I sign? Looks like it’s a bit steeper than when I attended, but for the low, low price of 25-30k (*plus living expenses, rent, food, car payment, and all other income related items foregone during the better part of a year*) it now includes a safe-space room that’s been allocated!
But why so much; you may be asking yourself; when the supposed same was accomplished for 17,500 when they initially started out. Well, being that they’re a “non-profit,” the extra cash will of course go to growth. That is, of course, after Cashmore’s ~ $200,000 annual salary is covered. (Based on collective math and the tax returns that they must legally make public). And with attrition up, both through their selective weeding out (roundin’ up the white fellas for hurtin’ feelins’ an’ such) and sheer frustration on the parts of those that thought they were signing up for a software development program instead of world-view reassignment, the bottom line need-be considered. Yes, yes - even in a non-profit <sarcasm> that’s really here for the betterment of all. </sarcasm>Here’s the deal. Since it’s quite apparent that folks from Turing & the community are still interested in viewing my profile, bashing me on Slack, and somehow thinking that Jeff’s not a complete pos, here’s some irrefutable facts that I’d happily back up with evidence:
- It’s been over a year since my dispute with Turing and I have NEVER been given specific complaints or accusers, the only explanation being that I was a ‘cultural leader.’ (I retain all related communication exchanges)
- At one point it was Jeff’s mission to increase the failure/dropout rate of Turing (some 2 dozen members of my cohort as well as multiple bootcamp owners/leaders in the greater Denver area can attest to that fact)
- Turing has sent numerous Nondisclosure Agreements to individuals they’ve excommunicated hoping to prevent litigation (I retain copies of such, though I was not offered one as Jeff had already stolen my money & gotten away with it)
- Multiple instances of students & alumni being kicked off of internal communication tools for having a different opinion than Jeff and his false narrative (Turing may say being offensive, but as the screenshots would show that’s not the case. And censorship is censorship)
- Jeff has attributed his desire to get into the ‘bootcamp’ business (make no never mind it’s a business) to there being, “too many white dudes in tech” (Only an issue for the rational humans that realize racism goes both ways I know… )
- Turing as a software development school outsources the design and upkeep of their own website (Right there at the bottom right - there’s also the hard-coded, wildly inaccurate placement statistics on the front page. Jeff has disputed this in the past by provided an “audit,” which was performed “internally” (code-word for made up) What!? I can literally name off the top of my head enough individuals that left the program willingly or otherwise to make these statistics fail to be true) Also, can I let the IRS know that I’ll “audit myself” if such a time ever comes… ?- Right on their website, between the pictures and background video I can point out multiple individuals that were either kicked out or quit Turing based directly on Jeff’s inability to foster a dialogue (I will not list names without expressed consent, but it would be impossible for Jeff to even challenge this point)
- The Department of Private Occupational Schools, in my case at least, took long enough with their “investigation” that the statute of limitations for a discrimination complaint had lapsed leaving me without a course of action with the exception of hiring an attorney, which is difficult when you’ve just been robbed (date stamps from my initial complaint to their final decision)
- The literature (propaganda) provided in their weekly indoctrination sessions are severely biased & often inaccurate. They refuse to update or acknowledge academically reviewed articles that don’t fit their narrative (again between email exchange and screenshots I provided plenty of dialogue to be had, but my input was unceremoniously dismissed)
- Jeff creates an environment that passive aggressively harasses anyone he deems an ‘oppressor,’ which he does so on occasion as arbitrarily as you’d choose your outfit in the morning. (Again, I won’t ‘put anyone on blast,’ but I am happy to make introductions for a potential attendee to no less than 20 individuals that would give you an honest review. Not this fictional garbage on course report that’s more or less required if Turing is going to help you find a job. Again - Jeff directly disputes this, my evidence here isn’t quite as strong, but multiple individuals have confirmed to me that the positive reviews are incentivized)
- Based solely on a claim, with literally zero evidence, Jeff accused a member of Turing (at the time) of drugging another student. It didn’t happen and that’s been cleared up now, but this is how quickly the school will overreact if someone in a “protected class” tells Jeff to “check someone’s privilege” (berate the white guy).
- Upon reading previous reviews, slack screenshots, my own correspondence with Jeff & the school it's painfully evident that Jeff is elusive when it comes to dialogue. If you're white and claim you're being attacked, it's because you're "uncomfortable having your privilege checked." If you wanted to spend $20k on learning software development and choose not to attend a gear-up it's "because it made you uncomfortable (they're supposed to be after all - when is indoctrination a comfortable process?)". If you don't like his choice of articles (from the late 80's or 3 decades ago for those who are counting) it's because you "don't appreciate muliculturalism" (even if you present more compelling evidence: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-rise-of-victimhood-culture/404794/) And on and on the story goes. If your opinion or position coincides with his narrative and that of the victimhood culture we've been cursed with, you will be in his favor. If you dissent... you will pay dearly. (Again, dozens of stories - YOU are paying them, but if you don't join the cult side of the school you simply cannot be successful there. After I'd been handed down my punishment and made it clear that I would not comply, all instructors became too busy to help. Even after presenting my case and Jeff agreed that there was not an accusation, but rather he thought of me as a 'cultural leader' he wouldn't even apologize for lying. Or the amount of stress that was incurred. Or any of it. Why would he need to? I am -unfortunatelyt- white after all) And as a preemptive dismassal of what will be an extremely weak argument - Jeff claimed that that the duress I was arbitrarily placed under was akin to the duress caused by micro agressions, which validates his cult jargon. Nonsense. Jeff abused his power & authority to discriminate and oppress based on my race and my gender. He argues that because I am white and male that discrimination/oppression is not possible. He is wrong.
