Tech Talent & Strategy

Tech Talent South Atlanta- was absolutely horrible.

My instructor was a very nice guy, but  this was his first time teaching the course. My biggest frustration with him was that he lacked the ability to make the connection between the students and the material. What do I mean? To put it simply- he was a code leader not a teacher.  That’s frustrating when learning a new topic and the person tasked to illuminate the path can’t do so because of their own limitations. About halfway into the class people just stopped coming because they felt they could do better teaching themselves. 

I reached out to the school about it. They didn’t take me seriously and we’re defensive. They talked about how they vetted him as an instructor.  Then offered me a tutor- but made no effort to truly investigate my thoughts about the instructor. The rest of my class complained but “didn’t want the headache of actually saying something about it” because of the fight they would have to go through with the school. 

I for sure thought they would be out of business by now. You can’t treat people this way- but then again, my experience is t the one being advertised. 

I have just completed the Part-Time Code Immersion course at Tech Talent South's Atlanta Campus. My experience was great! It is important to note that although I came into this course with prior knowledge and programming experience, I was still able to gain a substantial amount of new skills throughout the 8-week course. The teacher for my specific class was very eccentric and had a way of simplifying complex topics to Layman's terms, in a comical way. I would definitely recommend this to others as a way to introduce themselves to programming or just to brush up on skills.

I'd like to break this review into a few topics in particular. Having a sponsor for the camp, Curriculum, Instructor, Support, Classmates, and ultimate finishing with overall experience.

Having a sponsor for this camp was amazing. Getting this high of a value item and such an industry important curriculum because it was catored to them was absolutely amazing. The problems with it lied in having far too many people in the room where they decided how much we should know and what topics to cover. Sometimes we had super intense classes where the topics couldn't go on long enough. Other times we had classes that just dragged on and on because my poor instructor had to slug through boring slides about topics we had no business worrying about as newbies. Overall, the sponsor was great. They provided me something that I will always be grateful for. They also may or may not give me a job. Still waiting to hear. (it's been just a week)

 

Curriculum was rough and amazing all at once. There were long days that were awful, and there were some days where I wish I could have stayed longer and gotten to know more about a particular topic. I think there were far too many people involved in making decisions about what to learn, how we learn it, and ultimately whether or not there were realistic expectations around getting it done. Curriculum was over a "meh...glad I learned Java and Spring! That's for sure!"

 

My instructor was out of this world phenomenal. This section will have ZERO downsides other than him not being able to have more freedom to expand on topics he knew we needed more of. The instructor? Gregory Testo. He's amazing. I cannot recommend him enough. Charismatic, funny, attentive, unique, and so knowledgable. He had to learn with us on certain topics as things changed from the corporate sponsor and he didn't miss a beat. He dedicated saturdays to coming in for 4 hours to help other students who wanted it. Seriously cannot be any more thankful for him and I absolutely love this man.

 

Support and Classmates. TTS had amazing support, especially in the hands of Tanny Men. I spoke with her mostly and she provided us with far more than I ever knew possible. Even when TTS higher ups gave us answers on questions we got ANGRY about...she was there to back us up and try to fight for us. I cannot say more good things about her as well, because she particularly cared for me very well as I faced numberous stressors outside of class. My classmates were insanely cool. I got along with almost everyone and had zero hatred for a single person. We were all super close at the end and I walked away with more than knowledge and skills...I gained friends. I was so lucky to have these people by my side. We acted like a rugby team on the line and huddled together, keeping everyone afloat and running at the goal of getting hired by our sponsor as a team. We openly talked about how no one was in competition and everyone was willing to help.

Ultimately this experience was overall a phenomenal time. I was tested in so many ways by the need to grow and learn material quickly, and I walked away being able to build a full stack application from scratch. I walked away with friends and a great chance at finding my way into the industry so that I can provide for my family and have my dream career. The camp provided me with one of the greatest crucibles I've ever faced, stretching me so thin that I almost broke at times. (I drove an hour to get into class and walked 15 minutes every day to have free parking in Downtown PHX). I'm so thankful I got the camp free, although it ultimately cost my home 3-4 months of no income and having to run our credit cards through the roof to make it work. My only big complaints, since I feel I have to provide some of them, would be that the corporate sponsors and TTS did not communicate well. There was a lot to learn and not enough time, while also having huge expectations. We got a visit from one of the sponsor company's higher ups and he devastated most of us with rude and awful news half way through the camp. Confusion, changes, rough slides to learn from, and a lack of coding along or building projects from the first week were also in my list of complaints. I wish I had spent more time coding, using github, making projects, and less time talking theory while staring at slides. Ultimately, I'm a driven person who made this an "I cannot and will not fail or be unprepared" venture, so I did everything I had to in order to succeed, even when that meant taking an hour from my 5 hours of sleep each night.

