Coding Dojo

(Note: Prior to my Coding Dojo Experience, I had only taken a C++ course which I don't really remember and didn't really understand much because they were concepts and theory.)

This was a really rewarding experience for me. I definitely grew as a person and as a developer over our 14 week course.It was an amazing experience and I am glad I took a leap of faith in Coding Dojo and myself. I dropped everything, moved 1100 miles and learned a lot. I learned how to problem solve, I learned a lot about all the technologies in the industry and I learned a lot about myself. I really appreciate the connections I made throughout coding dojo and the friends I made in my cohort.

I took LAMP, MEAN, and Ruby on Rails and because Coding Dojo gave us the opportunity to learn 3 stacks, I got a feel for what languages I like. I'm excited to continue learning more on my own and Coding Dojo left me with a confidence that I can continue learning on my own and pick up new languages. The instructors were always there for us to answer our questions. And the career advisors are extremely helpful and care for every one of us. 

Shoutout to Nikki B and Speros! Nikki is the best person ever! Funniest jokes. Much enthusiasm. So charismatic. And Speros: Awesome demos. Very helpful. Much friend. Wow.

I am a front-end developer and I took the remote course and dropped out around week 9 out of 12, about the time we were learning the second stack. About 30% of the class also dropped out.

My boyfriend started out on-site and then switched to remote the first week. He never got any money back even though the price difference is $6k. He had zero experience and even though they said that was ok, he had a very difficult time. I tried to help as much as I could but the pace was very hard for me too as I had a full-time job. They tell you full-time workers can do remote but I think that would be very difficult for most people. It was for me. Needless to say, he dropped out before I did.

My instructor told me that some people didn't deserve to have his support because they weren't putting in as many hours as he liked. Mind you, these are people who paid money, but the instructor justified giving some students more help than others based on his subjective assessment of their effort. No regard to how new this content could be for some people. I found this to be particulary cruel and unethical.  He could be passive agressive and non-responsive as well. A couple of times my cohort wanted to call him out on being non-responsive but we didn't.

All in all, I believe they tried to teach too much in my opinion. Better to learn one stack well than three stacks on the surface. I'm very disappointed in the experience. The only way I would recommend it is if you have some exposure to full stack dev already and/or can isolate yourself from the world because they don't give you everything you need - this is under the guise of "we want you to struggle so you will learn more on your own and look up stuff," which is code for "yeah, we know the curriculum has gaps in it so cut us some slack." 

"I started Coding Dojo with big hopes but not a ton of confidence. I thought "can I really learn three new stacks in three months?" I own a web development company and manage a team of developers who create powerful web and marketing applications for our clients. I have an MIS degree and a lot of experience managing coding projects, designing websites in Joomla/Wordpress and editing code but I had never created a web application from scratch; I had always directed developer teams and used existing tools like Wordpress or Joomla when I was doing my own projects. The idea sounded challenging so I took a leap of faith, signed up for Coding Dojo, moved to California and it was the best decision I could have made.

Michael Choi, the founder was our lead instructor and he really delivered. Watch one live demo and it is clear he knows what he's doing. I felt that after the first four weeks I had completely received a return on my investment being fully capable of building an enterprise level PHP application in CodeIgniter. With help from instructors Jay Patel and Andrew, within just eight weeks I was solving complex algorithms and had built a fully functional fitness application using PostgreSQL,express, AngularJS, and Node.JS which is deployed on heroku today! 

By the end of twelve weeks I was able to develop a working application in three full stacks. I was skeptical to start and really proud of what we were able to accomplish in just three months at the Dojo. 

Coding Dojo is really a special program that applies focus and real, working knowledge of how to program in code and use technologies that companies demand right now. It is obvious that the owner, Michael Choi cares deeply about his students and is driven by making a difference in peoples lives. 

I highly recommend the onsite intensive program to any tech business owner needing to "upskill" in the technical department and to any budding software engineer wanting to hone their skills by developing real web applications in the latest technologies. 

