Coding Dojo

I like many people signed up to Coding Dojo because they made the claim of having you job ready to make a transition in to Cyber Security. After completing the course I can say that it does not help prepare you to be job ready. The program does a good job of introducing you to the field but that is about it, an introduction. $16K for an introduction to the cyber security world is way to much in my opinion. The first 8 weeks are supposed to help prepare you for the ComTIA Security+ exam and I am glad I paid money for other resources because they didn't cover most all the topics that are on the test. Professor Messor has a YouTube playlist dedicated to the Security+ exam and that by far was more helpful in preparing me for the test which I passed but I had to binge watch those videos in between keeping up with the classwork of Coding Dojo... and the Professor Messor videos are available for FREE!!!! I know they have built their reputation based on coding  and I've heard great things about that but their Cyber security stack has many holes and flaws. The assignments are too elementary to be considered work experience. It causes more frustration than learning because there were plenty of times where you had to request help from a TA because the lab assignment would not work as it should. The online lesson are far from being beginner friendly and the staff although they are nice and helpful are not experts in the field. A few of them received the same certifications we paid to learn about while I was studying with the company. In my opinion you would be much better off doing Googles Cyber Security Cert or even ISC2 Certified in Cyber Security and save your pockets in the process. The Career Coordinator they promised has yet to meet with me due to an internal shifting of staff. I went through a 6 month boot camp and met with someone once. I am speaking as a person who was able to was achieve the tops honors of the program Triple Black Belt. Just unacceptable quality for the price paid for the package.  Read less

The short version.
I believe that this course is good for complete beginners but it is too expensive for the value you get. That's in regards to the knowledge you come out of the program with and your chances of breaking into an engineering role, particularly in this economy. If you are going to go through with the course, I highly recommend taking only 1 stack (i.e., language). They're extremely similar and it's not possible to become proficient in multiple languages during the course's timeframe. Honestly, my biggest regret in this course was taking more than 1 stack.

The longer version.

Background. A bit background on me for comparison sake if it helps with your decision making. I've worked a bunch of corporate jobs from finance to consulting. I'm good at excel but was a complete beginner at coding. I started learning how to code on my own about 4 months prior to enrolling into the bootcamp. I ultimately decided to enroll because I wanted to accelerate my learning with the thought that the bootcamp would significantly decrease the amount of time it took me to get a job. I came in knowing that bootcamps in general are not a golden ticket into a software development role, and that ultimately, you get out what you put in.

Curriculum. I took two stacks, Python and MERN (Javascript). I definitely did learn a few things during the program. However, I was surprised to see a number of lessons in the curriculum were simply links to other sites. In fact, the very most I learned during the program was during the lesson on CSS and the curriculum was basically all links to lessons you could find for free, such as Flexbox Froggy. I do want to make it clear that you do learn the basics of programming from loops, data types and conditionals. You also come out of each stack being able to build a basic app, learning how to build the frontend, backend and connect the two. However, I knew most of the material already even though I had been learning how to code for 4 months prior, using free resources. There's definitely value of having structure and guidance (although Chat-GPT could fill that role) so if that's a reason why you want to join the program then that's a great decision too. Just please don't take more than 1 stack. I think MERN is the best because you learn react and that's a very popular frontend framework. The stacks are basically copies of each other and I didn't gain any additional value, but it was expensive. The bootcamp sells you on the importance of learning multiple languages but once you have the foundational knowledge of a language, it's all syntax from there. You're likely gonna forget the first stack's language nuances by the time you're done with the second stack anyways, and I think it's more important to show that you're proficient at coding through your projects. That becomes a lot easier when you stick to one language.

