Code Institute

I recently began the part-time diploma course at Code Institute. I have really enjoyed working through the HTML and CSS sections so far. There was also a fun Retro-themed Hackathon put on which I decided to take part in. The Hackathon truly made me learn so much at an accelerated pace. I learnt how to use GitHub for teamwork and other fundamental developer teamwork skills. I feel like Bootcamps can sometimes lack that flare of teamwork that people get at college. The Hackathon truly ensures that people have experience creating a project in a team environment. It's something that will definitely come in handy in interviews! I have since started back and am catching up on my course and I can say that I have more confidence with the material and more passion to move forward!! I'm looking forward to the next one!

Their course material and mentor support are fantastic. As well as that, they have fostered a great community that helps students keep learning even after finishing the course. They run coding challenges for students and alumni called Hackathons. Participating in the Code Institute Hackathons allowed me to cement my knowledge of the course material whilst allowing me to learn new technologies & further my skill set. In particular, I have gained valuable experience working with a distributed team using the agile development cycle.

Cracking school with great support network, graduates, and students alike on a vast slack group with channels to cover every eventuality. Failing the support of peers they have a responsive tutor group online who are available 24/7/during the week and during the days on weekends. The support even covers out of course areas where one might feel.they are struggling.  I recently partook in a hackathon and learnt a lot about collaboration projects in the process. Nothing prepares you for the real world like real world experience. 

Personally, I think that a lot of negative reviews here are a bit unfair.

Before you enroll in this course you really need to acknowledge that you're about to commit to a studying grind and you need to be prepared for that. Codeinstitute presents itself really well i.e. they have all this support in place (slack, tutors, mentors, syllabus etc) but ultimately you will still be struggling a lot, and often you will be required to suss out a solution by yourself as this is how you really solidify and learn things to progress in the real world. All these promises of support will be no good to you if you're overestimating your own ability to absorb knowledge and underestimating required adaptation to the independent learning style of the course/industry. Re-skilling is really tough and I get the feeling that a lot of people get upset when they realize just how much effort they have to put into it and that the support alone is not enough to succeed.

To be fair, technical support was always good in my experience, not a long time to wait for a replies, great mentors etc (I'm based in the UK and was studying normal working hours)

However, there was a massive difference in complexity between the first few modules and JS / Python onwards. The spike was so significant that it really knocked the wind out of my sales! The motivation was gone quite quickly. They do warn their students that it is normal, and that is to be expected - after all JavaScript / Python are actual programming languages while HTML / CSS are not. That's just the nature of the beast, however, I do feel that the way they presented the information was a bit too brief and shallow based on the fact that after a few programming modules you were expected to create your second milestone project (for your portfolio) using the complex technologies you've just (briefly) covered. The jump from doing simple programming exercises to suddenly having to go out there and create your own project, using your own ideas, was very harsh. Mentors will then approve your idea or provide helpful feedback but ultimately will require you to just go out there and do loads of googling / research to create proper programming code that you've barely scratched the surface of whilst learning the modules. This disparity between having to just go along with the syllabus doing simple tasks and reading relatively digestible information to creating a full-blown project utilizing proper programming language/s, reading documentation etc was so big and extremely frustrating that I almost completely gave up. However, if you manage to get through this phase, I'm certain that you will finish the course as it would imply that you can adapt and overcome the biggest challenge this course can throw at you.

I did not manage. I've scored almost 100% on my first milestone project (HTML/CSS) but never managed to submit my second one. I got stuck because of the issue which I've described above. I've spent a lot of time trying to understand the requirements for the second project, and decide how I can tick those boxes and create something that has real-life application. It was too much for me. I've been shown examples of similar projects, I've had mentors tell me which functionality I need but there was just too big of a leap between what they expected from my code and what I've learned in previous modules, so I struggled.