-Michael Weitzman
Managing Director, World Source Tech, LLC 
Coding Dojo Graduate, Blackbelt 2015"

I had a great experience with Coding Dojo at their San Jose location. I had applied to several coding bootcamps, but made the decision to attend the Dojo based on location and price. I have no regrets!

The instructors and staff did a great job of welcoming us from the start. However, be known that this is a very hands-off learning process. Do not expect to get an answer to a question whether the instructors know it or not. They are meant to help guide you and show you the proper way to learn to code and teach yourself to be a self-sufficient developer.

My cohort went through PHP, MEAN, and Ruby on Rails. We were not given an option to choose which technology stacks we wanted to do, however I believe that has changed now. If given the option, I would have went with Python, MEAN, and iOS/Ruby. There is not much demand in the job market for PHP, especially amongst startups. Python and Javascript are the two main languages that seem to be the most in demand by companies.

Make sure to study algorithms and take it seriously when the instructors do a daily algorithm. Studying that will be taking your first steps to becoming an engineer. Also, you get out what you put in; thus make sure you stay the full day and put in a full day's effort. Do not get stressed if you fall behind the rest of the class, just try to focus and ask for help when needed.

A coding bootcamp is not for everyone...It is 12 weeks out of your life where you are spending a minimum of 10-12 hours a day at your computer or in class. Know what you are signing up for and make sure your family and loved ones know that you will not have much free time. Best of luck to everyone!

Coding Dojo was a great experience and a wonderful introduction to web programming. Over 14 weeks, my cohort and I went through the LAMP, MEAN, and Ruby on Rails stacks. I came in to the boot camp not really knowing what to expect and was surprised by the amount I was able to absorb in such a short period.

The platform for each stack was well designed. There is always a TA or instructor available to help. The boot camp encouraged us to expand knowledge outside of the platform as well. We created our own projects, had hackathons, and worked daily on algorithms.

To prospective students – It’s not for everyone. At the end of the day, the camp doesn’t thoroughly teach any language, but it does provides all the necessary tools. It surrounds you with a great environment and motivated students. If you are willing to put in the work, Coding Dojo could be an excellent opportunity.

Before coming to Coding Dojo I was a high school teacher in Hawaii. While working in the classroom, I had so many ideas for web applications but I had no way to make them a reality. Codecademy and Udemy only scratched the surface and didn't teach me the bigger concepts involved in creating a fully functional app. I decided that I wanted to learn how to code in a more formal setting so I did some research on my options. Going back to a university was an option, but would take too long (about 3 years or more) and would be too expensive. I heard about software bootcamps and started to look at Seattle, since I knew it was a great city for tech. I chose Coding Dojo because the staff was so friendly, and I was impressed by the three full-stack curriculum. Now that I'm graduated and have received my black belt, I have created multiple functioning apps and am confident that I can make many of my ideas into a full-functioning product. Coding Dojo was a great environment to learn how to code. I have made so many friends and have such great aspirations for my future as a software developer!

My experience at the dojo was more than I expected. It doesn't get any better than being able to work on projects with other coding dojo students and struggling as well as figuring out the concepts together and go through the whole program together. I definitely am going to continue studying the platform with the other stacks that I did not do during the bootcamp. Coding dojo has made a great experience for me and allowed for a great environment to learn the content. I enjoyed the platform and the projects that was involved with the program. All the concepts helped me better understand the fundamentals of the web. I made some good networks with the coding dojo as well as the connections made with the students who were at the dojo going through the same experience with me. It was great to work with people who wanted to pursue similar goals as me in learning web development and coding as a team. Something that my experience lacked was the bootcamp life which was because of my location and having to travel back and forth a long way to home. But that didn't make my experience any worse. It was just as good if anything and I am glad I made this leap to do it.

I was extremely pleased with the way things turned out. I knew I would learn a lot and I'd be challenged, but I didn't know I'd have the amount of confidence I do now. The support from staff and my fellow cohort-mates was phenomenal and it was one of the best experiences of my life. The atmosphere was always positive and welcoming.

Three stacks in three months seemed ridiculous at the time, but I got there and I got there with a huge amount of confidence. Even at times when I couldn't see the finish line, pushing through the struggle paid off twice as much. There was plenty of opportunity to grow as a person and of course as a developer.