Teachers and Teacher Assistants. The bootcamp has multiple lectures weekly and also provides TA support throughout the afternoon / evening. I found both the teachers and TA's to be very nice and knowledgable about the curriculum. They're former students, which is definitely helping the bootcamps employment numbers. There are moments where it's still clear that the teachers and TA's learned coding fairly recently. As I mentioned in the curriculum section, you get taught the basics and if you need help with that level of knowledge, then the support is great. Step a little outside of that boundary and you don't get much support. I visited the TA's about a number of times during the course with questions that were just a step or two deeper into what was being taught in the curriculum and I genuinely can't remember a time when they answered my question. One TA even explained that it's a skill to be able to find an answer by myself, which is true but I'm also paying over $12K for you to help guide me. Chat-GPT became popular during my time in this course and I can confidently say that it has been so much more helpful than Coding Dojo.

Career Support. A big reason why I chose Coding Dojo was the lifetime career support. It sounds amazing and ultimately the reason why many people choose to join a bootcamp is to get a job. The people who you will work with are kind. I had a great experience interacting with them on a personal level, but they provided me with limited help. I didn't use all of their resources to be fair. I did use them for guidance on how to approach the job search, my resume, and review of my portfolio website. For guidance, it was very high level. For example, you should build out a portfolio website highlighting projects, get your resume together, and look at jobs on these sites. When I was talking to the sales rep, it seemed as if Coding Dojo had a lot more relationship or pipelines with companies looking to hire. However, at present there were no relationships like that. Part of that is the economy but it did not seem like there were many to begin with. For my resume and portfolio website, I just got a lot of praise or minor edits. If you come from a career path where you have experience writing a corporate resume then the career services in my opinion will not provide significant value. Especially if you also know where to look for jobs (BuiltIn, Wellfound, Y Combinator's website). These jobs aren't necessarily hard to find. However, if you're coming for less adjacent field then there is definitely value here. 

Conclusion. After going through a bootcamp, I understand all the comments about how bootcamp is not a golden ticket into a software development role. Yet, it can still be useful. The question is whether it is worth the cost. I say maybe, but only if it's for one stack. Also, I suggest part time if you can rather than full time because it's not going to be easy to break into engineering after this program. If you can be self-taught I would personally go that route, picking a project and then learning what it takes to build that project. In fact, that's exactly what I did and I've learned 5x more than I learned during the bootcamp. I even learned the most up-to-date popular technologies and frameworks, which the curriculum doesn't teach. Not that the curriculum is outdated, but it's also not completely up-to-date either. Read less

Tough boot camp but worth the money for it if you can afford it. Staff was great. Only issue I had was the how new a couple of my instructors were. Python was where I was really affected by it but other than that I got the support I needed. Definitely would recommend anyone looking for a boot camp to attend. Read less

It was incredibly overpriced. The career service advisor I was assigned missed meetings, didn't communicate and didn't care. She asked if I had LinkedIn even though I sent her my LinkedIn before the first meeting (the only one she showed up to).

FreeCodeCamp taught me more, and did it more effectively. I can't emphasize enough how disappointed I was with their curriculum, career services, and support in general. A TA I met with gave me false information multiple times and I eventually found the correct answer on StackExchange.

If you want to see how ineffective bootcamps are for getting you into tech, just see the amount of graduates that end up as unmotivated TAs
.  Read less

As an individual coming from NO computer background what-so-ever, I want to  share my experiences.

First of all, I have a great support system at home that allowed me to focus 100% on this course for 4 months. I was able to take a recourse to prepare me for the full-time program. 

The first month was HARD. I thought I was going to give up. The assignments are fast, and I spent all of my free time studying. It was difficult not to compare where  I stood to others in my class. At my toughest moment, I reached out to my Career Services Manager and my TA. They both helped encourage me and offer support when I needed them. 

I would say the most important take-aways for those looking to join the bootcamp: Make sure you have a support system. Don't compare yourself to others in the class. Stay dedicated and find the motivation behind why you're doing this. 