The aura of condescension can be felt dripping from the walls of the dungeon that is Turing. The school is lead by someone who looks like a smug, self-righteous Guy Fieri that reduces everyone that walks through the door to a gender, a color, and a sexual identity. All of this he accomplishes “as an ally” so it’s really for your own betterment and there isn’t an option (y’know, like learning software development which you paid Jeff around 20K to teach you…). For those who belong to a marginalized class, but choose not to play the victim… you’ll somehow end up in a surprise 4th category - “Ally of oppressor” - take that curveball mf!!
Rooms inside of Turing are filled either with whispers for fear the fuhrer overhears and disagrees or by boorish droll which is praised at Turing. Liberal elitists patting themselves on the back for eating vegan or Paleo, training for a half-marathon, doing crossfit, or ‘totally understanding and empathizing with the struggle of another.’ (I realize none of these things read poorly - nor are they. It’s when they’re obviously so disingenuous and contrived that they illicit the eye rolls and tongue-in-cheek congratulations that are required to remain an ‘ally’)Y’know it’s funny. On one hand, we have a privileged, wealthy white male that pays himself closer to a quarter of a million dollars a year than not. And in the other we have a socioeconomically challenged white male that’s never taken a handout nor been offered one. Could hardly rub two nickels together when he opted to change careers and better himself. Little did he know that there was “a greater opportunity to learn” - the long con. Watching a wealthy scumbag steal his money right from under his nose. And then he gets made out to be the demon. And Jeff Cashmore gets to play Robin Hood. The irony is suffocating.
If you’ve struggled in your life: lost friends or family members, grew up poor or impoverished, if you’ve seen someone take their own life, struggled with depression, gone through the battle against cancer or some other disease whether personally or through osmosis, if you’ve worked 12 hour days 7 days a week, if you’ve had a hard time making ends meet, slept in your car, or if you’ve otherwise had what a rational human being would NOT describe as a privileged life, then you better pray to whichever God you pray to that you’re not white. Or none of it will matter to Jeff Cashmore and the Turing community.
Jeff’s cult has a boilerplate list of definitions and if you’re white, you’re privileged. Period. And whatever race, gender, or sexual preference you are, at Turing - that’s ALL you are. For the con to work you have to fit into a category and there are just 3. Your initial placement into the category is based solely on race, gender, and/or sexual preference. End of story.
Jeff doesn’t take the time to get to know people prior to their acceptance, attendance, etc. As long as your check clears and you can solve a few LSAT games, you’re in. When I got to “face my accusations (again - none specific, it was actually just an informative meeting of the punishment I’d be receiving without any actual accusations mentioned or evidence of any wrong doing at all) I hadn’t actually spoken with Jeff for more than 5 minutes personally. But somehow, he’d decided that the ‘accusations’ were enough and that I’d be disciplined accordingly (oops - I meant ‘opportunity to learn’ instead of discipline. If you’ve seen Clockwork Orange you’d understand). Only, there never were any accusations. There weren’t any accusers. There was Jeff. And there was Jeff’s narrative. And there was Jeff’s con.
Jeff, you’re a thief. The right thing to do would be to offer back the “tuition” you stole from me and anyone else you’ve pulled this scam with.
Jeff Casimir of Turing School of Software & Design
Executive Director
Mar 18, 2016
Hi Anonymous,
I'll try to pick through the specific points/assertions above:- We published our outcomes in far greater detail than the NESTA expectations here and did so in the timeline we agreed to. Rather than spending money on an audit we published the raw data and calculations. Our friends at SkillsFund have volunteered to audit the data and we expect to have that wrapped up later this month. Note that of the 10 schools that signed on to NESTA, only Turing and the Flatiron School have publishing anything. I've been told by friends in education policy that our report is the most transparent accounting of student outcomes they've ever seen in post-secondary education.
- During that more detailed data crunching we ended with a higher graduation rate than I originally told the reporter who was writing for the International Business Times article. But regardless, our reported graduation rate is some 15%+ lower than our competitors self-reported rates -- if I were going to inflate stats I'd make them a lot higher!
- I've never stated a "mission to "lower graduation rates"" because that would just be stupid. All academic institutions are trying to have high graduation rates. Similarly the bits about "grading on a curve" are just not true. We want to see all students succeed and curves are meaningless.
- The author's real issue with Turing is around our Gear Up sessions which yes, are supposed to be uncomfortable. Specifically the session that stood out was about Privilege, including a 1988 essay on privilege by Peggy McIntosh commonly read in post-secondary classes dealing with issues of race, gender, and privilege and often cited by the idea of a "knapsack of privilege". You can see in the exercise that there are few if any of my opinions present. Like all Gear Ups, the session is run in small student groups where reading, writing/reflection, and student discussion are the sources of discovery. In an industry where women make up just 5% of programmers and people of color face a similar imbalance, we must get uncomfortable and explore these issues to try and figure out how we create a better society.
- Our Fridays, which are referred to as the "20% indoctrination days" above, can be exemplified by this recent outline. We had academic review time, Gear Up, an amazing guest speaker, lunch roulette, cohort retrospectives, and some student-led elective sessions. Pick through the outlines to see that that's the general pattern of every Friday. This week's Gear Up was completely orchestrated by a group of students and focused on Environmental Responsibility.
