Dev Bootcamp

I came to DBC because it was reported to be a professional and nurturing environment to quickly get a new set of skills under your belt. Firstly, the coding portion of the program is comprehensive and clearly helps to progress one through the necessary skills for an junior programming position. The head instructors have substantial expertise and are mavericks in their own right.  But they are rarely available for one to one assistance and some of their lectures were Ad Hoc and disorganized, which was suprising . A majority of the assistance/mentorship received during the program comes from aides that have just graduated or have less than a year of experience.  Mentoring from programmers at that level of education/expertise or better can be found at your local meet-up group or online and cost almost nothing, which was another dissappointing realization once in the program. 

Secondly, with the cirriculum there is constant discussion about throwing away “the way you used to learn”.  Due to this mentality the program culture is highly insular and they degrade other programs or traditional methods of learning. This is questionably effective when you are expected to work with or learn from people with inferior (according to DBC instructors) backgrounds. I was never sure if I should or shouldn’t use something I read from a traditional or competing source.  Occasionally myself and others got lash back for suggesting those sources. Very “us” versus “them”. Graduates going out into the working world holding these beliefs about their future cohorts are very damaging biases to cultivate in a very small and intimate tech community. The 2 daily programming lectures were helpful, but the same contact cane be found on a youtube video or at any of the online coding schools.  The coding exercises are very helpful and appropriately progress skill level. But, again, the same or comparable exercises can be easily found in coding books or online classes. Additionally, the job placement program doesn’t offer a lot of help with finding an entry level position.  Most graduates find jobs through their own connections or pay for additional job placement programs.

Thirdly, for an organizational culture claiming to change the abuses and marginalization that persists in the tech world, this organization didn’t do much to change it. Most of the women I met at the program did not continue pursuing a tech position because of the overt sexism they experienced during the program.  It went completely unchecked and was propagated by the staff.   I saw instructors cut each other off frequently or belittled by other instructors during my time there. I heard one instructor being called stupid for using a certain method and one instructor was told information wasn’t wholly accurate in the in the middle of their lecture, which was very unprofessional and ended up being an inaccurate criticism (not to mention a waste of time). All the females that graduated my cohort reported they didn’t feel it was an optimal environment for women and many reported it wouldn’t be well received if they reported their these concerns. Despite a lot of lip service to addressing non professional behavior through their social education classes, there was no observable or consistent application of the education given during those sessions.  It was basically a statement to the effect of “Come on, don’t do this” and when students and staff chose to continue inappropriate behavior, it was ignored. 

Though this may or may not be a concern for most people learning code, the inappropriate use of psychological intervention through the program was a large noted concern during my time there.  When getting emotional coaching assistance from their on site psychologist, you sign a waiver stating that all your information is not confidential and will be shared with the staff at DBC (the exact opposite of what happens if you go to a private coach/counsler).  I would hear students expose their frustrations about the instructors,  other students, or their personal lives and see it used against them during classes, either directly or indirectly. Instructors would yell at students (I know it is a bootcamp, but I assumed there was a figurative element to the term) They would also force individuals to publicly expose their most private experiences, with a lot of coercion, to a group of people they barely knew. It wasn’t unusual to see people crying or report feeling overexposed after these sessions. They insisted on telling students to open their boundaries to “live authentically” and be your “whole self”. If you choose for any reason not to open up you are pressured and ridiculed to do so by the staff (as I was pressured a few times during my time there). In any traditional mental health, coaching, or medical setting these are severe privacy breeches that could led to losing your license. Truthfully astounded these forceful methods are considered ethical in this setting.

Alternately, The majority of DBC students themselves are generally wonderful people.  They pick really amazing, intelligent, driven individuals through their screening process. Affecting their future prospects is the only reason I hesitate to write this review, but people should know what they are spending their money/time on. The program definitely works for some, but I question the quality of the education they provide. Students who self studied found the information and instruction at DBC minimally useful. So for the cost, I would look closely at other options, I personally learned a lot more using other avenues. Simply put, paying over $13,000 for this program may be a bit of an oversell for their “innovate” approach and it is questionable in many ways.

Not a good experience for me unfortunately. The school had good principles when it first started out. But that has now taken a dark turn as the school has been bought out by Kaplan. Those same principles are still being utilised in a coporate setting. There used to be 15-16 students per cohort, but that has doubled. The teacher to student ratio is a measley 2 : 45.

If a student repeats a phase, (which many do), prepare to be ignored by the instructors who will then focus on the students that had passed the assessments the first time round. I personally found the instructors to be fake. They show themselves to be a caring bunch by telling us "please ask for help if you're stuck for more than 10 mins" or "we're here for you whenever you need us"; but are very hypocritical. For example, they'll use terms the school has created such as bringing your "whole self". Which means you must be present, and be consistent in their expectations of you. However, you can't expect the same from the instructors. They tell you to tag them in Github if we need help. I not only did that, I asked them in person. They tell you to give them 5 mins. That 5 mins turns into 3 hours. At Dev Bootcamp, you don't have 3 hours to spare on one question. You have 9 cores to complete in a day. If you don't, you must complete them as soon as possible so that they don't question your "whole self" and whether or not you're dedicated. The average amount of help you'll get is once a week. Imagine attending a hacknight. Thats Dev Bootcamp all day everyday. Very little direction provided. 

