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Hello review seeker, I just finished DevLeague a couple weeks ago… be prepared for a long but genuine review of Hawaii’s only coding bootcamp. Let me also preface this review by stating that other than knowing a bit of HTML / CSS, I have absolutely no coding knowledge or experience.

Before enrolling myself in their immersive full-time program, like you and many others… I did my research and tried to find any review or resource I could get my hands on about this school. When I stumbled upon CourseReport and saw all their 5 star reviews, the cynic in me couldn’t believe this boot camp (let alone one all the way in Hawaii) could achieve so many positive reviews, so naturally I assumed most were fake.  It wasn’t until I personally met (or saw around school)  a lot of these “rando” names that were being used on CourseReport, did in fact belong to actual people and these are genuine reviews from real DevLeague alumni.

Taking the plunge with DevLeague as my sidekick was a huge risk for me as I was working full-time in a non-tech job but one of the major deciding factors in choosing this coding bootcamp was the fact that I would be able to make this big career switch in just a few short months and I didn’t have to step foot out of Hawaii.

Being the premature baby dev that I was with no coding background, I enrolled in their JavaScript prep course so I could gain enough knowledge to submit my coding challenge entry. Vic was our main instructor during the 4-week prep course and he was (and still remains) one of my favorite people I’ve met through DevLeague. It’s hard to say *favorite* because honestly,  pretty much everyone at DevLeague was awesome and I’m really glad to be a part of this community.

I remember when I first started attending prep class, I was really shocked (but impressed) with the sense of support and community from everyone at DL.  Previous graduates would come back to help out or various alumni popped in to give some advice, even students from other classes would stop by to see how we were doing. Needless to say, I really felt the support system there and it’s obvious it trickled down from the top.

I wouldn’t be sitting here today, a DL graduate, if it weren’t for the help and support from Russel and Jason. I can’t count how many emails were passed between Russel and I before I started DevLeague. He was incredibly responsive and resourceful especially when I was going through the process to apply for scholarship, which I was generously awarded. I’m truly grateful for the opportunity they’ve given me.

It’s clearly impossible for me to write a shorter review, especially on something that has had such a big impact, but I’ll try to summarize my experience of the actual bootcamp program:

If you’re looking at the full-time program of 11 hour days, 6 days a week… it seems long, yes, but honestly it passes by pretty quickly especially since you’re jamming on code 70% of the time. My other classmates have the same view as me in this regard.

It’s extremely challenging. I felt so overloaded with information at times that I barely felt like I actually retained anything. That led to me asking myself “Did I make the right decision going through this program?” or “Maybe I’m not meant to be a developer?”

In the beginning, I felt like nothing made sense and it wasn’t until towards the tail end of bootcamp that the pieces started coming together to form a whole picture.

The curriculum is well thought out, projects on point for the topic and I enjoyed the humor in the slideshows. The readme docs are at times confusing (probably getting us used to reading real docs, lol) and some needed updates.

In the end, I wholeheartedly join in and agree with the others in saying “It was the best decision I made” career-wise and if you’re on fence about taking the course or want to ask me for more details about my experience, I’ll be more than happy to answer them for you… shoot me an email jennahscriptAToutlookDOTcom

• Learning Process: I was in a small online class of 12 students all near the Dallas area so we were able to meet in person for group projects. Since the classes were so small the teacher and teacher's aid were able to help answer any questions we had and walk us through important concepts.
  • The lessons are very detailed, guiding you through basic to more advanced programming concepts, and at the end of the lessons, you code an assignment that you can add to your GitHub Portfolio. 
  • We had a virtual class two times per week for 2hrs where the teacher would go over the material in the modules, then an optional study session with the TA once a week which, I highly recommend going to. 
  • The teacher was very well educated and did an excellent job at helping you understand every concept in the syllabus.
• Projects: The projects are probably my favorite aspect of the class. You decide with your group what project you want to work on and everyone contributes to the project's Github similar to how you would do it in the professional environment.
  • If your group decided to make a Crytpo portfolio analyzer in the first project, in the following project you could build onto that and make an Algorithmic trading bot or whatever you want.
• Advice: My advice to people who want to get into coding or just want to learn Fintech, is to take this boot camp and put in what you want to get out, you won't regret it.
  • The more you study/practice the better your coding skills will be, make a schedule with plenty of study time and stick to it.
  • For studying, I found I learned best by working on the end of the lesson assignment as I learned the concepts, using Stackoverflow as needed, then using the optional TA study session to ask any questions I had; or fix errors I encountered in my code (which were many early on).
• Job Assistance: Of the career services I have used from other boot camps, this has been the best by far. 
  • At the end of the lessons, there is a career connection page that tells you how to add the new skills you learned to your resume, what jobs use these skills, questions jobs might ask based on what you just learned, and upcoming career events.
  • There are tons of webinars that you get access to! Coding interview prep workshops, Google recruiting webinars, and way more. I highly recommend signing up for every webinar you are interested in, even while you are still going through the boot camp.
  • A career material advisor gives you continuous feedback on your resume until you are satisfied with it, then you get paired with a career coach who, essentially coaches you through getting hired (technical interview questions, etc).
• OVERALL VERDICT: I went to school at a top-ranked university, and previously completed a Veteran Technology cybersecurity course, and I learned more in SMU's Fintech boot camp that actually applies to jobs than I did anywhere else. I would recommend this boot camp to anyone who is interested, if you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on Linkedin.

