Cultivating Coders

An excellent opportunity to immerse yourself in coding.
This course makes the intimidating concept of learning how to code outside of school accessible. Without a doubt, it requires a great deal of work and attention personally to become competent in the material, but those teaching the class were flexible to our needs which is what so many working-class adults need as they gain new skills.

If you're looking for some help and guidance as you look towards coding as a new future for you, but know that a traditional institution isn't what you need, Cultivating Coders is a great place to get a foundation of knowledge and meet a passionate community. 

Be ready to work outside of class hours and be unafraid to ask for a lot of help. This, in many ways, is a self-paced course. It's on you to use the resources offered to you to keep up and pursue your own interests. The team is caring and capable though, always ready to help with the small or big stuff.

The bootcamp was intensive and required you to be commited. Though I had heard about 'coding' didn't really know what it is was and that it entailed so many different fields (web, phone etc). The instructor required us to put the work in and be dedicated, and we  were told before not to miss any classes right in the begining. There was a local company that was interested in recruiting from our class so the focus shifted for a while on the technologies they were using in order to prepare us. The company also came in to talk about their work which I appreciated. I liked that we were given enough time in class to finish our projects and were able to get hands on help from the instructors. The curicculum is designed in such a way that you can start getting small projects on the side  by week 4 (frontend). And we were also introduced to many online job portals (I didn't know people could work completelt remotely!) and went  through sample job postings to see where we fit in.

This bootcamp is for people who are serious and want to get employed in the industry. You get a laptop and the skills to get a job using the laptop.

And we also got lots of snacks which was appreciated!

I had lots of fun meeting a new group of students from my area. Cultivating Coders has allowed me to expand my mindset as well as my experiences and skills. I highly recommend this boot camp to those looking for more opportunities in their community. This program helped expand my interest in computer science. The instructors I had were Dana and Kyle. Very friendly and also very helpful. We learned new material weekly and were able to create a web page after 8 weeks. Being apart of cultivating coders has opened up doors I never thought were possible. 

As a working professional I was slightly apprehensive about learning to code this far into my career. However, I do thoroughly enjoy problem solving so I was up to the challenge. The coding camp was an amazing life changing experience. The curriculum was very modular and presented at smooth comfortable pace. I liked how we went into depth with topics and did not proceed until the majority of the class expressed we were comfortable to proceed.The instructors various styles and attention to each student’s needs were outstanding. The student to teacher ratio was really low allowing plenty of time for additional explanations of topics in small groups and individually. Topics were presented in a fun engaging manner and I enjoyed the blend of group and individual projects. The class comradery was very cohesive and I like how were worked in teams. Instructors encouraged us to research and problem solve as well as work together to share successes. I look forward to dev projects from the camps cohorts I have witnessed what we can build. It has transformed how I look at the web and applications and far exceeded my expectations. Homework was assigned and projects were due. Hackathons with real bounties were exciting evenings in class. Learning environment was incredible and even snacks were provided. We were introduced to a larger local dev shop and even had an introduction to internships. If you enjoy a challenge and love to problem solve I would absolutely recommend this camp.

I'm a recent attendee(for lack of a better term) who has participated in Cultivating Coder's summer bootcamp in New Mexico; I have to say,  In terms of the material we went over, it was certainly a lot to take in, and it was refreshing to know first-hand what coding is like! Although, because I have never coded in my life until this point in time, it was difficult to grasp the material, which was because either:

-There wasn't enough time to really feel out how to formulate a line of code, or what it means, as we had brief explanations given to us about what certain parts did. The problem with this, I think, is that because in terms of coding, because there are a multitude of ways to create a functioning code, it becomes rather confusing if there is no "right way" to code. 

-We had to ask multiple different questions, as we were anticipated for a good majority of the camp for things that we did individually, as opposed to doing things more so as a class when the people there almost had no knowledge of coding to begin with. It would be helpful, I think, if we were able to go over things as a class much more formally than what was done. Another thing would be to give the class daily assignments that they would have to do after the class, in order to get a better understanding of the material and content, but also to ensure that not everyone falls behind.

-Not everything we were promised was given to us. Specifically, when we were told that we would be able to use Oculus Rift headsets to learn how to code in virtual reality. Though I didn't have a problem with this, all things considered when learning the general process is much more important than moving onto more advanced curriculum. Although I did anticipate that we would go through that material, regardless.

Since I'm still new to coding, and what it entails, I take the class with strides as a hope to actually be capable of having more opportunities to learn in the near future, and to hone my skills that I've developed in the camp even further!

