Coding DojoReviews of codingdojo.com

I had a wonderful experience going through the Coding Dojo onsite boot camp. The learning platform was well maintained and 99% of the time had everything I needed to help me learn. More importantly, the instructors I learned from were always helpful and focused on guiding me to figure things out for myself rather than giving me the narrow-scope answer I needed that second. The environment there was very positive, and they do a lot to get students to support each other. Going in to the program I had next to no experience in computer programming and that aspect of community really helped me not to get discouraged when I hit a road block. While I usually spent about 45-55 hours a week to keep up with the schedule, there were a lot of people who put in between 60 and 80 hours a week. For me personally, I would have had trouble working a job while going through the program. It is a really difficult 14 weeks, and it helps to be a quick learner as you are moving through topics quite fast. I would definitely recommend Coding Dojo to someone looking to become a full stack web developer. Before enrolling, make sure you're ready to put in a lot of effort sustained over 14 weeks dealing with some confusing topics. You also need to comfortable asking for help from peers and instructors because there will definitely be times when you need to. If all that sounds doable, I think Coding Dojo is a great place to rapidly develop the skills required to be a programmer.

I was new to programming, I had about 3-4 weeks of prior experience mostly just online courses. My expectation was that I would be able to get a job after bootcamp with the skills acquired at bootcamp. The bootcamp was good that it quickly taught us a lot of new concepts fast, however their strategy to cram 3 stacks in 14 weeks is definitely not a good idea, I think they either need to make this a bit longer or they need to focus on one or two stacks. After bootcamp I felt like I BARELY knew each stack and it was not really enough proficiency to get a job in either. Their platform is not very good, I spent most of my time self-researching on google or asking friends. After you graduate, there does not seem to be sufficient resources for help on projects that you are personally working on. Overall, it's one way to jump start your career in programming but don't expect to be ready to get a job after, I had to spend another 3 months on my own self-studying daily.

I've got to say, my time at Coding Dojo was really great. As a means to leverage a career change, I have no reservations recommending the company. The short version of this review is that the people and the curriculum combine to provide amazing support to the students during their studies, and prepare them well for finding a solid, entry-level job when they're done. I'm extremely happy with my decision to go to Coding Dojo. For those interested in more detail, here are a few points I'd emphasize: 1) The curriculum: they teach three full stacks of software development over fourteen weeks, which can give you a great range of marketability. I was at the DC campus, where they only teach MEAN, Java, and Python (in addition to a two-week standard unit on HTML/CSS/JavaScript). This represented less selection than at other campuses, I know, but the languages were very well chosen for the area, and I felt like what I'd learned matched up really well with job offerings in DC when I was done. The learning platform itself is well curated, too, and they take the creation of useful materials very seriously, soliciting lots of feedback and responding to it well. I also appreciated that Coding Dojo puts a healthy emphasis on learning core CS concepts like algorithms and data structures. You spend about an hour every day on this material, drawing from an in-house textbook that I'll be going back to for the rest of my life. The material I learned in these sessions, beyond being darned fascinating, was also extremely helpful when it came to job interviews in the tech field. They approach the material well on a philosophical level, too. The company's founder is very big on the idea of helping you become a self-sufficient developer, which means you're learning how to learn while building coding projects. In practical terms, this means they're trying to strike a balance between making sure you feel supported in your learning but not holding your hand through every assignment or topic. This generally works great—they'll point you to a source of online documentation instead of just handing you sample code, and you get used to using the sorts of problem-solving tools developers have to use all the time. On the other hand, that's a tough balance to strike consistently (like in MEAN stack, where the curriculum had a few hiccups stemming from the inclusion of some newer JavaScript material), which is where the next point comes in... 2) The staff. The instructors and administrators at Coding Dojo were all top notch. Constantly available, friendly and encouraging, and above all knowledgeable. When the Dojo's online learning materials leave you feeling at sea, and you've beaten your head for a standard twenty minutes (more on this in a second) against the docs online, the instructors are right there, endlessly patient and unfailingly helpful. I felt like I had a bunch of really good friends who also happened to be great coders. They were genuinely invested in my success, and it showed all the time. Beyond which the administrative staff—the head of the DC campus and the community manager—were always friendly, kept the place running smoothly, occasionally issued gentle reminders for people to wash their dishes, and helped foster a great sense of purpose and community at the school. Finally here, a word about Herman Pryor, who was our career services advisor. The Dojo runs a week of workshops at the end of the months of instruction, and at the DC location it was Herman's show. He has a palpably clear vision of how he wants to help you approach your job search, and the week was both highly informative and, not to be too corny about it, downright inspiring. I came out knowing the nuts and bolts of putting together a good resume, setting up a cogent LinkedIn profile, and how to conduct myself in an interview; beyond that, I felt that, in approaching the job hunt, I wasn't just going around begging for a job. Herman made sure we asked ourselves what we really wanted in a career, and showed us how the nuts-and-bolts tools of job hunting contribute to finding an employer and a career track that will be really satisfying for all concerned. 3) The people. Finally, I loved the Dojo's feel of upbeat camaraderie. The instructors have their role to play here, as I mentioned, but beyond that the school does a lot to encourage it among the students. There are sports outings now and then, where everybody gets to laugh about how athletically disinclined they are, there is plenty of space to eat and chat together. Then there's the twenty-minute rule, which I alluded to above.This is solid Dojo policy: if you get stuck, take twenty minutes trying to resolve the bug in your code. Don't short-change yourself by taking less than that and just hitting someone up for an easy answer, but don't stay stuck on anything for longer than that. The brilliance of this policy is that, once the twenty minutes are up, you're not supposed to run to the instructor yet; find someone else in your class who might be able to help. Figure it out together. It's hard to overstate how much emphasis this received in the Dojo: if you're giving help to or getting help from other students, you're doing your best learning. This means everyone felt comfortable approaching everyone for help—it never felt like a burden. And it did help everyone to become more self-sufficient. You don't want to come to someone else and just say, "My code doesn't work. Fix it." That's a waste of everyone's time. You want to formulate targeted, useful questions, get the help you need, and get everyone on their way. This culture of helpfulness and mutual encouragement, coupled with the quality of the learning materials, made my time at the Dojo a genuine joy. As hard as it was—I was putting in ten to twelve hours a day most of the time—it was still exciting and enjoyable because the material was well curated and I felt extremely well supported on all sides. On leaving I dove into a job hunt feeling like I knew what to expect and what to do, and after not quite two months landed a job offer I'm excited about. I wish I had more thumbs so I could give this place more than two thumbs up.

