We Got Coders

I would like to start this review by saying that We Got Coders is not just another web development course but an idea. Dan Garland, the founder and the lead instructor of We Got Coders has finally bridged the gap between developers with a theoretical background and today’s market requirements, by providing them with hands-on experience on the best practices of Agile Web Development.

During the course we were able to immerse in the ins and outs of web development by doing pair programming on cutting edge technologies and popular frameworks such as Ruby on Rails and Backbone.js.

The pace of the course is really fast and the expectation for all trainees is to accomplish at least 80% of the assignments which means that a prospect candidate should devote himself 100% on the course and the material to be taught.

The idea behind this is not only to evaluate the suitability of the trainee to be able to cope with the demands of today's industry, but also to make sure that he understands what he is doing, as this is a prerequisite for a successful career as a software engineer.

As far as the structure of the course is concerned, it consists of 2 phases, the training phase and the mentoring phase. 

During the training phase, we were taught the best practices in today’s industries and, most importantly, through the retrospective of a senior developer and the approach of how we can do things better than we are currently doing.

This includes test driven development, user stories, responsive and pixel perfect design, as well as learning to tackle tasks effectively by breaking them into smaller chunks.

During the mentoring phase, we had the chance and the honour to work as consultants with leading startups who take web development seriously and they would only hire top developers in the market. Alongside our instructor and mentor we were able to implement new features and performance refactoring into their codebases that we are proud of.

The last fact made us more empowered as developers as our clients were pleased by our overall performance which led into full time employment by the end of the course.

Today we are able to accomplish any given task that we are assigned to and perform over the expectations of a junior web developer which makes a We Got Coders alumnus more of a mid-level developer. This is quite impressive considering the amount of time that we spent during our training. 

Therefore, my only advise to those who are looking to get into the web development industry and are determined to accomplish their goals, is to have a look at this course as I am sure that they will not get dissapointed.

Personally, I highly recommend We Got Coders as, at least for me, it was more of a salvation through the years that I have spent struggling in order to achieve a respectable level of knowledge which was finally achieved by my graduation from the course.

Here I gave a talk trying to answer this same question...(9 mins) https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/5709-learn-to-code-in-12-weeks 1) Tell us a little bit about what you do in your current job. I am currently about the start a Masters programme in Advanced Computing Technologies. For the last month I have been contributing code to open source rails project Diaspora* alongside other WGC graduates. 2) Why did you decide to to attend your program? I decided to attend We Got Coders due to their focus on work experience as well as training. This approach felt most like an apprenticeship, which is what I was looking for. I wrote some fuller notes on my decision here: http://dan-mi-sun.github.io/wegotcoders/why-code-with-we-got-coders/ 3) What challenges did you overcome to get to where you are? Prior to WGC I had not written an independent line of code, in any language (except through online resources such as Treehouse, Codecademy etc). Despite this, for 5 years prior to enrolling with WGC I had successfully ran a self-employed business ‘building’ and hosting Wordpress sites for various SME’s, academics, community groups and individuals. For the 6 weeks leading up to the WGC course I had pair programmed with a friend to bump the Ruby version of open source project FreeHub. We would sit next to a London canal on a Tuesday (synchronously next to a narrow boat called Ruby Tuesday) and go through the process of upgrading the software. Through much of this experience my friend would steer, but I had yet to form the cognitive framework to grasp all the components involved in what we were doing. These experiences coupled with the experience of running my own self employed business had set the foundations for my basic software writers’ tool box; fluency in Vim, being comfortable on the command line, setting up servers, hosting projects, having exposure to testing code and having a self-directed and motivated methodical working approach. 4) What plans/dreams do you have for the next 5 years? To keep coding, keep learning, and have some fun whilst earning. 5) Any advice for students looking to join a learning program like a bootcamp? My final project was the first time in my technical career where I have had the experience of delivering a prototype that closely resembled my vision. Prior experiences (with Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal) had revolved around finding an ‘off-the-shelf’ version that was as close as possible to the client spec. The skills developed during the training period allowed me to compose a framework (Rails), with developed functionality (gems), with other systems (external APIs) by gluing them together (with pure Ruby). This is a deeply rewarding practice. 6) What motivates you in your career? A love of learning, and constantly question how to do things better. 7) Do you see bootcamps replacing college for parts of the population? I honestly think this apprenticeship model is the way to go. 8) What were the people and culture like at your program? A very diverse bunch. 2 female, 3 male. Between the 5 of us we represented 5 different countries, etc etc. We all shared the desire to become engineers, so a common theme was our drive to make a start in this industry. 9) Any advice for recent graduates looking for a job? We Got Coders offers free training for graduates… make the most of opportunities like this to skill up to the expectations of industry…. 10) Is there anything else you’d like to share? http://dan-mi-sun.github.io/wegotcoders/why-code-with-we-got-coders/ http://dan-mi-sun.github.io/wegotcoders/reflections-on-12-weeks-with-we-got-coders/ http://dan-mi-sun.github.io/wegotcoders/reflections-on-12-weeks-with-we-got-coders/

After self-learning Web Design I've also wanted to self-learn Web Development at home which proved harder/slower than I'd have liked it to be. I've wanted to speed up the learning process and have thoroughly researched all the intensive web development bootcamps in London area. We Got Coders was the only one offering a 3-month paid mentorship phase after the completion of the 3-month course (of course you'll have to show motivation and dedication to be granted it). The groups are kept small so that's more face-time for each student with the tutor. I've graduated in a group of 5 people, just imagine if the tutor's time is divided among 20 students... The syllabus covers Full-Stack Web Development and more (check website for more info), expect to work hard and then some more but you'll become a more confident player in the job market. The tutor (Dan) is extra patient, easy-going, approachable ("there are no stupid questions"), he's got bags of experience and knowledge and he'll always be pushing you to learn as much as you possibly can, you can thank him later for preparing you for real-life work environment from day 0 (expect to be involved in planning and stand-up meetings too). Tip: put as much effort as you can in the course pre-work, get fluent as much as you can with the Git and terminal commands, you'll reap the rewards during the course!

I started the We Got Coders course in April 2014 and after much research, I decided that this was the place for me. Other similar coding courses offered the three months of training but seemed to offer very little when it came to acquiring a job after. We Got Coders' three month mentoring phase, including giving paid work experience (which I am currently on) and higher chance of a full time position after, is what sold it for me. The intensity of the course is high, the rate at which you're expected to pick up material is high, however, Dan (my instructor, and founder) made it a point to ensure us that it wasn't necessarily about how much information we absorbed in one sitting but our ability to quickly grasp concepts and search for the answers using other resources, if need be. Because of the high intensity, Dan was always on call, making himself available on weekends and after hours when needed. He didn't just give us the answers when we got stuck but gave us tools and skills to find the answers ourselves, which I appreciated. Also due to the intensity, I find that now, in the mentoring phase, when we are applying for full time positions, employers are very impressed by the level and standard of my work. Many have stated that they didn't expect me to be at the level I am because many boot camp grads they have come into contact with are not where I am. Although I am a junior developer, I am working at a mid-developer level. My work has been accepted into different global, open-source projects such as Diaspora* & the gem 'acts-as-taggable'. The process has been difficult but satisfying, Dan has been very helpful and sacrificial along the way, he doesn't just want to fill seats, he wants to create great Ruby developers.