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Covalence provides career-changing 12-week, full-time and 6-month, part-time full stack web development educational programs online. In Covalence's Full Stack bootcamp, students learn the essentials of front-end, back-end, and database development by focusing on modern technologies and techniques, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript (ES6), ReactJS, Node.js, Express, MySQL, and React Native.
Covalence’s Catalyst program is a full-time, immersive 12-week bootcamp delivered online. Catalyst students commit at least 40 hours per week to learn the curriculum through recorded video lectures and real-world project-based assignments. Covalence requires Catalyst students to attend daily webinars and participate in code reviews. Catalyst students have a dedicated instructor while going through the course, and they also have full access to the Covalence Community through Discord where they can receive additional real-time help from fellow students, Covalence alumni, and staff. At the end of the course, students will have a portfolio of real projects deployed to their GitHub profile, and they will be equipped with the necessary skills to be employed as a junior-level full stack software developer.
For students that are looking for a more flexible option, Covalence's 6-month Molecular program provides the same time-tested Full Stack curriculum as the Catalyst program, but it is offered at a part-time pace and flexible daily schedule. Molecular students receive weekly one-on-one mentoring with an instructor, exclusive features within the student learning portal (that Covalence built), and priority support channels in the Covalence Community. Like their Catalyst counterparts, Molecular students will also have a portfolio of projects ready to show prospective employers at the end of the course, and they'll also be ready to enter the job market as junior-level full stack software developers.
Covalence welcomes students from all backgrounds and experience levels. For both of their programs, students receive additional job prep and career resources, access to submit questions in a Stack Overflow-like Q&A feature in Covalence's student portal, and the ability to submit their assignments for review for personal feedback from an instructor.
Covalence has been an invaluable and well-rounded learning experience for me. I consider myself tech-savvy, but not a gadget geek by any means, and Covalence had a great mix of easy-to-follow video lectures and labs, while also challenging me to find my own answers as I progressed through the curriculum. It became evident that this was their intention: you can’t always have the answers provided to you, so you as the developer need to go out and find them sometimes. I felt like I wasn’t sim...
Covalence has been an invaluable and well-rounded learning experience for me. I consider myself tech-savvy, but not a gadget geek by any means, and Covalence had a great mix of easy-to-follow video lectures and labs, while also challenging me to find my own answers as I progressed through the curriculum. It became evident that this was their intention: you can’t always have the answers provided to you, so you as the developer need to go out and find them sometimes. I felt like I wasn’t simply being taught to be a developer, I was learning on my own how to be a developer.
I completed the Molecular course in about 7 months, and I finished my final project after that. By the time I was done, I felt ready to walk into a job interview and tell an employer what I could do. That doesn’t mean I can code anything––and from what I know now, almost no developer could––but Covalence helped me acquire the skills necessary to be confident approaching a coding job. I’m prepared for the process I need to undertake to succeed and the issues I might face along the way. Because of my location I had to choose an online program, but I’m thankful I did in the end; since it was self-paced, I was able to learn more and dig deeper on concepts I didn’t understand well. Two developers I know, who completed in-person 3-month bootcamps, told me I’d probably be a better developer than them because of this difference.
I’m incredibly thankful to the team at Covalence. They are truly supportive of their students, and they are quick to respond to your questions or concerns. When an unexpected life event came up for me, they worked with me to ensure I could take the personal time I needed before coming back to the curriculum and ultimately being able to complete the program.
I loved the way the curriculum is set up. I learned via video lectures at my own pace and I had a webinar I could join every day (Molecular program). Knowing I had a live instructor to work with daily kept me progressing quickly––and I was often lucky to be in webinars by myself so I had personal attention. Plus, I had 1-on-1 mentoring sessions when I needed them for more in-depth stuff. Initially I was afraid of not having that in-person attention, but I realized that I had better attention doing it online through the Molecular route (not to mention time and energy saved when I could literally roll out of bed and start coding). Cost was one of the main reasons I chose Covalence, and frankly I’m impressed with what I received for such an affordable price.
What could they have done better? It's hard to say because all it took was asking. The team/instructors did what they could to make it happen whether it was a mentor session at a weird time or a new video about React Hooks.
All in all you’re learning with a fun and encouraging group of people which goes a long way toward keeping your motivation up! My main instructor, Luke, is an awesome, energetic dude and he was instrumental in helping me learn: he was there every day in webinars asking us what we were struggling with, doing a deep dive into a topic or teaching a new trick he learned. The community overall has a wealth of knowledge and experience, so if you’re trying to find some information/answers without luck, the Covalence community will have some solutions for you. Because of them, I always had help when I needed it.