- The question about student to teacher ratio is interesting. Each module has either two or three staff members dedicated to it. A typical class is about 24, so we're between 1-to-12 and 1-to-8. I don't know of other programs which are lower, but there could be some. In K-12 schools ratios are typically 1-to-20+ and in higher ed it's larger, so I'm fine with these where they stand.
- With non-profit-ness and "returns," well, that's just not how 501(c)3 non-profits work. You can't have returns by definition. My salary is less than I was paid when I was running gSchool or Hungry Academy. No one has equity (non-profits are effectively owned by the public). There's no smoke and mirrors here. Every single member of the staff could be earning more elsewhere. I believe we're the only program of our size operating without outside investment -- we're completely bootstrapped.
- Students repeating modules is one of the mechanisms I'm most proud of at Turing. It's allowed many students to muscle through and graduate who would have otherwise had to drop out. Many of the reviewers below are folks who took more than the expected four modules to graduate. Of our 116 survey responses from 2015 students, including both graduates and non-graduates, 87% did not repeat a module, 7% repeated one module, and 6% repeated more than one module. It's a system that works. Yes, when you repeat a module you typically need to buy another "credit", which we price at 1/8th of the tuition (so effectively a 50% discount compared with your original four credits).
- The "woman who repeated the first module twice without receiving support" I just talked with this week and was happy to see she's doing well at Galvanize. Turing is not a fit for everyone. When she and a few classmates were struggling, Josh Cheek (one of our instructors) decided to create "Team Grit" and worked with just the three of them full-time for three weeks. That's above and beyond support, in my book.
- "Sociopath" -- I'll admit that I always have to look this word up, so I definitely don't self-describe that way. Google says "extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience." I've been in schools and classrooms for 13 years which would be pretty damn difficult if I saw myself as antisocial. Lack of conscience, well, I'm not fit to judge. I've dedicated my life to other people's education -- my conscience weighs heavy with every one of their struggles and all the students who didn't succeed.
- The Division of Private Occupational Schools is our governing body. We've found them to be responsive and shockingly effective as a regulator. Their guidelines have pushed us to define policies that are both student friendly and in line with our principles. During our two years of existence we've had two complaints filed with DPOS, one resulted in a full refund after the student graduated and the second, cited above, was deemed "no fault" and dismissed. DPOS is quite responsive if you have more questions about their processes.
In the end, Turing is not for everyone. I'm genuinely sorry that the original poster had a less than satisfactory experience. We don't teach "coding," we build developers ready to steer the tech industry onto a better course. I'm proud of the work that our students put in and the lives they build for themselves. I'll do whatever I can to leverage my privilege for their benefit, even if it means some people will write nasty things about me on the internet. -
Emily
The Best Worst Seven Months of Your Life
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Turing is the best coding school. Period. I started Turing with zero experience and graduated with 4 job offers.
You don't need technical skills to go to Turing. But you do have to want it.
Jeff and the staff will push you past where you previously thought you could go — intellectually and emotionally. They will act as your harshest critics and your most enthusiastic cheerleaders.
You will have moments of pure joy, and periods of agonizing doubt. You will learn to recognize the rhythm of Turing: excitement, fear, stress, doubt and, finally, triumph.
Learning to code is hard. Turing is harder. It's up to you to put in the work. But if you do, you will have joined a community of talented, enthusiastic and empathetic developers who will push you to be your best self and have your back if you fall short.
-
DJ Greenfield
Life Ruining. Life Affirming
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The decision whether or not to attend a software development school can be a turning point in one's life. I'm glad I found Turing and took the plunge. Looking back and weighing the pros and cons, it was a no brainer.
The last year has been the most trying, exhaustive, and terrifying year of my life. I started the program in December of 2014 and finished in June 2015. Attending the Turing School strained or outright ruined relationships, disconnected me from my hobbies, and left me with little to no time on my hands. I pulled about a dozen all-nighters and found myself working 16 hour days most of the week. I spent a lot of money on unhealthy food to fuel myself both physically and emotionally. I gained about 20 pounds (which I have now lost wooo!). I racked up a dozen parking tickets in downtown Denver. I commuted about 142 hours which was mostly being stuck in traffic on the highway.
I pushed myself unnecessarily. No one needed me to dive so deep and strech myself thin. I could have succeeded at the Turing School, as the great majority of the student body does, without ever staying up all night, but that is how I work under pressure. The Turing School allowed me that: to work and thrive how I best work and thrive.
Sure, they demand a lot of everyone, but thanks to my supportive wife and family, I had the opportunity to demand even more of myself and I took it. It paid off. While it was the most stressful, difficult time in my life, it was also hands down the most rewarding thing I have done. Ever. I have met great people who I am lucky to call my friend, I have created things I never would have thought myself capable of, and, most importantly, I found the validation for my hard work and personality that I needed.
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Jack Yeh
At least one bad thing
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In the rest of these reviews, you're going to read a lot of great things about Turing. And the thing is... they're all true. I LOVE Turing and am incredibly happy and grateful that Turing was my introduction into programming. The school also played a big part in my getting my first job. But you don't need to read another glowing review that sounds a lot like the others. So, I am going to skip the positive stuff and go straight to one of its weaknesses.
Learning to program is hard, so hard in fact that Turing attracts people with programming experience who want to level up. The range of experience can be as simple as taking a few online Code Academy courses to having actually been a professional programmer. While Turing does a good job of getting all students to a similarly high level of proficiency, it doesn't do a good job of setting expectations for how much experience students really have and how much students lean on that experience. It doesn’t help that most of these students are not forthcoming about their experience level. Now, I understand why some students may not want to admit that they've been programming for a couple years or that they attended another coding school. No one wants to be judged, especially by peers with whom they're about to spend the next +7 months. Having to admit that there are gaps in one's abilities is not exactly my strong suit either. But the problem still exists.