This Web development Bootcamp could not have been any worse.  If you are skeptical about the veracity of my extremely negative comments about Cultivating Coders along with its owner, Charles Ashley, I'd advise you to check out the Cultivating Coders website: you'll discover that Cultivating Coders lacks a basic curriculum, a syllabus, and even fails to provide a basic outline of the material to be covered in its Bootcamp.  

Personally speaking, I registered for the 2016 Bootcamp taught at the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce.  The class consisted of 11 students -- each and every one of whom found the Bootcamp experience horrific.  According to owner, Charles Ashley, the course was to focus on the MEAN stack.  MEAN refers to Mongo DB, Express, Angular, and Node. The students received Certificates of Achievement following the completion of the Bootcamp, specifically indicating (demonstrated) competence with respect to each of these four technologies. Ironically, however, the instructors failed to offer any instruction on either Mongo or Angular.  After receiving numerous student complaints/grievances, Ashley initially offered to take an additional weekend of time to teach Mongo and Angular. Ultimately (and predictably, however), Ashley predictably failed to keep this promise.

The job placement rate among these 11 students continues to stand at 0% -- a rather remarkable feat.

At this point in time, Cultivating Coders no longer offers Web Development Bootcamps with one exception: Cultivating Coders offers Bootcamps to minority Native American, High School students -- students who lack the sophistication to discern that Cultivating Coders is nothing more than a sham, a scam, and taught by fraudsters.   

In sum, Cultivating Coders instructors are entirely incompetent.  They don't even take the time to prepare their lectures beforehand.  One of the instructors and co-owners of Cultivating Coders no longer works for this company: his first name is Charles -- I cannot recall his last name.  

While I can go on and on about this sham and scam that goes by the name, "Cultivating Coders," I'll stop by simply and strongly advising potential students to refrain from enrolling in Cultivating Coders Bootcamps.  PLEASE: TAKE THE TIME TO CHECK OUT THE CULTIVATING CODERS WEBSITE.  You will find that Cultivating Coders entirely fails to provide any information about its Bootcamps -- a strategic decision by Cultivating Coders, so that it's more difficult for students to hold Cultivating Coders accountable.

Key facts to take away: (a) with the exception of several Native American High School students, zero Cultivating Coders' former students have found employment as Web Developers; (b) with respect to Cultivating Coders' most recently offered Bootcamp -- Web Development and the Android Platform --  suffice it to say that the entire class of students had signed a petition decrying the horrendous course instruction; (c) PLEASE CHECK OUT THE CULTIVATING CODERS' WEBSITE --  YOU'LL DISCOVER THAT THE WEBSITE CONTAINS ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION ABOUT THE CULTIVATING CODERS' BOOTCAMPS.  That's enough for now.

Cultivating Coders is currently in the completion phase of their Android course in Albuquerque NM. Each student spend approximately $7500.00 -7900.00 for this course.

Charles Ashely was forewarned early on that the instructor was effectively not versed in Android technology, all the computers provided as part of the purchase totally failed in its ability to handle the software, the instructor was often absent, did not fulfill promises such as supplying comprehensive write-ups for material he did not teach, did not supply any (none at all) teaching material, no homework, no practice on what little was taught...the list goes on. Charles Ashely's answer to this problem was to present himself to the entire class to criticize the students for "being the worst class....hey, you came to me not the other way around".....

Weeks later, Charles Ashely still had not addressed the concerns. Finally and without any choice, our class signed a petition against him and the instructor (John Borden) asking for an explanation, a refund and / or solution.

Charles Ashely now wont even present himself to the class to at least offer an explanation. This is not a business person doing good for himself and others. Charles found a cash-cow and as long as he gets your money, the rest is not consequential. This is the impression he leaves. He has not addressed the class petition against him.

Make sure your contract allows you a refund in the event the same occurs to you. More so, attend a program from a well established entity and with a respected reputation.

Cultivating Coders and Charles Ashely are not worth the time or effort. Do not attend.

If you have the opportunity to attend a Cultivating Coders boot camp, do it! Cultivating Coders literally changed my life. You will learn the skill set to build responsive websites. This skill set includes, but is not limited to mySQL, PHP, JavaScript/Angular, NodeJs, CSS and HTML. The lead instructors Charles Sandidge (who is also co-founder and CTO of Cultivating Coders) and John Borden are exceptional. They truly care about their students. Not everyone learns at the same pace. Charles and John adjust the curriculum to keep everyone caught up. They will even stay after hours if you need help. Charles also introduces the students to the coding community by letting us know about meetings that are held around town that further our development. We even took a field trip! The assistant instructors, Krieg, Aarick, and Dana are always there to help you one on one. They make sure you understand the material before they go help another student.

If you want to learn a skill set that will reward you with a great career, Cultivating Coders is the way to go. I plan to continue studying coding with the help of my mentors, Charles and John who I now call my friends.