Coding Dojo

I attended Coding Dojo starting in June of 2019. Right away I noticed that I was putting together the dots that I was missing trying to learn this on my own. The course was very demanding, but in a good way. I was very interested in the curriculum, they made it fun with real life applications, and small games. I started off in the Tech industry as a Graphic Designer, and felt like I wanted to do a little more. Coding Dojo made this dream a little more visual and I seen that I could anything if I put my mind to it , it I persevere. After the Camp they helped me reshape my resume, and apply my skills to the job search. Im currently looking but I learned that the Journey isn't over until you reach your goals.

   I enjoyed finding out the environment and culture of programming. I learned so much! I appreciate learning about the immense value programming has for almost every piece of technology. Regarding the instructors, I appreciate how they told our cohort the high expectations, from the very beginning.

   Having finished a master's thesis only five months ago, the daily schedule during this bootcamp experience was more demanding! I learned to sleep less, think about homework more, and often work on coding through the night. If you would like to say "Hello World" to the "crunch time" that game developers talk about, if you would like to know the lifestyle of the programming greats, or if you would like to take on one of the most difficult challenges of your life, an onsite, immersive experience at Coding Dojo might just be the right fit for you. I recommend coming to an open house, talking personally with the instructors, and getting a tour of the Coding Dojo location that interests you.

I attended the Onsite Immersive Course, which is a 14 week course. You start in Web Delevopment, going into Python, C#, and then MEAN (MongoDB, Express.js, Angular.js, Node.js). After graduating High School, I was always at dead end jobs. After having my child, I knew I had to do something quick. My brother came up to me asking if I wanted to join this intense boot camp with him and I agreed. On day one we dove head on with code, learning front end development and algorithms. They ask you put in as much time as you possibly can, hoping for around 80+ hours. I myself, at the beginning, put in around that much, but as I became more comfortable, I started attending for about 60+ hours. There were multiple moments were I hit a wall, but having someone close who also attended definitely helped out. At some points, the curriculum would be outdated, or very unhelpful, but they highly incourage you to google as much as you possible can. Google is 100% your best friend during this course. If you are interested in the tech field at all, or just curious. There are times where an instructor can not be found, or they are in depth with another student, which can be very aggrivating. Having the other students around you will help with keeping you moving forward, and are very helpful if you get stuck. I highly recommend you come to this course; even if you do not plan on doing anything with coding, learning how the world around you works is amazing. Many times I will see something where I now think how it could run more efficently, or just how it may work.

I attended the onsite immersive program for 14 weeks at Coding Dojo in the Seattle area. Before I started the program, I had little to no prior knowledege or experience in the field of technology. I spent a lot of long hours, (80+) each day at the Dojo working on assignments. The goal of the program is to prepare students to become self sufficient developers by giving in-depth knowledge of the latest technologies that are in demand in the tech industry. You will spend most of the time learning the language on your own and sometimes with other small groups of people. One thing that sets Coding Dojo apart from other bootcamps is they have a one hour session in the morning that is mainly focused towards algorithims and data structures. The instructors give a mini lecture and students work in groups to solve real world algorithims that could be brought up during a real interview for a job opputunity. Most of the instructors were helpful with guidence and support. One thing to change could be updating the platform to what is current such as the versions of the technolgy. Overall, I enjoyed my time at Coding Dojo, putting long grueling hours was well worth it in the end of my 14 weeks! 

If I had to rate my experience while attending Coding Dojo Berkeley. I would have to say that deciding to attend the bootcamp was one of the best decisions that I have made for myself. The rate at which you learn is phenomenal. The amount of material that I learned in the three months whille in the bootcamp would have taken me years on my own. Not only did I learn all of these skills, I've met great people also. The instructors are really helpful and patient. The manager always makes sure that the students are always accommodated. Overall, Coding Dojo is great! I would highly recommend this place to anyone.

The program is intense. Be prepared to commit the time (80+hrs/wk) and energy. You will get out of the program what you put in. I averaged around 84hrs a week through the whole course, with some weeks being less and others much more.

DO NOT SKIP DAYS. Don't even skip morning algorithms. Get there early, get your coffee, and get motivated.

Your cohort is your team. They will have different backgrounds and approaches. Learn from them and they will learn from you. ALWAYS offer to trouble shoot their code if they are struggling and be welcoming to requests for help. Reading and diagnosing their code is of immense value to you and you have much to learn from the experience.

DO NOT GET HUNG UP ON THE WHY. There are decisions language designers made about languages and modules and libraries that will not make sense, often because their reasoning is beyond the scope of your initial learning. Getting hung up on why prevents you from progressing.

PART OF THE LEARNING IS ERRORS. You will get them. You will need to research them. This is part of the learning experience and it is VERY important to your future career. As I write this, my first software contract is for a machine learning implementation. I anticipate a lot of errors and there will be no one to tell me the answers or course material to correct my deficiencies. Which leads me to...