I've had 2 extensions, which obviously cost a lot of extra money on top of 5k+ that I was already paying for the course. Even though I found it extremely difficult, I've never given up and always thought that there is a decent chance that I will finish the program. It came to a point when I realized that I will have to drop my full-time work (took a month off) to put all of my efforts into the course. After making the necessary arrangements with my work I reached out to Code Institute asking for a third (and in my mind - final) extension. What a surprise it was to hear that my request was being rejected and that my access to the course was going to be revoked shortly as I was approaching the end of my 2nd extension. Now, I take full responsibility for my actions and acknowledge that, at the end of the day, it's not CodeInstitute's job to babysit me, and in all fairness in their eyes I probably was never going to make it, but by then I've already spent 7k on the whole thing and I honestly believe I deserved knowing that my 2nd extension was going to be my last. But alas, nobody told me anything; which was quite a bad customer service. No previous correspondence, nor any warnings that I'm approaching my deadline for the course with no possibility to further extend. For this reason, I will never recommend CodeInstitute to anyone unless they are prepared to throw their life at this course.

Just be very careful, as this might be a goldmine that will open a lot of doors for the right people, but don't be lured and charmed by promises of support alone, high salaries etc this is a proper grind and you will have to graft to succeed if you're not IT literate (or if you don't have the right mindset - don't bother). 

I did end up getting an apprenticeship with a different company, using the skills that I've learned at the start of the course with CodeInstitute. So it wasn't a total waste! But that extension rejection was painful and cost me all of my savings. 

Be careful.

P.S. Just to clarify - I have been informed about course access coming to an end, but at no point has anyone ever told me that this extension will be my last.

P.P.S The actual course material felt like a work in progress - it had typos, broken links and sometimes did not follow logically. I've reported a lot of these issues which were fixed quite quickly to be fair.

Working in the aviation industry amidst the covid pademic I decided to make good use of the downtime to upskill myself. Eventhough I had zero experience in programming I was always interested in software development and after a conservation with a friend I started to research online courses which finally led me to this course. After talking to the representative I decided to enroll and and was given an initial trial period since I was worried that the online learning would not be adapted for me. 
Once I started I was really impressed with the course content and how professional the online learning platform worked. The course is well adapted to people like myself,  with no programming experience, to obtain a solid programming foundation. The learning curve is quite steep at times and does require additonal research which is a must for any programmer. The course providers are great and kept in regular contact with me to check on how the course was going. 
The course content is well designed with 4 milestone projects which are well paced and supported with great tutorials. As I progressed through the course I found myself more confident in programming. I did however find myself stuck at certain times during the course and had to use one of the support sytems.  I cannot praise the support system enough. The system works extremely well and whenever I queried them for some clarification on course content  or programming issues I always got prompt help to guide me through my problems. I do encourage students to get well acquainted with the support system sooner rather than latter since you definately progress more smoothly through the course.
I really enjoyed the whole learning experience and would definately recommend this course to anyone who want to start a career in programming.

I started with pretty much zero knowledge, and the Code Institute curriculum, framework, timescale, support, and course setup gave me more than I expected. Most importantly, it taught me how to learn more, without needing the framework of any, course and I know that this will serve me well in the future.

The course delivered what I wanted, and whilst it may have been reasonably expensive, I consider it money well spent. Great, professional and timely support available from all people doing all roles.

Top job and well done, happy to recommend. 

I have recently completed the Code Institute's Diploma in Full Stack Software Development which takes you through the process of learning HTML5, through to JavaScript and finally Python. I had an overwhelmingly positive experience overall, the course is definitely challenging and is no way an easy option. As I had no prior knowledge of coding I still had to put in a decent amount of personal research and effort. However the student support that was available I found to be the most beneficial aspect, as the tutor team would always respond to any issues that I came across and would never leave a question unsolved, making sure that I was able to move forward to the next stage.