On top of that, there are constant discussions about new tools, languages, updates, etc. that your fellow devs are working with/trying out, and bringing your own questions or curiosities to the group is always encouraged. As an alumnus, I know that continuing to be a member of the Covalence community will help me keep up with new stuff happening in the dev world.
When it comes to my new career, Covalence’s career webinars and services have been helpful to get my resume, LinkedIn, and portfolio going. That’s also something my fellow alumni and the instructors are already very helpful with: telling us their personal experiences in interviews, job postings they find, any helpful tips they have. It’s great having some help in this realm since getting your first job can be daunting.
Ultimately, Covalence has been a way to learn full stack development, and (in my opinion) one of the most supported ways I could’ve done it. Being part of a community where everyone congratulates me on my victories, however big or small, and continues to cheer me on has gone a long way toward my learning and my success as I become a web developer.
Had an awesome time learning in this program. The instructors were amazing. Always ready and willing to help. The course work and videos were constantly being updated to make sure the information is staying relevant which was something I haven't seen as much on other possible platforms. The way the course work and assignments were structured helps make you think more like a developer. Mainly they give you enough starting foundation and information on where/how to learn more if you wanted t...
Had an awesome time learning in this program. The instructors were amazing. Always ready and willing to help. The course work and videos were constantly being updated to make sure the information is staying relevant which was something I haven't seen as much on other possible platforms. The way the course work and assignments were structured helps make you think more like a developer. Mainly they give you enough starting foundation and information on where/how to learn more if you wanted to get more into a certain subject, making you learn how to think more like a developer. As in, not every project is going to be "just the basics". Would definitely recommend.
My courses instructor (who was very good) has since left the program and his presence was one of the few good things I have to say about Covalence. After multiple attempts to stay in contact with Covalence after completing my course, they stopped responding and provided no help finding a job.
Covalence was more than a class, it is family. From the cohort to instructors, it was nothing short of awesome.
The struggle is real, but the payout is way beyond worth it. We learned technologies like Bootstrap, NodeJS, MySQL, and even React which was created and developed by Facebook!
The creations we were capable of just after 5 weeks was impressive, but after 10 weeks and learning React-Native (used to create cross-platform apps that run on both Android and iOS!) the po...
Covalence was more than a class, it is family. From the cohort to instructors, it was nothing short of awesome.
The struggle is real, but the payout is way beyond worth it. We learned technologies like Bootstrap, NodeJS, MySQL, and even React which was created and developed by Facebook!
The creations we were capable of just after 5 weeks was impressive, but after 10 weeks and learning React-Native (used to create cross-platform apps that run on both Android and iOS!) the possibilities became endless.
You don't just learn a handful of languages and that's it, no, you learn how to learn ANYTHING and put it to use!
With their new online courses available and the FREE webinars they do, the options have become even more AFFORDABLE!!!
I highly recommend this bootcamp to anyone thinking of taking this career path.
Overall Experience:
This was a career change for me and getting another 4-year bachelor’s degree in computer programming was a ridiculous and expensive pipe dream for me. Like with any career change, I needed something that could prepare me to become a software developer. I came across Covalence thru a Google search via the Course Report website and signed up for the January 2017 Nashville Full Stack Software Bootcamp that lasted 10 weeks. The location of the class...
Overall Experience:
This was a career change for me and getting another 4-year bachelor’s degree in computer programming was a ridiculous and expensive pipe dream for me. Like with any career change, I needed something that could prepare me to become a software developer. I came across Covalence thru a Google search via the Course Report website and signed up for the January 2017 Nashville Full Stack Software Bootcamp that lasted 10 weeks. The location of the class was at the Refinery inside Houston Station, which was a nice safe environment with decent parking. Most students in the class were sailing the same unemployed ship as I was, so people were motivated to succeed in the course in order to get a job.
Curriculum:
I went in knowing nothing about how to code a website or a mobile app. You will see a lot of reviews saying that it was the hardest class they ever took, which in most cases, it will be difficult since it is like learning multiple foreign languages. It is a 10-week course, so I expected that learning all the bits and pieces of what goes into Full Stack Development (Front End, Back End, and Database) was going to be at a fast pace. For me, the first two days was the biggest hurdle to overcome since there were a lot of tutorial videos in the morning and coding projects in the afternoon to absorb on HTML and CSS. By the time we switched to JavaScript in the first week, it was pretty straightforward from there because the curriculum is structured to build on what you learned in the prior labs, so by the time you get to your final project, you should be able to build a website/app with less hand holding from the instructor and teaching assistant. My favorite troubleshooting tool was “console logging” all my variables in order to see how the data was flowing thru my project from Front End to Back End to Front End. This feels like a nerdy coding anecdote, but there was a point where I enjoyed using console commands so much, that I ended up using “console.dir();”, which allows you to see data inside of an “object Object” in the console. There was a moment in my final project where my React Native code stopped working if it was not in debugger mode, which had my instructor stomped for a moment because React Native doesn’t console log errors unless it is in in debugger mode. When I let him know that I was using “console.dir” in my code, he realized that my “console.dir” were giving a negative one aka undefined when it was not being debugged, so he wrote me an if-else statement that would by-pass that problem, so that I didn’t have to delete all my “console.dir”.