THE TWENTY MINUTE RULE- Obey. Do not sit there and churn your wheels. Seek help once you've spent the time giving it a good try. You may not resolve every problem in 20 mins and that is fine. You learn something every time. Continuing your progression, during the course, is more important than solving every problem on your own.

You will find errors in the material; you will encounter parts that are not as well-explained as you would like. Guess what. The same goes for technology documentation. While I'd love for ever part of the course to be explained in just the right way for me (and Coding Dojo should always try to improve their material), getting around these obstructions is a learning experience too. Do your part to help by giving good feedback and reporting errors when you find them. Several changes in Windows related materials were corrected post-haste when my cohort reported them and their solutions.

On that note, GET FAMILIAR with your computer. Do not buy it three days before course start. You want to be familiar with the computer and know it will be good to work from. You may find typing for a few hours, the keyboard is uncomfortable or that it is a lemon or defective. These are not things to find out on day one or two nor something to battle continuously through the program. If you can, practice working across two screens. This is very important skill.

MOST IMPORTANT- Your attitude. This program does not hand everything to you on a platter, much less one made of silver. You will work for your knowledge. This is good preparation for the working world. Your fellow cohort members will be like your future co-workers and your instructor will be like your leadership on a project. Learn to function in the environment.

Good luck.

    As cliche as it sounds you really do get out what you put in with this bootcamp. Given that, if you really want to get the most out of it, you should go into this bootcamp with at least some coding experience. If you have never coded before it’s a big risk just jumping into a bootcamp assuming that you will a) have the aptitude for it and b) enjoy it. When I joined this bootcamp I already had some coding experience: I have an engineering degree in another discipline and did some light coding when I was a kid (I believe I had a Geocities page at some point). For me this bootcamp was relatively easy but I definitely had moments where I did struggle. From what I observed from my less technically inclined peers, many of them struggled, but the ones that actually put in the full 70-90 hours a week (closer to 90) really excelled. For example, one of the students I worked with on a project had previously worked as an auto-body mechanic. He ended up taking one of the exams early because he was putting 12+ hour days, six days a week and prepared for this bootcamp weeks in advance. I would never have known he had no experience in coding before. So you really do get out what you put in.

    As to the actual content of the bootcamp, the camp is divided into sections. The first two weeks you learn HTML, CSS, javascript, Jquery, SQL and git. These are going to be the fundamentals you are going to use throughout the bootcamp. Next you start your first stack, the Python Stack which is three weeks. After Python you spend a week on projects and/or test retakes, you do this after each stack. The last two stacks are C# and MEAN which are also three weeks with a project/test retake week after. As you can see they move very quickly here, they probably only spend about two days on language fundamentals and the rest on frameworks. Because it is so fast paced, I personally feel we don’t get enough of a deep dive into each language/stack. Personally, and at least one other graduate has had this idea, I think they should only do two stacks and do a deeper dive into each stack.

    Most of your learning takes place from readings and assignments on their platform. The platform does enough to walk you through the process of creating web apps, however I wish it got more in depth as I mentioned above. After this bootcamp you really are going to have to buckle down and take a deeper dive into each stack to really understand them. Additionally, sometimes that platform is flat out wrong. For example, one of the instructors tried to do a deployment demo using the platform and he had to stop because there were to many issues with it so he said he was going to re-write that section on the platform, which he did. The platform also had videos where instructors would walk through code however most of the time I didn’t find it very helpful so I’d watch them at 2X speed. 

    The instructors are great, it is true that some of them are former students who haven’t worked in the industry before however they are still very knowledgeable (they go through a six month on the job training before they are full fledged instructors) and passionate. My only complaint about the instructors is that there were not enough of them or TAs. For example, because of some circumstances, the entire dojo only had one instructor for three cohorts for about a week. Many of us were not happy about that.

    In summary, while this bootcamp may have it’s faults, this is a great bootcamp for those who are highly motivated, can sacrifice basically almost all their waking time for 14-weeks, have at least a little previous programming experience and are independent learners.  

Although the pacing sounds daunting at first, I was pleasantly surprised with how smooth the bootcamp went! The staff at the Oakland campus are fantastic (Vinson and David, with TAs Drue and Ray) and they always do there best to assist you throughout the program. On top of that, the program does their best to ensure you can work as comfortably as possible by providing a stocked kitchen and some fairly flexible hours for the convenience of students. Speaking of which,  it has also been wonderful working with so many other pleasant students. Overall, the atmosphere of the program is very social and supportive, which makes for a great learning environment. It was super awesome to see how easy it is to take in computer languages after you get the ball rolling (this is coming from someone with no coding experience). Even though I was green in the field, I was able to make it through, which means I’m sure you can too :).