And this problem can be detrimental for two reasons:
1) If the instructors don't know who has previous programming experience, then they don't know how effective their teaching/curriculum really is. As a result, topics can be covered faster than they really should be. It can lead instructors to misjudge who needs what help and why.
2) The lack of awareness by a newbie student can cripple their ability to learn, as well as their eventual love of programming. When students with no previous experience believe that everyone is also starting at zero, it can create an environment where they begin to doubt their own abilities. This is especially true when it seems that their peers are excelling and/or understanding concepts effortlessly. Their inner dialogue usually falls along the following: "We all started knowing nothing, but this person next to me, he/she gets it. Why don’t I get it? I must not be that smart. Maybe I shouldn't be here. Maybe programming is not for me."
It’s easy to think this person doesn't have the mental fortitude to overcome challenges and that programming really isn't for them. But I caution you against such thinking for 2 reasons:
1) Turing is an intellectually, emotionally and physically challenging +7 months. Jeff Casimir prides himself on making sure that you get your money’s worth. He and his team are going to push you harder than you think you can be pushed.
2) Because Turing is a fast paced, high pressure environment, it can cause people to behave with less compassion than they normally would. I've seen a high performing student say that the reason some classmates were underperforming was because of their lack of effort. Now, if you’re a student who has no programming experience, is struggling with the material, puts in 14-18 hours/day, 7 days/week, and hear this, you know effort is not your problem. Naturally, you compare yourself to this classmate and think your problem must be one of mental capacity. Well, what if I told you this high performing student was a professional programmer prior to Turing, but didn’t make that fact publicly known. On another occasion I worked on a 3-person project where one of the members shamed the other member for being slow and incompetent to the point where the third member quit Turing 3 days into a 7-day project. It wouldn’t be until months later that it came to light that this person doing the shaming had attended two General Assembly courses before Turing. The student that quit, quit because she was operating under the assumption all three of us had started Turing not knowing any programming. She thought she wasn’t smart enough. In fact she was smart enough. She just didn’t know she was comparing apples and oranges.
It may seem like I am being overly critical of these students. That's not my intent. These two students are some of the most stand-up people at Turing and one I consider to be a very close friend. They just had momentary lapses in being their best self. But these momentary lapses in courtesy had outsized impacts on other people’s experience and their confidence to code.
Some things to keep in mind if you’re a student without programming experience, know that some students are going to know more code than they say they do. Be kind to yourself. Don’t judge yourself too harshly. Learning to code isn’t only for the few chosen ones. It takes time.
If you are a student and you notice this happening, let the instructors know. We students (regardless of experience level) need to be periodically reminded “not to judge our insides with someone else’s outsides.” In fast paced, high-achieving environments competitiveness becomes common-place. But that shouldn’t translate into students feeling like they’re playing a zero sum game, resulting in only winners and losers.
This is not everyone’s experience. But it is some people’s experience, enough that I thought it was important to highlight. I hope this review was informative and useful for you. Ultimately, my goal is to point out areas of human behavior that the Turing experience lends itself to. My hope is that making you aware of these challenges will go a long way in improving the Turing experience for everyone.
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Scott C.
They are who we thought they were
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TL;DR
I chose to go to Turing because it was recommended to me as the best and toughest. I got exactly what I expected. I was challenged everyday and was able to land a job I love right out of the school.
Longer Version:I spent a fair amount of time looking into programs of different lengths and price. After reading reviews I kept seeing positive reviews about Turing (previously GSchool, and before that Hungry Academy). I wasn't interested in a get rich quick situation, I wanted to go somewhere that I would build a foundation for a career. I spoke with previous graduates of the program (they atteneded when it was GSchool) and they had nothing but amazing things to say about Jeff and the curriculum.
The school was everytihng I expected and hoped it would be, and more. It lived up to the hype. Sometimes you meet your hero in real life and they're tools. Sometimes you meet your hero and they're exactly what you'd hoped they'd be. Turing was the latter. The 7 months I spent in that basement were some of the best of my life. The teaching staff are extremely talented and knowledgable and relatable. I count them as my friends. The other students are hungry, driven, and extremely smart. Some of the best people I know I met at Turing.
I would highly recommend this program. With Turing you get what you expected going in. THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE. -
MD
A School NOT a Bootcamp
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After completing a 9 week Ruby on Rails school back in 2013, I was fortunate enough to gain experience through freelance web development for a startup. During those 2 years I learned a lot about building a startup but my web development skills eroded because I focused more on the front-end and ux. The startup idea, like most, didn't gain enough traction to continue and I was left in a position of "now what?" I learned that I did not want to continue down a path of marketing website but wanted to continue building ideas. I was a carpenter for over 17 years and had chosen to change careers back in 2013. I was grateful for my first coding school because it took me from someone who really knew zero about web development to someone who could build basic ideas in code. The school accomplished its goal and allowed me to build MVPs but I was not 'professional grade.'
So I went back to the Michael Hartl tutorial to update my skills and during the process, I received a progress email stating that if I enjoyed the tutorial, you should consider Turing School of Software and Design. So, I clicked on the link and read about the curriculum. I was impressed, so like most prospective students, I read reviews on Course Report. I live in Chicago and have many local choices for coding schools but Turing was different. It was longer, focused on fundamentals and the skills that I knew the market was demanding. I had already done the MVP thing, I was looking for full-stack, professional web developer with a focus on testing. Testing was the key selling point for me because that is the differentiator.