Greg Testo is amazing, I'm so happy I know Java and Spring, as well as using Test Driven Development to program, and I have new friends I love. I'm happy and thankful. 

I am a developer that already had some experience, but wanted to learn a bit more about other aspects of the software stack that I haven't touched in some time. I have to say, this experiment was worth the investment. While it's possible to learn at home from a tutorial, learning along with other people in a classroom is a lot more fun, and having a regular schedule for class time can be motivating. TTS also does a fantastic job with placement assistance. Their network of local connections is impressive, and they put a lot of time and effort into connecting students with jobs that are a good match for their skills.

The thing that sets TTS apart is the personal approach to job connections - students are sent to opportunities that are right for them, rather than just sent to the same catch-all place as the rest of their peers. Their classes are also a bit more affordable than other local options, and shorter, so students can combine the coursework that they need while still potentially holding down a full-time job. TTS is also generous with scholarship options, which makes this program more accessible to nontraditional students.

Overall, it's a great option, and I highly recommend it.

Fast paced and great environment to learn. The talented staff and instructors here care about you, your success, and your learning process. Especially with the pair programming (meaning getting to couple up with your classmates and learn code from your peers as well). This Tech Talent South Select program is ideal for anyone who wants to brake into Full Stack Web Development or just wanting to know how to build an app for your very on ideas. I will recommend that anyone and everyone sign up today for Full Stack Code Immersion classes today in your area. Visit https://www.techtalentsouth.com/ and do something BIG.

Overall Experience: 
The staff of Tech Talent South have been incredibly supportive and welcoming. Tech Talent South's approach helps foster passion and enthusiasm for learning and development. 

Curriculum:
The curriculum is exactly what I expect to be covered in a Full-Stack Development boot camp.

Instructors:
Greg is excellent at adapting the curriculm and classroom activities to suite each students learning needs.

Job Assistance:
TTS has offered resume writing 1-on-1's, networking events, and with the coporate training weekly meetings with the company sponser. 

HTML/CSS/JavaScript/Linux/Ruby on Rails/Git/Testing/Cloud-Distributed Systems/SQL

Lots of classroom instruction, but also ample lab time supervised by instructor. Instruction professional and competent, but also engaging and personable. Pre-course study requirements and materiel requirements very modest. Excellent facilities, physical environment, amenities, and digital resources for study. I went into the course with a little used Associate's degree in Programming, but this course provided very practical instruction on how to actually use the technology in a very well-rounded stack.  I strongly recommend this program to anyone who has the opportunity to take it and is willing to put in the work.

When you think of the concept of a coding bootcamp, often a picture of strict and grueling execise regimen and drilling over the basics and terminology over and over may come to mind. With Tech Talent South, it feels like such preconception is absent! The friendly, jovial atmosphere and unbridled dedication to learning and improving shines brightly with this particular course. Backed by a corporate-sponsored organization dedicated purely to the success of our cohort, it's easy to feel confident and secure knowing we have a web of support anywhere we turn. I don't think I could turn anywhere else when it comes to coding bootcamps.

I came to coding by a long and winding road. My wife and I were living in Columbia, Missouri, where I was a doctoral philosophy student at Mizzou. For a host of complicated reasons, we decided to step away from higher education and the tenure track pursuit. It was the right decision at the time, but it wasn’t easy to make. Leaving school meant abandoning, for the foreseeable future, the only career path I had known. I love teaching and reading, writing and problem solving, and I had spent the better part of the last ten years in education. I now enjoyed the less than glamorous title of PhD dropout. What was I to do next?

We knew that we needed some time to decide what the new phase would be, and we wanted to work with kids, so we moved to Washington, DC, in July 2016 to work as houseparents for at-risk youth. It seemed like a wonderful fit, but it went south fast. Though we enjoyed living in DC and some aspects of the job, dysfunction in the company and an overall lack of safety—not to mention the organization’s unwillingness to make necessary changes—compelled us to make plans to leave. Since we lived in a group home of sorts, leaving the job meant leaving our residence and the kids we’d worked so hard to serve.

With heavy hearts we decided to apply for jobs in various cities we liked—mostly in Tennessee, one of our favorite states. The deal was this: whoever got a job first, we’d move for that job and the other of us would make it work. But Tennessee was apparently not in the cards. My wife unexpectedly secured a job in Charlotte, NC, and that’s where we went.

It was a trying time. We felt that we needed to leave Mizzou, so we did. But we managed only seven months in DC before being faced with yet another move. We felt weary, disoriented, and discouraged—me especially. Here we were in a new place, with one car. What on earth was my plan? Doubts crept in. Did we really know what we were doing? I strung together some part time jobs and tried to figure my life out.