Deciding to attend the Coding Dojo onsite bootcamp in Oakland has easily been one of the best decisions I've made. I came into the program with no programming expierence and in just 3 1/2 months I am able to do things I never thought possible. The program is hard and very rigorous but it really changes the way you approcah programming and learning in general. The way the course is designed really gives you a ton of confidence in your ablilities to learn things quickly. They give you all the tools to learn 3 full stacks (Python, MEAN, and Java) in a short period of time. This really prepares you for a fast moving tech world where in an instant you might need to learn a new language. 

The lead instructor Vinson is one of the best teachers I've ever had. He really helps you grow as a developer by giving you the push you need to get better everyday. He is very enthusiastic and knowledgeable which makes the learning expierence fun and something to look forward to. The program manager David is also wonderful and does everything he can to help make the program run smoothly. 

Overall my expierece at Coding Dojo has been amazing. The friendships and knowledge I've gained has made my time there unforgettable. I would highly recommend this program to anyone! 

I came to Coding Dojo with a background in Business Economics and no programming experience.  Joining Coding Dojo was one of the toughest, yet most rewarding experiences I’ve been through.  I’ve learned so much since Day 1 and the learning doesn’t stop.  If you put the time in it and challenge yourself, you will succeed.

How did I decide on Coding Dojo?  After exploring a few different Open Houses, I felt like the instructors and staff here genuinely cared for their students.  Throughout the program, they made learning programming fun and challenged you to think differently when it came to solving problems.  Another reason why I joined Coding Dojo was because they taught 3 full stacks (Python, Java and MEAN).  This allowed me to be well-rounded on a few languages and helped me decide what stack I prefer to work with.  

Coding Dojo’s career services was helpful so make sure to make use of it every way you can throughout the program and more importantly after graduation.  If you’re expecting to rely solely on Career Services to land a job, this isn’t for you.  You need to put in your part too.  As a recent graduate, I can see how easy it is to relax once the bootcamp is over.  After graduating is when the hardest part starts, searching for a job.  You need to work on your resume, portfolio, go to networking events, continue coding, etc.  It took me about 2.5 months to receive that job offer and that was one of the happiest moments of my life.  My hard work is finally getting paid off.

One thing I wished Coding Dojo emphasized on more was making projects a requirement to graduate.  It would be nice to submit the projects to the instructor and have them give feedback on it.  I think this is really important because once you graduate, you need a few solid projects on your portfolio before you apply.  After graduating, I spend about 3.5 weeks working on my portfolio before actively applying for jobs.

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience at Coding Dojo and built so many relationships I will cherish throughout my life.  I would not have been able to do this myself. I’m grateful for all the help and support I received from my cohorts, instructors and staffs, so thank you Coding Dojo!

Coding Dojo gave me direction when I was absolutely lost. It sounds melodramatic but it really is true. I've always struggled with academics. Reading massive textbooks, writing up essay after essay, or finding focus for busy work has never been my strong suit. It's just not how I learn. So after graduating high school and trying to force college to work for me for about a year, I finally realized I needed to look elsewhere. And I'm really glad Coding Dojo is where I ultimately decided to go. The work is hands-on and no-nonsense.

This bootcamp is fast paced but with all the support from your fellow cohort-mates, instructors, and TAs, It's very doable if you have the drive. Their online learning platform makes for a very good reference but in my opinion the real magic happens with their instructors. You can tell they're genuinely passionate about programming and it makes the work so enjoyable. The demos and lectures are very informative and they take little breaks along the way to make sure everyone understands the material and is on the same page. The morning algorithms are also a really great feature of this bootcamp. You get used to thinking about how you can start to tackle a problem, polish it to be more efficient, and code more creatively since after you've taken a solid stab at it you get to look at different students' perspectives. Which are all skills that are definitely helpful for succeeding at an interview. And of course the sheer exposure and repetition of foundational algorithms and data structures doesn't hurt either!

I came to the bootcamp with a little bit of coding experience, that I got from online courses. I recommend that to anybody who's going to attend any coding bootcamp.

Time in Dojo was truly amazing. Super professional instructors with experience working in big companies such as Amazon. Awesome peers from different countries and backgrounds. Information is very well structured in the curriculum, so it's easy to pick up new stuff even for non-native English speakers as myself. The only thing I didn't like is how MEAN stack was presented on the platform, but instructors helped to fill all the gaps and even more.

Another thing which is super cool about Coding Dojo is that how they teach algorithms and data structures. Every morning you solve different problems and learn new data structures, which are essential things to pass a tech interview. These things are also very useful for people that don't have a CS degree.

Lastly, job search. Coding Dojo does not place their grads into the jobs, but they provide good career services which improve your resume, LinkedIn and job hunting strategies in general. Also, they host interviews on site with many tech companies, so students and grads have a lot of extra opportunities to get jobs.