Coding Dojo has great resources throughout the course, that continue on for 6 months after you graduate. There is also an option to pay more for a yearly alumni pass.  Read less

Bootcamps / trade schools  are a great alternative to College, especially if you are uncertain on what you want your career or life to be. Coding dojo provided me with all the resources I will need to be successful in the course. I got to work at my own pace or work ahead. They have a structure for attendance and assignments, so you wont feel like you don't know what to work on next or where to be. Each instructor has their own way of teaching, some might work for you others might not, but you have the platform and your classmates to reach out to.  Read less

To each's own, with a grain salt, If you need to see an entire application built from start to finish Dojo has a demanding curriculum that will take you there.  It took me years after college and running my own team that exposed my shortcomings of building an entire application from all directions (web/mobile).

I am nearly 40-years-old, dropped out of college while attempting to pursue a CS degree, then opted to build a tech start-up from scratch as Founder/Investor.... all have failed until I attended Coding Dojo.

The process is called "Drinking from a firehose". Normally, it would take approximately 5 years in regular college setting to learn software engineering. Coding Dojo on-site Burbank, took me there with 3 separate stacks within 14 weeks.

The most important part of becoming a developer is attaining the ability of becoming a determined self-sufficient Developer. All the instructors and staffs at the Coding Dojo were a tremendous help in reaching my developer skills. They were understanding of life events and I went through plenty. For example, I had court cases, hospital newborn emergencies, care broke down twice ( 80 mile daily ) , my close friend on their death bed, then attending their funeral. I was still determined to complete my course.

Now being comfortable building projects in MERN, Java, and Python, I have the ability to continue learning other languages such as C++ (college attempt). 

Coding Dojo's Curriculum, On-site Instructors, and student support were all magnificent throughout the course in helping achieve something I thought I would be unachievable. Read less

I really enjoyed my time with Coding Dojo. It is quite astonishing how much information and programing knowledge I was able to pick up in 14 weeks. I attended the online full-time boot camp and I am incredibly happy that I did. I think this is a great idea for anyone looking to learn programming. You do need to put the effort and time in just as with any other new skill in order to really get the most of out it. I had a great cohort that I was able to connect with and learn from. The instructors and TA's were all very knowledgeable and incredibly helpful to me. I appreciated my time during this boot camp and would encourage anyone to look into this as an option.  Read less

I was 32 years old when I decided to enroll in a coding BootCamp, so its never too late to start a new career you'll be passionate about. Coding Dojo is an intensive thorough program! Your coding journey doesn't start the first day of class. It begins the moment you are accepted. Strongly recommend that as soon as you gain access to the platform, you start doing the pre-work/algorithms. I can't stress this enough! On average, I would study 60-80 hours a week (including some all nighters on weekends) just to have a grasp of what I was learning. Use every weekend to read ahead (or catch up) and ask your questions during class when they review. Do not be afraid to ask questions, no matter how silly they might sound. There's a good chance someone else will have the same question. You may feel like giving up, this is a normal feeling. Keep going! I lost count how many times I wanted to give up because I couldn't understand a concept. I pushed through it and still graduated. Find a good support system like friends/family. Let them know that you will need their help and support. Try to make friends, your cohorts are going through the same thing you are and may be stuck on the same parts. Work together to understand what you're learning. The TA's and Instructors truly want to help you understand what you are learning and I have to reinstate this again, DONT BE AFRAID TO ASK QUESTIONS AND ASK FOR HELP! You can do this! Be persistent and don't give up on yourself! Read less

I loved my time at Coding Dojo! My instructors always were quick to communicate and created a lovely environment. The platform was well organized and user-friendly. There are many ways this school creates community, between the Dojo Hall and discord it would be hard not to make friends. Both students and TAs go above and beyond to help you gain a deeper understanding of the material or help through any problems you are struggling with. Shout Out to Zack, Adrian, Cameron, and Justina I worked mostly with these lovely people that I would give a raise if I could. They are all incredibly sweet, enjoyable, informative, and go above and beyond. The curriculum was very challenging just because there was so much to learn in such a small period of time but it was certainly worth it.  Read less

Coding Dojo was the best thing I ever did. The way the material was presented not only by the instructors and teaching assistants; but the learning platform was well detailed and easy to follow. The staff of the bootcamp created a positive environment that made it very easy to get up in the morning and log onto the zoom meeting. All of the support was there, and I felt I was definitely set up for success. Read less