Instructors:
We fortunately had an instructor who was a guru at computer programming and a teaching assistant who graduated from Covalence that was very knowledgeable of the course material. They helped guide us thru the coding challenges that came up every day. They tried their best not to just solve the problems for us but instead guide us in the right direction to get to the solution. For me, I didn’t want to be spoon fed a solution; I wanted to be able to figure out how to write the correct function, for loop, or if-else conditional statement on my own. If my attempt at solving the problem was a train wreck, it was comforting to have the instructor/teaching assistant there to help because I can tell you that Stack Overflow is not the greatest resource for coding problems when you can have a coding guru right next to you showing you what you did wrong. The funny thing is most of the time, it was misspelling a variable or missing a curly bracket or a comma somewhere. One of the best things about the course is when you have those moments where you solve something without needing to ask for help, but when the instructor looks at your solution, they make a comment that it could have been coded with fewer lines of code, which makes your great personal achievement seem like an okay personal achievement, but you silently agree that the instructor’s comment is right, which is the main difference of learning to code on your own versus having a coding expert right next to you.
Job Assistance:
Covalence has two team members that are dedicated to helping you update your resume towards a coding job and help you prepare for the technical job interview. They scheduled guest lecturers in the local tech industry to share their experiences with us, which helped us get a better idea on what we were getting into. Four things that you will get out of the course that helps toward your job search is a new skill set of computer languages, a Github account filled with your lab projects and final project, a LinkedIn account (if you haven’t made one), and resources to tech meetups that increase your chances to network with job recruiters/hiring managers. In terms of a guarantee of job placement after the course, this was not something I was expecting from a 10-week software bootcamp, but Covalence still tries to help you find jobs regardless.
Final Thoughts:
After 10 weeks, I am able to code a website or mobile app in ReactJS and React Native from Front End, Back End, and Database without help now. This to me is priceless since being lost and unsure on how to code was a huge mountain to climb over. Covalence helped me overcome that mountain, and now, I feel prepared to look for a software developer job on my own. You get to stay connected with a great coding community thru the Covalence Slack channel after the course is over. Lastly, Covalence provided me the foundation and the software tools to be able to learn new programming languages on my own because this is a career/industry that has many languages that handle Front End, Back End, and Database development.
Recommendations for Future Students:
1. If you can, bring a MAC laptop with at least 16 GBs of RAM. Your class experience will be smoother except make sure you have a root password set for you MySQL database when you get to that lesson…
2. If you want a head start, find a tutorial on how to make a website with a code editor (VS Code) with just using an index.html file that displays your web elements and a CSS file that styles your web elements. If you are a savvy coder, try to add Bootstrap to your index.html file.
3. (Advanced) After you successfully make a website with just an index.html file and CSS file, make a JavaScript file (App.js) in your code editor that uses jQuery or DOM to display web elements thru the index.html file.
4. You will realize over the course where your strengths lie; be it making things look pretty with CSS or adding more functionality thru JavaScript.
5. When dealing with Front End requests to Back End responses, know that you are sending some kind of “request” from the Front End to the Back End such as “get all images links from database”, and the Back End will send a “response” back with all the image links to the Front End. Make sure your Front End understands the response from the Back End or else it will just console log an error.
6. There is nothing wrong if you can’t be good at everything. Just be great at what you enjoy. Good Luck!
I recently finished with my time at Covalence and I only wish that it could have lasted longer. I'll just list some thoughts below.
The Instructors: All of the instructors (but especially Paul "The Man" Dobbs) were great. At nearly every hour of the day, you could reach out to one of the instructors on Slack and ask a question and get a satisfying answer fairly quickly. Paul, our in-class instructor, was always ready and willing to help us with a calm and patient demeanor. He even ...
I recently finished with my time at Covalence and I only wish that it could have lasted longer. I'll just list some thoughts below.