Coding bootcamps are not easy. The more you put in, the more you get out of it. If you are focused and dedicated Coding Dojo will definitely help you to land your first job in tech!

My way or journey into software development ended with 12+ years in the Marine Corps incorporating the art and science of war including use of martial arts with a generalist or “one mind, any weapon” ethos.  Prior to joining the military, I studied Computer Science for two years then transferred into an Electrical/Computer Engineering degree program, graduated then went directly into the military.  In 2016 while waiting to depart the military I enrolled in a Java Full Stack Web Development Boot Camp with Skill Distillery in Denver, Colorado.  During this 4-month resident course I learned Java, Spring, MySQL, and AngularJS 1.6.  Following graduation multiple offers prompting me to relocate to Washington, DC initially for work as a software engineer enticed me with the allure of cyberwarfare–penetration testing, malware engineering, zombies/botnets, and distributed denial of service attacks.  However, though I had originally planned to work for a defense contracting company my first position as a software developer was with the Washington Post in 2017.  This posed a new challenge due to most WaPO teams using Python and ReactJS leading me to the Coding Dojo Online Full Stack Web Development Course.  During my time at WaPO I had also decided to go back to school and pursue a master’s degree in software engineering.  So in 2018 while working as a WaPO software developer, I was also taking my first grad class in Java and starting my second stack at the Dojo.  What drew me to the Coding Dojo was the multiple stacks (Ruby, Python, iOS, C#, React, ect) incorporating time tested techniques (TDD, web scalability, web security, data structures, cloud deployments, wireframes, etc) available and online curriculum allowing me to learn and use Python immediately on the job.  Having Java as a first OOP language also made it easier to pick up Python in an online setting.  Following the Python stack, I was then reintroduced to Angular but version 6 with TypeScript as part of the MEAN stack.  By this time I had successfully completed my Java class with an A and was now interviewing for my second position as a software engineer.  Without warning I receive an email from a Google Hiring manager who noticed the variety of stacks (Java, Python, MEAN) on my LinkedIn page and inquired if I was interested in a summer internship, to which I said “yes”.  Over the course of the Fall 2018 semester with some struggle I complete a second grad course, Coding Dojo’s third stack, and Google’s intern hiring process.  I end up getting recommended for a second round of interviews with Google, commit to learning all of Coding Dojo’s stacks and continue with my software engineering graduate program.

There have been many similarities between my military experiences and path as a software engineer through the Dojo from the mindset of a ninja–first being, master the technique then the weapon (weapons/tools will likely change before the technique).  With Coding Dojo learning multiple stacks trains you to all aspects of a full stack so that you can adapt to every unique application you will inevitably encounter during your career.  Strength through struggle is a paradigm that also includes knowing your weaknesses, resources to mitigate weaknesses, and seeking self-improvement.  Equally important is being a lifelong learner because the techniques, tactics, and procedures will likely change however your effort as a software engineer will not.  Finally like any workout regiment worth its weight–exercising the eco system of hardware, networks, cloud services, security, APIs, and analytics all function to support software as the core organism.   To avoid spoiling the book, my way as a peaceful warrior (ninja with three belts) is far from over in software engineering and like most will not end until all obstacles imagined and real have been overcome.

What attracted me the most to Coding Dojo was its curriculum. They taught three full stacks focused on web development in Python, Java and the MEAN framework. Being exposed to all three languages helped me build a solid foundation on a wide array of languages and decide on which language I wanted to further excel in.

Along with that, learning a full-stack helped me decide if I preferred front-end, back-end, or full stack development. 

These factors along with culture fit with the instructors and the campus were strong factors in my decision to attend Coding Dojo. 

Most importantly, having this solid foundation widened my approach when it came to applying for jobs. I cannot imagine being able to have applied and interview for the number of jobs I completed without the knowledge wide array of knowledge I obtained.

As a former student and now graduate, I have spent countless hours reading reviews and meeting other graduates from this program as well as others and employment post-graduation is everyone's concern. A majority of us graduates tend to place blame on the program but not very many of us take responsibility for our actions. It is up to us as job-candidates, to make our resumes, portfolios, projects, soft-skill and technical skills more appealing and presentable for prospective employers because there will always be competition out there and companies are not just handing out jobs. 

As long as you put in the continuous effort and are relentless throughout the process from beginning to end, you will become a successful and employed full stack developer.

Cheers,

-Ron G.

I think this bootcamp is really what you make of it. Although the cirriculum does offer a decent amount of direction and guidance, there are a lot of opportunities for you to choose branches and projects that are relevant to your background and future plans. I was also lucky to be in a good cohort of people who were willing to put in the energy and persistence to see some results. When everyone is working hard, it also encourages you to push yourself as well, and I came out of the experience learning a lot about what I want in a career going forward.