I talked it over with my wife and she was in. We budgeted $70k for the whole process, tuition, computer and living costs for 2 households 1500 miles apart and limited income. I moved to Denver by myself and lived in my camper for 6 months to keep my costs as low as possible. My family would come to visit on the first intermission and then I flew home on the next 2 intermissions. It was emotionally difficult to be away from my wife and 3 kids but we all grew from the experience. The key to success was leaving my family behind because there was no guilt of not being around for normal life. I was gone and 100% focus on what I was at Turing to do, level up and get a job.
The Experience
Turing did not undersell the difficulty of the program. I caught the bus at 6:50am M-F and the 9:40pm in the evening to come home, rinse and repeat. Class was from 9-4pm with a 1 hr lunch and a minimum of 4 hrs of work every evening and at least 16 hrs of homework on the weekend. If there wasn't a project that you were working on, then you were practicing your skills from the previous week. There wasn't enough time to get homesick. Your cohort member were your new best friends and you stuck together in an effort to help each other out and get everyone to pass together. Teamwork and collaboration are key to success at Turing. You can not do it alone and think that you will be successful. You will lean on each other to push through code and life challenges. I am a veteran and completed the toughest leadership school the Army has and I would put Turing on par with that experience. Both are a total suck fest but on different levels. Both are emotionally draining but Ranger School is more physical while Turing pushes you mentally as would be expected.
It was not all roses at Turing. I could not afford to repeat a module not only because of the cost but also because it would mean another 7 weeks away from my family. The pressure to succeed was huge and I hit some stumbling blocks along the way but my fellow classmates and the Turing community was always prepared to step up and help me get a core concept or offer insight as to better understand the concepts. The biggest con of the whole experience was the "Gear Up" sessions. Gear Ups consist of a short reading about a controversial topic, a moment of self-reflection and small group discussion before we reconvened as a school. There was a Gear Up that broke our cohort emotionally and we never fully recovered in my opinion. We were forever divided and it really soured the Turing experience. Turing is an emotional rollercoaster through the rigors of the curriculum but to then push students who happen to be generally very progressive with provocatively charged readings is too much. People are drained physically from all nighters, mentally exhausted from the learning and emotionally edgy from the process so tempers can flair and Turing needs to me more aware about the state of its students. Forcing people to read articles about concepts or choices that we as students did not create adds fuel to the fires that already exist. For our cohort it was broke the gel and camaraderie that had developed and hung a dark cloud on the rest of my experience, so much so that I became hyper-focused on securing a job before graduation so that I could get out of there.
I am 40 and my wife and I were prepared for the pay cut that I would be taking. I applied to 4 places and based on my previous web development/startup/life experience I made it to 4 phone interviews, 3 code challenges and secured a position only 2 weeks into Module 4. Turing had given me the technical code skills to get looks from all of the companies. My Github had the variety of skills that employers where looking for and I had the experience from Turing. Turing knows the types of projects that employers are looking for and even after only 3 modules, I had enough to become hirable. I am grateful for the experience and was even happier to get back to my family and making an income again over a month ahead of schedule.
If you are serious about making a career shift or leveling up basic web development skills, Turing is the place. You will gain the skills you need to be successful and everyone at Turing from the staff, alumni and current students are behind you to succeed. Not everyone succeeds. People don't pass, some quit and others like me level up and hit the market as soon as possible. Turing is a 24/7 commitment to succeed and you will build friendships that will change your life. The Gear Up add-on to the web development curriculum is my only gripe, but I would be remiss if I say that I didn't learn anything from them. With Gear Ups, timing is everything.
Invest in yourself at Turing and you will not be sorry. Turing changed my career path and it can change yours too!
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Tom Leskin
Life Changing Experience
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Attending Turing was the best decision I've ever made and really changed my life for the better. To start, I'll just say it was the most challenging and rewarding experience, but equally strenuous. It isn't for everyone and I'll explain further down in the review. I did graduate and didn't have to repeat any modules. I'm now employed as a full-time software developer for an amazing company.
My original chosen profession was journalism (I was a newspaper reporter and tech blogger) since I always had a hard time deciding what I wanted to do and writing was something I was good at. Three years into my career as a newspaper reporter, I hated my career, it wasn't very fulfilling and it felt like a dead end job. I started taking classes at the local Penn State campus, so I learned C++, Java, PHP, HTML and CSS. Although that was the case, it didn't feel like it was enough. I was learning too slowly and learning things that were outdated. It was also very expensive going back for a second degree.
In May 2014, my girlfriend and I moved to Boulder, CO, and while there I found out about the Ruby meetup group and started attending. There I found out about bootcamp style training programs and was eventually admitted to Turing. When I started in Feb. 2015, I thought I would have an advantage since I had taken college coding classes before, I only had an advantage for a few weeks since after that everyone was on the same playing field. While I struggled toward the end of module 1, I eventually picked up and excelled in other modules, particularly the last ones where we were building apps that could be used by real people. That is common for Turing students, to have strengths in different parts of the program.
One amazing thing about Turing is that you will go through it with an awesome group of people from all different background. These people will become some of your best friends. Since you are all going through it together... the ups, the downs, you will form tight bonds and friendships that will last a lifetime. Without the support from my fellow classmates in my cohort, I might not have made it through the program. We were almost like our own little family where nobody could be left behind and if someone was struggling, we tried to help get them up to speed so they could move on with the rest of us.