In addition the video tutorials and tasks are clear and informative that provide you the knowledge and skills to complete the Milestone Projects. The projects themselves build up your confidence at a sensible pace to enable you to reach the point of being a fully competent Web Developer at the end of the course. You also provided with a personal mentor who would also assist you with the Milestone projects. Even though the mentors were really helpful and supportive it was unfortunate that my first mentor left half way through and some of the continuity was lost.

During my time studying I faced some personal health issues that slowed my progress through the course, but the Code Institute were totally understanding and with me providing sufficient documentation to prove my situation, I was given the necessary extension to complete the course.

All in all I believe that this course is a great option for someone who is prepared to challenge them self and conduct independent research when needed. I would highly recommend it.

I have only done a few intro coding courses with free online resources before this course. The online course started off well with the HTML, CSS modules but then JavaScript and Python modules were intensely complicated, covering a lot of concepts and the majority of the time I was left to research and google on my own to understand what was being taught, tutor support is available but i would have to wait on average 45 - 120 mins for each question and that is not a guarantee they could help as some of them are also recent graduates of the course. I've had many times the tutor's shift ended and they abruptly tell me that and I would have to wait for another tutor to help, they often made me feel stupid and had an arrogant and obnoxious attitude, although there were a few good humble tutors too.
Mentor support is for when you do the milestone projects you get 30 - 60 mins each time and you are given technical advice and how to proceed with the project. I didn't really resonate with my mentor but was discouraged to change as I had already started with him. He was telling me that coding was basically fixing coding problems, so you would spend most of your time googling and researching on the internet finding the answers and even when you've been working as a developer for so many years you still don't know that much.
Project assessments are a bit random as the feedback tells you to test or code another way that was not taught on the course, which is really strange and puts you up to fail.
My overall experience is that they just want your money and the support is sorely lacking for something so complicated. This course is adequate if you already know a lot or have developer friends to help you out and you have lots and lots of time to research. Also if you don't mind getting frustrated frequently because you don't know what you're doing and you have to figure it out yourself. 

I started the course on the 29th of November day after my 21st birthday. I did not have any knowledge of coding. I was looking to learn. For Code Insitute, I found out by looking up all of the schools available in Europe. I have familiars who have finished coding schools but have not learned anything. I did not want the same to happen to me as I knew I wanted to do something serious. After reading information on Code Institute's website, the first thing that I noticed was that their degree is university-approved. After I have started the course everything that they were claiming on the website came to be true. I could not be more satisfied with my CI diploma as even recruiters have told me that now I have a strong profile to be a junior developer. So CI diploma can get you a job, it is a well-respected institution even by people who did not know about it before. The amount of knowledge you gain from completing the course will give you the best starting point for your career in this industry. That is why I highly recommend CI.

Starting with the 5-day coding challenge I was compelled to continue and apply for the Full Stack Developer course part time because I have another fulltime job. I entered the course in September 2019 and finished in December 2020. The situation is I want to leave my current work for a new career and I hope this will be able to do that. The 5-day coding challenge is a good introduction to the actual course structure, with different modules laid out on different days as a sort of schedule.

Coming from a background with no knowledge of code the course is gentle in the beginning with about 1/4 of the total course working with HTML, CSS and a little Bootstrap. Then it leads on to Javascript and jQuery in the Interactive Frontend module, a particularly bumpy step for many students, this is a common thread in the Slack community but thankfully help can be gained from tutor or mentor support, even other students depending on particulars.

After half the course is done you start reading the Data Centric Module which is all about using Python and Flask with noSQL backend using mongoDB, combined with some Javascript for nice frontend features. At this point the Javascript starts to make more sense. The last module is Full Stack Frameworks with Django which is another Python framework where you will learn database modelling in SQL, and tie several api services together such as AWS, SQL, Heroku and Stripe to produce an impressive homemade project.

In each of the 4 modules you are required to produce a web app which will be examined by Code Institute, and you will be getting some impressive feedback with scores for different aspects and some interesting feedback. Since you will be doing several practice projects throughout the course you are not allowed to plagiarize but some boilerplate code or particular components can be borrowed as long as you declare it in the Readme. Readme documentation is something important and the Markup language is discussed as well.