Coding Dojo was a great first step in getting my new career in Web Development to a great start. It's a program that allows you to learn full stack development as opposed to just one stack. While that has its pros and cons, the Dojo does a great job in setting you up for the future. The push for being a self-sufficient developer during your time attending the bootcamp, really is how you get through surviving much of a career in development. It's not just about getting the answers, but understanding the why and how behind it. Someone mentioned that you get out what you put in, and I definitely agree with that as well. If you put in 60+ hours a week, you will definitely see your growth. While the dojo set a strong foundation, much of what you need in the development world has to come from you forcing yourself to learn and get an indepth knowledge of the language/frameworks you use. Advantages: Really nice instructors with a lot of patience, willing to teach those who have very limited knowledge of the field, learn multiple tech stacks, onsite full time program, multiple assignments in each stack that force repetition to learn the language quicker, onsite career development advisor to help guide you if you're transitioning from another career Disadvantages: not many TAs onsite to help out if instructors are busy, never really get expert knowledge of a tech stack or language since you learn 3 stacks in 14 weeks, they don't teach React yet but really should consider making the switch from Angular, don't have guaranteed job placements like some bootcamps, didn't have as many tech talks/onsite events during my time there but maybe this has changed Overall, I enjoyed my time at the Dojo and would recommend it to others who are considering making the switch from another career. Being onsite really helps keep you focused, and having your cohort mates with you throughout the process helps make it feel more like fun than just lots of work. If you want to get the most out of it, put in your 100% and you will see your progress over the 14 weeks. After you're done, don't stop learning and keep pushing yourself.