While I had success, it didn't come without its problems. I was exhaused. Turing at times feels like you are sprinting for 7 months straight. You're always learning, always studying. At the end of a six week module, I was drained and couldn't wait for a week off, which wasn't really a complete break since there was always intermission week assignments. My relationship with my girlfriend also suffered since instead of being able to spend time with her, I was spending just about all of my time studying. She did stick with me and I promised her it would all be worth it once the seven months were over. And that was true.
When I graduated in August, I didn't have a job but I was able to get many initial interivews and sometimes second interivews. Interviewing was not my strong suit, especially since I had imposter syndrome, you do feel it after becoming a developer in 7 short months, which feel like an eternity at times. Turing did prepare me though and was really helpful as far as giving advice on my resume/cover letters and helping with speaking with improv classes. Within the first three months, really a month and a half, I had a job. I started as a temporary employee in October, but was offered full-time right before Thanksgiving in November. There was no way I could have known this at the time, but my company wasn't the best environment for a junior developer. Things eventually became really stressful as I became the only full-time developer, but I was prepared to tackle problems. I was able to juggle projects for multiple clients and learn how to complete new tasks everyday.
I was at that job for almost 5 months and just started a new full-time job in February, where I'm at an amazing company with all the mentorship I need, great benefits and I get to work from home. Better yet is that my company is based in West Palm Beach, FL, and flew me down to work in the office for the first week.
Turing also now has me doing things that I never thought I'd be doing like public speaking. I now regularly attend the local Ruby and JavaScript (particularly EmberJS) meetups and participate in them. I've given two talks at the Ember meetup so far and led a workshop at Rocky Mountain Ruby, the Boulder Ruby conference in September.
The bottom line is that Turing is one of the hardest thing you will ever do. It will challenge you mentally and take you to the point where you think you will break. It will also affect all other aspects of your life, but they know most students can take the stress and they are the ones who will succeed in the program. These students will also become the most successful developers in the real world. Turing prepared me to tackle any problem and not only learn how to code, but also how to learn and teach myself to solve a problem. Before I started Turing, I was working a job where I wasn't happy and really would never be able to afford things like a house or to raise a family. I now work full-time as a developer for a company I love, from the comfort of my home and the seven strenuous months translated to me also more than doubling my highest ever salary as a journalist. We now have the life we dreamed about.
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whithub
Turing, You Beautiful Bastard..
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I’ll start off by saying Turing is a very strenuous, demanding, ambitious, admirable, absolutely exhausting program. I was pushed from day one and on more than one occasion, had the thought of taking a module off or leaving the program completely. It definitely beats you into the ground, but it has equipped me for my new career in ways I’m still realizing.
Prior to Turing, I was a nurse for several years, no real technical background and, long story short, was looking to change careers. I went with Turing for two main reasons, one being the length of the program, the other was how education driven it was. I personally felt that what I needed/wanted to learn, in order to make a successful career change, was not going to be in an 8, 10, 12-week course… They had the cirriculum and length to get me to where I needed to be.
Looking into past/current experiences of the instructors at Turing, I decided that Turing met the education expectations that I had. I’ve had a lot of frustrating experiences where the instructor had a lot of knowledge about the topic, but none about teaching; how to translate that material to students, get them to relate, twist it in a way so it sinks in for them, etc. I you may know a lot, but unless you can teach me, you're useless.
I will say that my biggest frustration with the program was the small to large changes that were made in-between modules. Normally, it’s a glorious thing when staff takes in student criticism of how the previous 6 weeks went, discuss, actually implement the necessary changes, and make the next module better than the previous. And it is a great thing! For me though, I felt like I was in an experiment, I began to have the mentality of “Will this stick or just change next module? Should I bother to really learn this?” and honestly, started having thoughts of whether they really knew what they were doing. I put a lot of time and money into them, I don’t want to have doubts!
But now that I have been in my new career for several months, Turing has really equipped me. There’s definitely some stuff that I’ll need to relearn or re-familiarize myself with; there were times where the pace at which Turing taught a topic, was personally too fast for it to really stick, but I learned the fundamentals at the time and I now have the time and that foundation to build off of.
An instructor once told me that Turing makes it extremely difficult so that when you reach your real world programming job, it’s THAT much easier for you. True. So very true.
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MB Burch
Challenging and Worth It
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Before coming to Turing, I was a middle school teacher and led wilderness trips. I was ready for something new, and had been trying to teach myself to code for awhile before applying to Turing. I loved what I was learning, but knew I just wasn't going to get very far trying to teach myself AND work full-time. Even though I've always been into problem solving, logic, and technology, I never thought about making programming a career until I realized there were so many different directions I could head in with this type of experience. I looked into a few different schools, and was most interested in Turing because of the great things I heard about the instructors and the community. I was sold from the application process. Applying to Turing is a bit of a time consuming task, and I appreciated that it really made me think about my goals, what I bring to a community, and what I wanted out of the program. Turing lived up to my high expectations and then some. I can't imagine a better community and a better group of instructors. In the final months at Turing, I felt supported in my job search, and just started a remote position as an apprentice developer. I can't believe how much I learned in 7 months, and I'm excited to keep learning.
Post-Turing, here are my big takeaways:
- The instructors are incredibly helpful and supportive. Most of them are able to strike a great balance between challenging you to push through a problem and offering a helping hand. They are there for you, and believe in Turing. They're not just there because they're programmers... I felt like they were teachers first, and have each student's best interests at heart.