The instructors were really great and they helped me through the stacks. They were really knowledgeable and were ready to answer any of the questions that I had. I was impressed by not only their wealth of information they could provide regarding the course material but also other resources that are outside of what to dojo has to offer on the course platform.

As a result, I will forever be confident as a web developer moving forward thanks to my time at the Dojo. I'd absolutely recommend it to anyone who may be interested.

I've yet to attend the career training seminars but I know that previous cohorts have had great success when trying to land positions.  I also know that there is a robust amount of material and meetings that are about to take place next month.  (Note: career development takes place in the first couple weeks after your third stack.)

I came into the boot camp with a little bit of prior experience. I was about half way through my computer science degree and felt that the learning was going a little slow. I wanted to go somewhere that would boost the speed of the learning and teach me some of the newer web technologies out there. When i went to the Dojo, I realized that they had a great curriculum and a great environment to learn.

The biggest thing that I can say is, you get out what you put in. I came from a technology background but saw very successful students that had different backgrounds, such as finance. The ones that put the time in (12 - 15 hours daily and sometimes even the weekends) really did an excellent job learning and were able to excel. Others that didn't put time and effort in, didn't do so well. Coding Dojo lets people in from all backgrounds because they believe that anyone can learn this, given they have the motivation. I completely agree with them. They also believe in strength through struggle. When you come to a bug, they want you to try and work it out without asking for help the first 20 minutes. This really helped me and caused me to learn even more, since I was actually surprised at how much I could figure out on my own.

When I couldn't figure something out though, there was our instructor there and TAs to help. The TAs are usually from previous groups, but are still working on personal projects or want to expand on what they learned. They will bend over backwards to help you figure out any problem. It was really great, because if they didn't figure out the problem right away, you were able to follow along with them in the troubleshooting process and help solve your own problem.

The curriculum was great and very up to date, they know what people are looking for. We did modern technologies that really were relevant in the field. They showed me how to interview, helped me work on algorithms for interviews, and even reviewed my resume. After a few tricks that they showed me, I was getting calls daily for open positions, I didn't even need to use their recruiting network. I got hired as a web developer the week after my boot camp.

Coding Dojo was a great experience and as long as you are going to use a little effort to help your future, I definitely recommend it. They teach you in a way that you can pick up other languages, frameworks, and technologies within a weekend. That type of learning quick is what the employer wants, as you can never know everything in this field. So just take my advice, go to the Dojo!

I loved my time at the coding dojo. I learned how to learn which is the most valuable of all the skills I learned. I now have motivation and determination to learn other programming languages. There seems to be no obstacle that I cannot get over. I am looking forward to continuing my journey as a coder and learning many more technologies in the future. Now we are all equipped to take on any challenge and conquer and learn by struggling. Thanks coding dojo for the great time and the skill-set to go to the next level of my career, life, and journey. I believe that the program will only get better as the years go by and more tremendous coders join the field. Despite the challenges and the tough moments or moments of discouragement I was trained to handle them and learn to put my skills to work and problem solving skills to work. Now when challenges arise they can be tackled and taken on without looking back and without thinking failure is final. When things don't work there is always a solution that is waiting to be found.

I joined Coding Dojo because I ran into a wall when trying to learn programming on my own.

I was really excited about the idea of learning 3 languages in a short amount of time.

The environment that Coding Dojo puts students in, fosters collaboration and a lot of pair programming.

The instructors and TAs aren't going to hold your hand through this program. You will have to be very diligent and organized with your time.

If you go into this program with finding a job and building a career as a developer, you seriously need to put the time in and forget about outside distractions.

Because all of the instructors and TAs went through the program, they were pretty good at answering questions about assignments.

Some of my classmates did not have any programming background, but by week 3/week 4, they were caught up and comfortable with the language.

Take advantage of these hackathons and project weeks. During the short amount of time, you will learn a lot and reinforce what you know. You will also be exposed to the process and environment of working in a small team.

One of the most important things to remember is don’t get discouraged.