Before I started at the Coding Dojo, I had very little experience with programming. I had always wanted to become a developer, but for whatever reason I had never taken the steps to get there. A few months before enrolling at the Coding Dojo, I decided to start taking the steps to become developer by taking several free online courses and reading several books. I found these things informative, since I essentially knew nothing. However, this wasn’t enough for me. I knew I needed to have a structured curriculum and personal guidance, if I ever hoped to switch careers. I began shopping around for boot camps and was accepted into two local programs. Before deciding on which of the two boot camps to attend, a friend recommended the Coding Dojo. My friend had a family member who’d been through the camp, and they had spoken positively on their time there. I looked into the Coding Dojo and decided upon attending their course because of the flexibility with the part-time program, the stack options, and the price. During the 20 plus weeks at the Dojo, I had taken both the Python and MEAN stack. Every instructor I had was knowledgeable, informative, friendly, and more. Through lectures, videos, and exercises, the instructors and the course content taught me how to be a competent developer. This meant learning how to approach problems, to be self sufficient, and write clear, concise code. I am happy with my experience at the Coding Dojo and it was money well spent for me. I highly recommend the online boot camp. I will offer a word a few words of caution if you decide to take the plunge; make sure you take the time to really dedicating yourself to the program, do your algorithm training, don’t be afraid to ask for help (I always suffer in this area), and don’t beat yourself up if it takes you awhile to really know what you’re doing, just keep at it.

Choosing to attend coding Dojo was one of the best educational decisions I've ever made. That being said, it is not for everybody. However, for those that are willing to devote nearly 1000 hours and over 3 and a half months and have the sincere desire to succeed, Coding Dojo is like a haven for coding education. The environment replicates that of an actual workplace but still allows you room to make mistakes, leaving you very well prepared for the workforce. The instructors are unbelievably talented and so are your classmates, who will become not only your best help and collaborators, but friends as well. Coding Dojo recognizes that what they teach is hard and learning it in such a short time is even harder, so they do everything they can to frame the curriculum in the easiest, clearest way possible and work to hold you accountable. One unique thing about Coding Dojo is the daily algorithm challenges. These are excellent technical interview prep and are extremely valuable to you as a future job seeker. Furthermore, I was a huge fan of the Dojo's three stack curriculum. I firmly believe that this method of teaching is the best way to prepare for a career in an industry where technology in ever-changing. You will leave coding dojo with a newfound ability to learn at a rapid pace, more coding knowledge than you know what to do with, and an overall excitement to start your job search.

Choosing Coding Dojo was the best decision I ever made! I was working as an Accountant after graduating from UW for about 4 years but decided that I couldn't see myself continuing in this career. I took an all day coding class at another boot camp and fell in love with coding! I was originally going to go with that other boot camp but discovered Coding Dojo while doing some research. I loved how I would get to learn 3 stacks in 14 weeks! I understood that it would be very intense and take a lot of time out of my schedule but I was willing to put in the effort. The instructors, TA's, and other students are there to help you out along the way which is a big bonus. I truly enjoyed my experience at Coding Dojo and would highly recommend them to anyone interested in learning about coding!

As a person who went through the online cohort portion of CodingDojo.. I have found that it is VERY VERY difficult to learn a language when it comes to programming (or even learning a language in general). With that being said... 6 months to learn 2x stacks and your Front end isn't enough time for someone with NO PRIOR CODING KNOWLEDGE. But hard work and diligence is what pushes you through. Most people would learn coding primarily because of the fancy financial aspect of it, it looks GREAT and FUN! especially if you're guaranteed to make 70k-120k. Truth is... Coding/Programming is a LIFETIME of learning (I am learning that NOW) because it is ALWAYS changing/improving. I'll be honest, I fell behind and had difficulties in CodingDojo, especially with the online Cohort. When i first started, i was ALL FOR IT! i played a game which used HTML/CSS so in the very beginning, i was ahead of the game. Once javascript/Python/Django/SQL/ all the other stuff came about, i was SWAMPED and fell behind very quickly. many people QUIT. I'll admit i didn't get ALL MY BELTS. but what this had taught me was that... if you don't CONSCIOUSLY UTILIZE WHAT YOU LEARN, you'll lose it. I've had an instructor show me in a video chat what he does on a daily, he makes debuggers in python, and to see the person go from a blank .txt file to a bunch of code, honestly intimidated me, but it also showed me the value of the work/effort that was put into programming. I now am working as a Contract Web Developer for an awesome, and I'm a lifelong learner, as a matter of fact, i'm learning (yet AGAIN) Data Science now using Python (going to get into Machine Learning/AI). I'm grateful for the instructors who were there when i had redundant questions, and to help me set goals for my aspirations (without a goal then). Is CodingDojo $6,000 worth? for some YES, for some NO. For me it was worth it, because i've tried learning on my own prior to going through codingDojo, and not having a GUIDE for programming/coding stinks because you lose momentum and confidence QUICK. It's easy to throw in the towel, but for me, i've decided to be a lifelong learner of a variety of things (programming also) It has definitely made me much better than I was.