- I learned as much about myself as I did about programming... how I work, how I deal with challenges, and how I can be a better community member and team member.
- It is probably one of the hardest things you'll ever do, but it's worth it.
- Be ready for the long game. Try and find some balance in your life, and take care of yourself.
- Everyone is there for each other. You will be blown away by the amount of other students (working just as hard as you) who are ready to spend hours helping you out.
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Sally MacNicholas
Just do it!
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Like mostly everyone I had a great experience at Turing, and I highly recommend it for everyone. I won't repeat what all the other reviews have said because I agree with it all - the good and the bad.
I wanted to write this review for parents. I went through Turing with two young kids, an 18-month old and a 3 year old (at the time), and I got through it. It was definitely a huge transition for me since prior to Turing, I was always with my kids. I worked from home, but my kids also stayed home with me. So going from that to feeling like I rarely saw them was hard. And when I say I rarely saw them, I saw them every night for at least a few hours and was with them most of the time on the weekends unless we had a group project. I never felt like I had to choose my school over my family. I just got really awesome at time management. While it is different and a huge adjustment, my classmates/group partners understood that I had other responsibilities and we would adjust our group schedules to make it work if needed. Most of the time, I think that parents are able to balance school/life better than others because we are forced to go home and take care of our family too.
So if you are a parent, and are thinking about Turing, just do it. It's the best thing you will ever do for yourself and your family. The community is great, and I don't think you will find another school with as many students, instructors, mentors, and alum that care about you. If you ever want to chat, email me or I will meet you for coffee. smacnicholas@gmail.com
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Glen
Career Pivot
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Prior to coming to Turning I had worked in education for 14 years. Since my last job was coordinating a 1 student 1 computer roll out for a school district, I had lots of experience testing and evaluating educational software but none with actual coding.
I did a good deal of research on different coding schools, my previous educational experience guiding my evaluative lense. What really attracted me to Turing was the fact that the director, Jeff Casimir, has a background in education and training, as well as in software engineering. This was important to me and I didn’t find it at a lot of the other schools I visited/talked to. So, I decided to take the leap and became part of the second cohort to attend Turing.
The time I spent at Turing was a blur. The workload is demanding. I have a family and my wife works so balancing family responsibilities and school was a challenge. Despite these constraints, I still found it possible to be successful at Turing. The staff was very helpful and accommodating.
I found the curriculum and pedagogy at Turing to have strong and weak points. For me, direct instruction doesn’t work all that well. So, the fact that this is a significant part of the instructional time was a little frustrating. However, I find project based learning very effective, which is an even larger part of the Turing program. A lot of our time was spent working in groups to create software. This is what you do as a dev, so it was great practice! As others have said, Turing has great feedback loops in place and is constantly making changes to improve, so their instructional program probably looks completely different now.
The outcome for me couldn’t have been better. Before I had completed Turing, I had received two job offers. The great part was that they were both for remote jobs which was what I wanted. I ended up with an awesome job working for a start up. The CTO was one of my mentors at Turing! -
Fred Block
An amazing program
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If you want to learn how to program, I can't imagine a better place than Turing. In short, it is an amazing program, run by amazing people.
Teachers
I can't say enough good things about the staff at Turing – led by the one and only Jeff Casimir. Jeff has put together an incredible team of instructors, all of whom are very smart and caring people. They are not just talented programmers – they are very talented and dedicated teachers. They are all willing to do whatever it takes to share their knowledge and will stop whatever they're doing to help you improve your skills and succeed. Not only that, but the instructors are all really cool individuals who you will count as your friends – they are inspiring people.
Environment
The environment is intense, in the very best way. It feels like some kind of mix between a dojo and a monastery – people are serious. It's immersive by design – you spend as much energy as you can learning to code – and there isn't much time for anything else. Expectations are set high. There is always a lot of material to cover in a short amount of time. You need to put in your very strongest and best efforts, and sustain them over the full course. You feel well spent – and it's a great feeling, knowing that you're committed and giving it your all.
Students
When going through a set of experiences as intense as Turing, you form a lot of new connections with your fellow students. Turing attracts an inspiring group of people, from all kinds of backgrounds, with different skill-sets and styles. Not everyone learns at the same pace, and that's ok. You do whatever you can to help someone – and likewise you can count on your friends to be there to help you. Very simply, it's fun to bond with people while learning something new – it feels good and it's inspiring to see each other's lightbulbs turn on. You will count these people as friends for life.
Improvements
While I hope it's clear that I love Turing and everyone involved, I do think there is some room for improvement. In general, I wish the program had room for a more individualized approach and timeline for each student. If you fall behind, for one reason or another (don't get sick), it can be difficult to catch back up to your cohort, even with extra help from your friends and instructors. Things move quickly, and there isn't much room for error. If you do get behind, you might need to repeat one of the modules – so be prepared that you might need to spend another 6 weeks, or more. I wish that the schedule could allow people to brush up on smaller chunks of knowledge, rather than having to repeat an entire 6-week module. The repetition never hurts, as far as learning – but it's not always easy to come up with the extra time and money. As for the specific subject matter, I wish we had spent more time with JavaScript – but that's just my preference. Overall, I must say that Turing does a really great job of listening to everyone's feedback and improving the system as quickly as possible. You can trust that the staff is doing everything they can to provide the best instruction available.
I hope I've convinced you of how impressed I am with Turing, its program, and its people. I hope you sign up as soon as you can, and join the rest of us who consider it a life-changing experience.