As a former full-time Android student and current Mobile/Android Developer, I can confidently say that TurnToTech has played an immense role in starting my career as a Mobile Developer. Their bootcamp offered an immersive hands on course experience which ensured I had the skill set needed to survive in a professional Software Developer environment.

TTT's course was not the typical class room/lecture environment. It was the kind of course which engages you to constantly learn by solving problems and creating projects (I'd like to mention that this was made perfectly clear to me before I enlisted). The hands-on course work included Object Oriented Programming (OOP), problem solving with algorithms, and creating many android applications that centered around specific functions with the addition of an Internship.

As a current Android Developer, I've worked at two companies now since my departure from TurnToTech; and I cant stress how similar the course work is to what I've faced on the job. To clarify what I mean, I'll give a quick rundown of how finding and working at a Mobile/Android developer role is like.

1) To get an interview, you need a resume depicting projects you've worked on as a Software Engineer. Thus my resume (I'll note here that I was a recent Nursing grad and the only job exp I had was at the Home Depot) compromised of small android applications which TTT's course provided to create and that I continued adding onto(polished them and added my own features), the internship project at TTT which I got to work within a dev team of fellow students under the instructor who I say acted as a product manager/lead developer, and my own small application which the instructors were more than happy to encourage/help me create. 

2) To pass the interview, you'll usually need to answer various Android (or w/e you specialize in) questions as well as solve an algorithm challenge/s. Both of these topics I covered within the course. As mentioned, TTT's course includes a dive into solving algorithms and learning about multiple data structures. And besides creating multiple Android apps pertaining to all the major Android components, the course provides multiple quizzes (open ended and multiple choice) to help solidify your understanding over a specific topic. In addition, the intstructors themselves offer mock interviews that are similar to what you'll face in real life. 

3) Once you get a job in any Software engineering role, you'll quickly realize how there isn't a one solution to fix all problems. You'll constantly be problem solving all day every day; and that is what I believe TTT excels at the most. TTT teaches you how to create/find the answers yourself. By being a bootcamp, which encourages students to become self-proficient, they prepare you for the everyday environment where you're expected to produce without much help.

To wrap things up, the experience I got at TTT was great. For the negative reviews regarding the nature of the course,  those people missed the point of the bootcamp. This wasnt a standard college course substitute. TTT was a place that accepted me with zero software development knowledge then prepared me for a software developer job in under a year. So yes, if you attend this course and have a question about a problem you're stuck on and the instructor kindly encourages you to find the answer on StackOverflow, its because thats what you'll be doing every day within your software developer career. 

FVI TechLaunch was something I wanted to try out and see how it went but the very first week of attendance I was very impressed at how stuctured the curriculum was and most importantly was the level of patience the instructors had with the students. They made sure to review the previous day's work all the time and introduced the students to stand-ups early in the program.

I came into TechLaunch with prior programming knowledge and skills but even with those skills I found that I lacked the skill to think critically, that is what I believe was a  major achievement for me attending TechLaunch. One of a web developer's super power is to have the ability to learn because technology is evry changing. TechLaunch develops this skill by putting its students through rigorous but achieveable tests and challenges.

I am glad I got to attend TechLaunch and graduate. If you get the chance and get accepted into the program, don't pass it up.