As the title says, if you're willing to put in the time & effort, Coding Dojo is an amazing bootcamp to get you started in a Software Development career.  This probably applies to Software Development in general, but since Coding Dojo offers 3-stacks(not all 3 are required), it definitely is not something you're just going to be doing on the side, or when you have free time.  Having graduating from the 3-stack program, I can tell you that if you actually put time aside to study the material, understand how each line of code works, understand how individual components contribute to creating an application & try to solve problems on your own without looking for someone to hold your hand every step of the way, then you will have a great foundation to build upon from there.  As far as I know, Coding Dojo offers the most value in terms of languages, web technologies, etc, that are taught versus other bootcamps that I've looked at.  BUT, as I said, you have to put in the time & effort to get the most out of it, do not just do the bare-minimum.  You're given the most in-demand tools(the ones most job postings are looking for experience in) to equip yourself with in order to help you get started in a new career in Software Development.  Half-way through my second stack I felt comfortable enough to start applying for jobs, so I ended up landing one before graduation.  If you plan on doing the bare minimum, i.e., just turning in the required assignments & passing the exams, then this is a career that you should reconsider.  I learned a LOT at Coding Dojo, then continued to further my new skill sets on my own after having a solid foundation of each stack which has led me down a never-ending rabbit hole of information(in a good way).  Take the tools that Coding Dojo offers here and put them to work. Read less

Pros:
--The sheer BREADTH of tech you work with in Coding Dojo is quite exemplary: HTML, JavaScript, CSS, TypeScript, Bootstrap, Python, Flask, MySQL, MongoDB, Mongoose, Node.js, React/Express, Postman, jQuery, JSON, Ajax, Java, SpringToolSuite, SpringBoot, APIs, AWS, Azure, and there is so much more nitty-gritty I could name here for each stack. (Note: I took MERN. Some students take MEAN, which is Angular over React, or C# or other stacks, and some take or have taken Python which uses Django rather than Flask, etc. but this was the tech I personally worked with)

--Being integrated into a community learning environment is great. You have instructors, TAs, and your peers. You are together in Zoom lectures, you can pair program in Zoom "breakout rooms" with a few people, and you can communicate in Discord servers/channels. I learned to really be pro-active in asking questions and seeking help, whether from instructors, TAs, or peers who had more knowledge/experience than I had, depending on the situation.

--You can continue to stay connected after graduating, whether through alum Discord channels/servers, connecting w/a community on LinkedIn, using career services support, etc. It's definitely a good starting point for building a network.

Cons:

--The biggest one to me is that access to the Login/Learn platform is cut off at six months after graduating. I will be frank that this strikes me as a bit ... strangely miserly. I mean, students are paying quite a bit of money for the bootcamp. Why cut off their platform access after such a limited amount of time? Especially because, again, speaking frankly, most students will still need to practice with a lot of these concepts after graduating, given how fast-paced the bootcamp is. I think students would look a lot more fondly on the program without this red tape.

--I said this elsewhere, but tech that's not directly a part of building a fullstack server for each language/library gets treated a bit haphazardly. JSON and APIs are touched on, but working with APIs is something that comes up during project week and is largely left to students to work through on their own. APIs can be very complex, so giving a week for a student to make a project w/API integration is a bit of a problem. Especially because you may not even have a week: many students need a little extra time to complete the 90% core assignment requirement of the stack and have to take exams a bit later, or they may need an exam re-take (or two), in which case they don't even have a full week for projects.  Peers are preoccupied with their own projects, even TAs may struggle to really help w/API integration, and instructors can be a bit sparse during these final stack weeks. This results in a situation where the students who need support the most are likely to not get much and not have much to show, whereas students who already have a lot of tech chops are the most likely to produce flashy projects. I didn't have a very good experience with project weeks, personally.