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Ricky
Hardest thing I ever did, but well worth it
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As a career firefighter/paramedic of 23 years, when it became time for a career change I knew I wanted to become a software dev. After attending many meetups in my area I learned of Turing school of software & design. After completing the modules I can say that Turing made being a firefighter/paramedic seem easy.
When I asked a friend that had completed the school how hard it would be, she told me, 'you won't have a life'. In a sense this was true. You cannot hold a job and hope to complete this school. My social life consisted of speaking to other students. My family knew I would be back, but being from Ohio, it was hard to have steady communication. It's like you are in a different world.
Turing consists of 4 modules that are 6 weeks long, with 1 week breaks in between. The breaks are not really breaks. You will have assigned reading, tutorials, or something else to study. They certainly know the meaning of immersion. I personally worked about 16 hours a day.
This school is legit. I didn't want to attend college for 4 years, and 'hope' I found employment after. I don't know the current percentage, but a vast majority of students find work. I know many students that were hired before completing all 4 modules. This school doesn't take your money and give you some tutorials with little instruction or guidance. They push you well beyond what you think you can do. They teach you what you need to know to find a job and have an awesome career.
The instructors are all awesome. Some of them were actual teachers before they worked for Turing, others were students just a few years ago and you would think they had been coding and teaching for a lot longer than that. This teaching experience shows. I think all of them could make more money elsewhere. The fact that they chose to work for less and teach says a lot to me. They also have many graduates that they employ to help teach or mentor when needed.
Another thing that is amazing is the community. There are mentors from companies all around the US. Many students graduate and then continue to mentor students 1 on 1, either in person or remotely.
There is also a great sense of 'we are all in this together'. When you are in module 1 everything seems difficult, but you soon realize that you are surrounded by students who are in modules 2, 3, and 4 who are all willing to help you and assure you that you'll be ok if you work hard. They aren't lying.
I can remember seeing awesome apps being presented at one of our community nights and thinking i'll never be able to do that, and a few months later you realize that you just presented something awesome too.
Are you afraid to speak in front of people? You'll do a short 5 minute talk every module and soon be over that fear. They also have classes to help you improve your communication skills and teach you to think on the fly. There is also help with creating your resume, and learning how to interview. Student led sessions on fridays give you a chance to show others something you are good at, or learn something new from other students.
One of the greatest things about Turing is they are always looking for ways to make the school better. Every week you have an opportunity to give feedback on things that could be improved. I have seen things that were suggested be implemented in future modules. Sometimes this presents some bumps in the road, and it's not always fun when that happens, but they are not afraid tweak things if they are not getting the results that they want.
Turing gave me all the tools that I need to be employed as a software developer, but I had to do the work. So while my friend was correct that for 7 months I wouldn't have a life, that is a small price to pay to have an awesome career for the rest of it.
Attending Turing flat out changed my life.
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Sam
Life Changer
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As a habitual career-hoppper, I can honestly say that Turing is an excellent way to give you a kickstart down the software development path. The program was perfectly structured for me; it’s full-time, very intense, and prolonged enough to impart a solid foundation of knowledge and skill. I have a lot of gratitude to Jeff and his team for creating the program.
I attended early on in Turing’s existence (3rd cohort) and there was a lot of room for improvement around things like the javascript curriculum, help with the job search process and technical interview prep. What I most admire is that the staff is 100% dedicated to improving the experience for each incoming class. The program is always evolving. Talking to current students it is clear that concerns are listened to and continually addressed. I felt like I came out of Turing with a leg up on other job searchers from other bootcamps and I know more recents grad just keep getting better and better. In fact, my company just hired a recent grad and he’s excelling.
In my last career I would dread going to work on Mondays, to the point were I would have trouble sleeping on Sunday nights. It's not the case anymore. Thank you Turing, for helping me sleep like a baby.
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Lovisa Svallingson
Apply!
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I started Turing one week after my spring finals sophomore year of college. Turing was everything I had hoped college to be; an engaged community, an emphasis on teaching actual skills, good, fair values and a focus on the individual's success professionally and within the community.
Jeff Casimir and his team are the primary reasons for why you should come to Turing. Every single person on staff at Turing truly cares for all students (including alumni) and goes above and beyond what's "required" of them in order to ensure student success. This includes individual attention and regular 1-on-1's.
All students fill out a weekly survey and the feedback is taken into consideration and acted on almost right away. Turing is constantly iterating on the feedback they recieve.
The Turing community is what you make it. Student groups and student initiatives are supported and encouraged. Here's a sample of current student led groups: a women's group (Joan Clarke Society), an environmental group that works to reduce the community's footprint (Environment Variables), an LGBTQ group, a group that teaches kids how to code (Turing Kids Who Code), a group that focuses on computational theory - just to name a few!
If you are in the Denver area try to come to one of the community nights to see what Turing is all about, or feel free to reach out to me @applegrain. Turing is awesome!
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Orion Osborn
Best educational experience of my life
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I previously tried to teach myself programming. I completed a number of online tutorials, I took an intermediate programming course at the University of New Mexico, and I tried building small apps in my free time to try to get enough experience to transition my career to software engineering. When learning outside a classroom I found that getting stuck over and over again really slowed my progress and became demotivating. While taking a university course I learned a bit more, but I never got any feedback on my code other than "I'm glad it works". The Turing School of Software and Design helped to solve these issues in addition to teaching me skills that I use every day on the job. We received consistent feedback on our code from peers and instructors and were consistently challenged to productively build well structured and tested software. I struggle to provide any constructive criticism of the school because it truly was the best educational experience of my life.