I had a few ideas for what to do, and coding wasn’t the top choice. One idea was to pass the state Praxis certification and teach secondary math, since I like math, teaching jobs seem always in demand, and I could pursue my writing projects on the side. I also like the model of classical education, so I thought about becoming proficient in Latin and teaching in a classical school, since I could also teach logic or rhetoric or something else of interest. Then there was coding and web development. I had some philosophy friends who left higher ed and were from all appearances leading successful careers in programming. The problem was finding a way to break into the field. I had no knowledge of coding; I didn’t even know what a platform was.

But the first and most attractive idea was to take the LSAT and go to a good law school. You might think I’m crazy (and you’re probably right, though for other reasons), but law school sounded fun and interesting; it still does. And the LSAT is a philosopher’s dream: just logic games, verbal reasoning, reading comprehension, and argumentative essay writing. At the very least, even if I didn’t go to law school, I could still do LSAT tutoring for side income. I liked all of these options, but it seemed clear to me that I could only pursue one at the expense of the rest. Which should I choose?

It turned out that the decision was all but made for me. I was about to register for the September LSAT when a chance arose to enroll in Tech Talent South‘s full-time code immersion course. I put the LSAT to the side and took this opportunity head on. And I came to know firsthand what afriend had told me: coding was a lot like doing logic and philosophy! In the class we were creating functions, working with sets, defining terms and variables, using conditional statements and embedded clauses, writing programs as clearly and simply as possible. There was elegance to it and it involved creativity.

A few weeks into the course I was preparing to go on the job market. I hadn’t thought to look outside of Charlotte, but a close friend told me that his company in Saint Louis was looking to hire a junior-mid .NET developer. Our course was working with Ruby on Rails, not .NET, and I had no formal experience. But he’s a senior developer with a fantastic reputation—and rightly so. He recommended me and made a true philosopher’s case for why his boss should give me a call. His boss did, and a few interviews later I had an offer, which I gladly accepted. I've been at the company for more than one year, and the esperience, though challenging, has been great. I get to build software for a good company, while working alongside one of my best friends.

It’s funny how life, more often than not, does not behave according to plans. The TTS course literally came out of nowhere, and it played an essential role in getting me a job. It quickly gave me the necessary exposure, background knowledge, and confidence to make the next step in setting out on a new career. More than all of that, it gave me a sense of hope and a new vision for the future.

TTS staff and alumni were like family. The classmates were supportive, the teacher was competent and enthusiastic, and when I reached out for advice on the job market from former students who had made their way into coding, they answered. I had phone chats and coffee conversations and meetings. The TTS network is big and its members are skilled at their work but also kind. All you have to do is make an effort to pursue the opportunities that TTS offers. You won't be disappointed. I wasn't.

I joined TTS in March 2018 in the Fulltime Code Immersion course as well as the Machine Learning course. 
My instructor was exceedingly patient with students when needed.
He was also quick to point out more detailed aspects to students who wanted an in-depth look. 
The course-work is a great overview of what to expect when learning Ruby on Rails and a very complete introduction to programming in general. 

I did the precourse work and had familiarized myself with Ruby, RoR, git, and bash. 
If you come to this class with those skills built, you will have a great time and lots of job prospects. 
If you come with an eagerness to learn, but not much work done already you will learn a great deal, but it won't be very fun. 
Either way, it is worth every penny. 

The one liner on Tech Talent South Code_Immersion is ; Do it!

Here is the rest of it

1) Kevin the instructor is awesome

2) Cassandra, the administrator, is awesome

3) Believe it or not the students that were in class with me were awesome

Very important info here - Kevin the instructor has the patience of a Zen__Master_For _Real. Coding can jump

from "Ok I get that" to "WTF?!?!!? how did he get that" in a flash. Kevin was never phased by #crazyQuestions

#slowLearners (like me), he knows what is wrong because clearly he has been coding for 20 years and he is in his

20's!!! I honestly feel I can learn any language because Kevin taught us how to approach/learn code, that was the

BEST takeAway.

Cassandra was able to put guest speakers in front of us who were completely awesome! EVERY SINGLE speaker

gave way more than expected and basically assured us that a career in code will be waiting for you and some were

hiring(now). The field trips were CRAZY! I had no idea that some of these places were here and the work_spaces

were inspiring. SiliconeBayou is the future and Cassandra is 'linkedin' for_real!! Teaching the kids camp was the

coolest ever.

I really enjoyed the experience, learned HTML, CSS, SQL, ACTIVE RECORD, JAVASCRIPT, RUBY, RUBY ON

RAILS(AWESOME) and so much more. Remember this, we learned how to learn. You will need that skill more

than anything else. Tech Talent South has a great culture and the tech community obviously welcomes them and

their students in with open arms. Time/effort/money well spent. My future learning will be with Tech Talent South