--Similarly and maybe a bit relatedly, some tech isn't actually taught, but is treated like sort of bonus material for Black Belts. For example, at no point were we really taught to deploy websites. There are deployment instructions on the Learn/Login platform, but this is something you self-teach for Black Belt features. Having options for Black Belt features is a cool concept, but being able to deploy websites seems like something that ought to be pretty integral to development. I graduated without being taught really anything about deployment. It's worth noting that Coding Dojo does offer optional certification in Azure, however.

Overall: Really, what each stack in Coding Dojo is oriented around is creating an application/server with full CRUD functionality. To that end, the program succeeds in teaching students how to build these servers from the ground up w/Python, MERN, and Java. If you think of Coding Dojo as being mostly oriented towards this, then it succeeds in what it sets out to do. It would be nice to flesh out some of the other aspects of tech a bit more, though. I have nothing but nice things to say about the instructors and TAs. When they can be reached for support, their assistance is excellent. One of the other challenging things is that if you need evening or weekend support for assignments, it can be harder to find people around to help, which can be tricky because a student may have most of their time for work on evenings or weekends. I would sometimes fall behind in my assignment tracker because I needed to check in with my instructor or a TA the next day for an assignment due the previous day. In fairness, I think the program tries to help with this by just having a lot of TAs on Discord, so you have to be pro-active in searching around and messaging them sometimes just to see who is available. I understand people have lives and there's only so much you can do scheduling-wise in terms of support, but students should be aware of this and try to plan ahead and start assignments ASAP and as early as possible to guarantee sufficient support if they get stuck w/debugging. Read less

I had a great time in the program and felt supported by the community. The instructors are patient and willing to take time to help you learn. I went in knowing almost nothing about coding. While the program can be difficult as it is fast paced, it is extremely rewarding and you will learn a lot in  your time there. Read less

The reason why I chose Dojo over Hack Reactor and other bootcamps is because of Dojo's community. I learned that they have sports day once a week and they won't kick students out if they fail. Back then I was very depressed, so I needed a supportive school. On the learning side, Dojo is not kidding when they say they will teach you to be a full-stack developer within 3 months. Expect late nights of studying and hurdles throughout. It's critical that you study prep materials before you start. You will be tested on day 1. Even if you understand only half of it you will pass. I know because I was the worst student. Don't be afraid to ask teachers and classmates for help. The Dojo managing director told me to bug the teachers since they get paid for it. Read less

I looked for a long time to find the right BootCamp.  I was leaving a career of 17 years for something I had no idea how to do. No background in tech whatsoever.  I compared tuition, reviews, Alumni access/involvement, time commitment, duration,  among other things.  I looked for at least a year and kept coming back to Coding Dojo. I made the jump last November and do not regret it one bit! Coding Dojo's instructors are all dedicated teachers who want to see you succeed.  Most, if not all of the instructors have been students at Coding Dojo themselves.  They know what you go through during the process and how difficult it can be. Mike, Seeso and Saurabh were all amazing!! If you're looking for a change, this is the place! Read less

Coding Dojo's full-time online boot camp was a challenging and amazing brain-melting adventure. Their teaching style of strength through struggle, promoting self-sufficient programming habits, and working together with cohort-mates were all invaluable and integral to both my learning and overall experience. The availability and dedication of the Career Services Team was a bonus and having this resource available for life is worth it. Read less

Coding Dojo is a great bootcamp for beginners. Concepts are explained in an understandable way and the Learn platform which is the bread and butter of the bootcamp is excellent. You build on concepts slowly instead of learning the more complicated stuff right off the bat.  They also spend an hour every day going over algorithms to prep us for our job search after the bootcamp.

My only complaints really are the other students. Algorithms are done in groups, and projects at the end of each stack are solo or group, however to practice the AGILE software development we were expected to do stand ups every day with other cohort-mates. In both the group algorithms and daily stand ups for projects, I had team members who did not contribute and that honestly does hurt the experience. However -- when I did bring this up to my instructor, she resolved it whenever it happened, whether that was moving me to a different group or making algorithm groups larger so that there'd be a higher chance of participation.

I would recommend Coding Dojo to any beginner who is trying to break into the field. Read less