These projects will be scored and the average of these determines your final score. For my final project I had to extend submission by 2 months (in 1 month increments) which was fine by Student Care, and these extensions do not affect your score.

On my part time schedule I mostly had to put in 1 or 2 hours per day, I could skip a day and work it up in the weekends at times, but if I lagged behind I could always call in to the Student Care team who were always very relaxed with requests of extension.

Last but not least the price tag is indeed a treshold, but I think it's a comparably good price for the available support, they keep calling to check up on you, and there is also one-on-one tutor support available, mentor sessions for the examina projects and helpful staff available in the Slack Channel as well as other students who were sometimes able to help me. Even though the Student Care is not about learning I have to mention that there are some gentle souls working there who are always nice to talk to.

I am currently in the "Careers" module which is a nice addition since many of the students are looking for career changes.
They have webinars with invited tech companies and experts willing to look over your documentation and do a mock interview, and it's all there for your help.

So in final words, I would rate the course at 5/5 even though it's a bumpy ride entering functional programming, but it's because of the nature of backend programming. I would recommend the course for anyone, if you can manage the 5-day coding challenge.

Back in January 2019, I stumbled upon Code Institute's 5-day coding challenge and thought why not? I was heavily into the idea of C++ game development at the time and was pursuing that. But coding and programming was really what I wanted to do, and I didn't much mind what I was creating; creation itself and the method of doing so was what inspired me. The coding challenge was a lot of fun and honestly a nice and, importantly, accurate preview on the flow of the instruction and using the LMS. I was hooked. 

Fast forward boring financial stuff. 

Days later, I was chatting to Student Care (great team, by the way - they come back later in the story), about what my goals were and setting out a plan with me. Very supportive and genuine. I felt their duty of care immediately. So, I basically got stuck into the first module. I won't go into too much detail here about each module or the content within it. I will, however, say that you'll learn the fundamentals of programming (not language specific), which will stay with you. More on this later (unless you've already rolled your eyes at my cumbersome review and haven't made it this far. That's OK. To those staying with me, I thank you. At least you'll know this is a real review. I mean, who would invest this much time writing a fake one? Seems silly. But I digress!).

Working full-time and studying part-time around a family, which included wife, 3-year-old son, and an infant daughter, was no easy feat. It was taxing, to say the least. And the dreadful Tax Man took up Father Time's job for the duration of the course. Mind you, Father Time just does his job and gets on with it. We don't like it but it is what it is. The Tax Man was stealing time from me. Once again, I digress.

My full schedule meant that I was unable to stay within the confines of the initial course deadline (not making excuses here, I was just not that great at juggling busy home and professional life with study life). But fear not, dear student, Student Care to the rescue! After a very convenient email exchange... voila, time extended and stress levels returned to... well, still high but certainly not looming-deadline-and-large-amount-of-work-still-to-do high!

All throughout the course, I made good use of every avenue that could lead me to a solution to a problem I may have been facing. And, thankfully, Code Institute offers a good amount of them. From Slack, to Tutors, to a Mentor, you’re never far from someone offering to help you (heck, I still scan Slack in the hopes that someone has asked a question, only to be disappointed that someone else got there before me. They’re too fast on there! Or perhaps I “slack” off too much. Sorry, it was right there.

I shall sign off this novella with a good luck to anyone either already taking this course or considering it. As the title says, it’s well worth the journey and I have successfully changed careers a mere couple of months after receiving my diploma. The tech stack I’ll be using isn’t what I learned with Code Institute, but do you recall a few chapters ago when I mentioned learning non-language-specific fundamentals? Well, what I learned from Code Institute inspired confidence in my future employer, who were certain I’d be able to pick up their stack in my stride. And you know what? They were 100% on that.