The Instructors: All of the instructors (but especially Paul "The Man" Dobbs) were great. At nearly every hour of the day, you could reach out to one of the instructors on Slack and ask a question and get a satisfying answer fairly quickly. Paul, our in-class instructor, was always ready and willing to help us with a calm and patient demeanor. He even would be available on some weekends to help us in person on our labs and projects.
The Student Success Duo: In my opinion, this is secretly the best product you will gain out of Covalence. Kimberly and Estes are there to provide you with the tools necessary to become a hirable employee. They were always willing to help me with my resume, review my social media appearance, or practice interview skills. Daily, they are posting job listings and contacting companies who need workers. At least once a week, they were getting someone from a reputable company around town to talk to us and give us advice. Even after graduation, I still see job listings being posted from them and I have the ability to communicate with them and get advice. Can't emphasize how nice this is.
The Video Lessons: On a normal day at Covalence, you will spend the first half of the day watching a few video lessons. At first, I was a little peeved that we were being taught from pre-recorded lessons, instead of a normal in person lecture. It wasn't until a few weeks in that I began to see the blessing in disguise that these videos were. Many times later did I find myself re-watching the videos to gain a better understanding of a certain subject. With the videos, you have the ability to pause and take notes or contemplate something that was just said. Plus, our instructor would take the time to pause videos in class at complicated parts and help us understand it. These videos are available even after graduation.
SUGGESTION FOR FUTURE STUDENTS
If you are seriously considering taking this course, try to learn as much about the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as you can. This class is fast paced and probably the hardest class I've taken in my life. While the instructors are extremely helpful, a lot of the responsibility for succeeding is on your shoulders. The first week or two can be very stressful because you will go over all the basics during this time. Going into the class knowing even a little bit about HTML and CSS will help immensely. I highly reccomend Mark Meyer's eBook A Smarter Way to Learn HTML & CSS. This helped me a lot before going into the class.
FINAL WORDS
If you have the ability to take the class and are in a place in life where you need to delve into the world of programming but do not know where to begin, I highly reccomend you give Covalence a shot. I even made a few friends along the way because suffering under the intensity of the work seems to bring people together. A few of us even play D&D together on the weekends.
Give it a shot. You won't regret it.
The environment:
The Nashville class was held at the Refinery business center, which provided a nice friendly and relaxed, yet professional work environment. Relaxed, yet professional really sums up the vibes of the entire course. The instructors and the students all like to have some fun, make jokes, take a small break to show each other a video, etc., but it never took away from the fact that we were all there primarily because we are enthusiastic about and determined to learn how t...
The environment:
The Nashville class was held at the Refinery business center, which provided a nice friendly and relaxed, yet professional work environment. Relaxed, yet professional really sums up the vibes of the entire course. The instructors and the students all like to have some fun, make jokes, take a small break to show each other a video, etc., but it never took away from the fact that we were all there primarily because we are enthusiastic about and determined to learn how to code. Also worth noting: Covalence runs a community Slack channel so we could all message each other with problems we ran into (and the occasional meme).
The curriculum:
What stuck out most about the curriculum most to me is how intensive it it. You will be building front end websites with HTML, CSS and JavaScript by the end of the first week. Keep in mind, the vast majority of students attending the class have little to no coding experience at all. By week 6 you will already be building full stack applications. To keep up in the course, you must always be engaged in what you're learning and not afraid to jump right in. For example: This is what I turned in for the lab assigned to us the 2nd Friday of the course, to be finished the following week: http://www.just-my-type.commonrealm.com/index.html
Your average day at Covalence for the first 7 weeks of class involves a video lecture in the morning and a lab assignment in the afternoon, separated by a lunch break. The video lecture normally consists of a PowerPoint laying out the general concepts of what you're about to learn, followed by a coding walkthrough teaching you what you're going to actually need to do. The lab typically provides a list of tasks which require you to apply the skills you learned that morning, and an advanced assignment to take things a step further, if you get through the basics with some extra time. During lab time the instructors do the best they can to move around the room and help everyone with any questions or problems they're having. The instructors are very patient.
For the final 3 weeks of the class the students are split up into groups of 3-4 and assigned a final project. The final project is a full stack application (web or mobile) assigned by the instructors, although they do allow you to suggest your own ideas too. You will probably learn just as much during these last 3 weeks as in the actual instructional period of the class, because this is where you really learn to tackle big problems on your own and become an independent, self-teaching developer. The final projects are presented at graduation to the staff, fellow students and friends and family. These projects are a great first big piece of experience to put on your portfolio.
