Constructor Labs

Constructor Labs offers an excellent three-month course in full-stack web development with JavaScript. As the curriculum progresses, students are taken through the concepts and fundamentals of vanilla JavaScript, providing them with a solid foundation for understanding the language in the context of real-world development and problem-solving. Version control with git kicks off the course, with debugging next, and then the basics of Web development. Software testing concepts follow hot on the heels of that, along with responsive design, communicating with APIs, and using and designing databases; then server-side development with Node, and app development with React and Redux. Group projects for the students follow thereafter. The pace is fast but the material is presented thoroughly, in a structured way that immerses the students. Each week introduces several concepts, and ends with a weekend project that requires combining them together and building upon the material from previous weeks. When it comes to using frameworks such as React, at all times the students are taught to -use- them but not -rely- upon them, so as to be equipped with a skillset and mindset that will serve them well for a career in development, where the ability to learn continuously and work flexibly is paramount. Work in the class largely takes the form of pair programming with other students, selected randomly each day to ensure that people at all different skill levels get to work together and support each other's learning. A range of inspiring, personable, and approachable guest speakers from industry also come to address the class every week on topics relating to career development, software and design principles, and more.

The course leader, Dmitri, is an excellent teacher who goes out of his way to support the individual learning requirements of students on the course, who represent a wide range of personal backgrounds and learning levels. I'm somewhat out of the ordinary among the first cohort, having previously been a web developer some years ago in a very different technology environment and taking this course to bring myself up to speed with the state of the field in 2018 before returning to it as a career. As such, my prior professional experience gives me the perspective to see that Dmitri's course design and teaching philosophy are absolutely the right way to kickstart a development career for the students, with an extensive grounding in industry practice and realistic, no-nonsense, but welcoming and thoroughly enthusiastic outlook. I really can't recommend Constructor Labs any more highly.