Job support:
Two of the instructors, Estes and Kimberly, offer help with resumes, portfolios, cover letters, job applications and much more throughout the course. They will also personally send out your information to companies they have connections with to get your foot in the door. Covalence also had many speakers come talk throughout the course. Some of the people who spoke in our class include hosts of a local developer podcast, former bootcamp students and local tech recruiters. Throughout the course, Estes and Kimberly also send links for entry level developer applications which they think would be a good fit for us through the Slack channel.
In conclusion:
If you are determined to learn to code and not afraid to jump right in, Covalence is probably a great fit for you. I really enjoyed my time at Covalence and am optimistic about my coding career thanks to the skills I learned in the class.
P.S. Sorry for grammatical errors. I'm a programmer, not a writer.
Becoming a developer was something I had wanted to do for quite some time, but was unsure of how to get there. Having already gotten a degree in accounting, I didn't feel like going back to college was the right choice for me at this time, both for financial reasons and the time investment required. Luckily, a friend recommended Covalence to me and it sounded like the right option.
I had tinkered around with web design back in high school and also took a few online courses more r...
Becoming a developer was something I had wanted to do for quite some time, but was unsure of how to get there. Having already gotten a degree in accounting, I didn't feel like going back to college was the right choice for me at this time, both for financial reasons and the time investment required. Luckily, a friend recommended Covalence to me and it sounded like the right option.
I had tinkered around with web design back in high school and also took a few online courses more recently, so I knew I enjoyed learning the subject matter, but I wasn't sure how I would translate this into a career change or even which technologies I should be focusing on. Covalence really helped by giving me a clear path, showing me how everything connected from the back end to the front end, and making me feel confident enough to actually look for developer positions!
The curriculum is challenging and I very much encourage any future students to spend lots of time outside of class doing their own independent studying and practice. This is not something you can just half devote yourself to. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll celebrate small victories, and you'll definitely curse out your computer a few times. The last two weeks were particularly challenging as we had to use all the technologies we learned to come up with a group project that we would demo at graduation. However, I feel like those last two weeks were when I grew the most and I'm very proud of our completed project, a food truck locating web app!
The instructor and TA were top-notch and had the patience of saints, helping us with anything we struggled with. Of course, part of the learning process is the struggle, so often I would just beat my head against the wall until I understood it because I'm stubborn like that, haha. However, they were always there when we needed them.
All that said, what would a review be without a couple of critisms though, right?
One criticism I have of the program was that our class was way too big (around 30 students), but I think that's something they learned their lesson on and will watch out for in future cohorts. Also, the mentor program could be a little more robust with maybe some additional scheduled interactions. We met our mentors very early into the class and didn't really know enough to have a lot of meaningful questions or conversations with them. I think it could even be beneficial to have actual former participants come in to tell their stories and provide some encouragement, especially during the more challenging weeks.
It's also worth noting that there's a very good chance you will not immediately have a job upon completion of the course, so I would recommend any prospective students plan accordingly. I know a lot of us were so busy and stressed with final projects that we didn't feel like we had much time or energy to focus on interviewing during the program. However, don't let that discourage you! It will just save you a lot of stress if you're able to plan ahead for that possibility. Once the course is over, just keep learning and applying and make sure to take advantage of the career success tools (and people) that Covalence provides you.
Overall, I would definitely recommend the program to someone who is looking for a way to transition into the software engineering world, especially if they already have a passion for it. I'm not sure I would have ever gotten to this point on my own and for that I am very grateful for Covalence. I'm very excited to be starting a career I actually enjoy!
How much does Covalence cost?
Covalence costs around $9,500.
What courses does Covalence teach?
Covalence offers courses like Catalyst Software Development Bootcamp (Full-Time), Catalyst Software Development Bootcamp (Part-Time).
Where does Covalence have campuses?
Covalence teaches students Online in a remote classroom.
Is Covalence worth it?
Covalence hasn't shared alumni outcomes yet, but one way to determine if a bootcamp is worth it is by reading alumni reviews. 54 Covalence alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Covalence on Course Report - you should start there!
Is Covalence legit?
We let alumni answer that question. 54 Covalence alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Covalence and rate their overall experience a 4.67 out of 5.
Does Covalence offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?
Right now, it doesn't look like Covalence offers scholarships or accepts the GI Bill. We're always adding to the list of schools that do offer Exclusive Course Report Scholarships and a list of the bootcamps that accept the GI Bill.
Can I read Covalence reviews?
You can read 54 reviews of Covalence on Course Report! Covalence alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Covalence and rate their overall experience a 4.67 out of 5.
Is Covalence accredited?
Covalence is a licensed post-secondary educational institution in the state of Alabama where its operations are headquartered.
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