Dev Bootcamp is very good at advertising how cool their curriculum is, have cute animal names for their cohorts, are expanding at an insane rate (seattle, san diego and austin has just been added in the last three months). It makes sense; shove a huge amount of students in a cohort, in a small office where there aren't even enough computers or chairs anymore, have them graduate as soon as possible, take 13k from each student AND get paid by hiring companies. Very smart DBC.

The environment is also very competitive. Instructors will say things like "This is not a competition, you must work as a team" but no one cares due to the fact that there is very limited time spent on a concept, so of course a person you're pairing with would rather solve all the work than work together as they're getting the learning experience they need whilst depleting their pairs experience. Its a constant battle to fight for yourself to survive.  

Lastly, you'll read great reviews from Dev Bootcamp students. Some may be true, but also consider why Dev Bootcamp has such high ratings. If the reviews were average or dare I say it, terrible, it not only affects the school negatively, it affects the graduates' reputation in finding a job.

It was a terrible experience. I felt that we would learn a certain concept for 5 mins and move on to a new concept. I can't learn that way. I need to tinker with that concept for at least a day in order for me to comprehend and remember what I learned. I was surprised to find that we needed to learn a framework in one day, then not have to use it at all throughout the program. Unless you're a genius, I cannot retain complicated information I've just learned in a day for the rest of my life....

The pros of this whole experience is that you will meet some really awesome students that do want to work as a team that make the experience worth it. But bear in mind, these people are few. They are still my friends today and we meet on the reg.

If you are interested in attending Dev Bootcamp, please at least ask at their info sessions what their student to teacher ratio is. Good luck to you.

Among the coding school offers from AppAcademy, CodingDojo (and later RocketU and Insight), I choose DBC because it looked not that 'tough' to students.  I didn't have computer science background other than required CS101 for college students, what if I fall behind?

There are 3 parts in DBC curriculum: off-site(9 week), on-site(9 week) and career support(1 week). So I started to seriously learn Ruby/JavaScript in the off-site phase. For the on-site I learned ORM(ActiveRecord) and OOP(Ruby/JS), webapp frameworks(Sinatra & Rails). Very overwhelming and stressful, all mixed with Git work flow/Pair programming, Personal/Group projects, Yoga&counseling, etc.  However the culture there care about student's feeling so happily survived and graduated.

Apart from ample teaching team, their career support clearly needs more members and weeks. Fortunately my career coach is outstanding. There were 5 or 6 companies joined our graduation in April, one contacted me immediately (but didn't survive their interview). DBC's hiring network contains about hundreds companies, 3 contacted me but didn't survived their interviews either.  My personal estimation of positive response for job applications is between 1~5%, which is higher than average equity number on Angel.co.  Finally accepted a 6 digit salary offer in July.

I always figured that I probably could have learned to code at some point, but the curve was just too steep. Curly braces and underscores were frustrating to type and codecademy never really made the connection between echoing something to a terminal and how applications actually work. At some point I realized I was climbing a ladder that I didn't want to be on. Started looking at code again, and in the course of my research decided that Dev Bootcamp seemed legit.

I also really liked the school's pedagogy and emphasis on tackling rather than avoiding issues of sexism, ageisim, white supremacy and general social justice in tech.

These are the two factors that most set DBC apart for me from dozens of other intensive code schools- a pretty established track record, a solid pedagogy and a commitment to social justice.

In terms of cost, I took out a 2 personal, unsecured loans for what amounted at the time to a year's salary using both my bank and upstart. Not worried about paying that off at this point, but having that amount of skin in the game definitely helped... motivate me.

The prep phase [0]:

For the entire 9-week prep I worked full-time while completing my challenges, generally 15-20 hours a week. This was also the time where it was still safe to fail and drop out and, knowing myself, the time that would be the most difficult (lots of self-paced work alone). It sucked but was necessary. I began lightly studying ruby about 3 months before the prep phase officially began and benefitted from it. 

The onsite [1-3]

I was the only member of my cohort who lived in the location (Chicago) before we began. I might as well have moved as well... I can remember coming home at 6pm on a Saturday (weekend) once and thinking 'ahh... half day!' It worked for me as a highly motivating environment. The curriculum is refined literally every week- as a former teacher i can say this is basically what education should look like when you adequately fund it. Hopefully Kaplan doesn't mess it up, but they seem mostly interested in money. Dev Bootcamp's business model relies on quality education, so I'm hopeful that it won't change much.

The Job search.

The most difficult part. for me, 3 months of ups and downs and reminding myself that I can do this. In my personal experience, all but one person in my cohort to my knowledge was working in some capacity as a developer within the 4 months that we were told to expect as a baseline. In our case this would be about 85%, but the main takeaway I had from this was that as hungry as the job market was for developers, there is still a barrier to entry when you have no experience. I don't feel as worried about my next job, but the transition from 80-100 hour weeks coding to job applications and coding when you feel like it was rough.

For folks wondering about it:

Schedule a tour or go to an info session. Be realistic about your goals and what you can put into it. Ideally DBC would provide free day care for parents trying to pick up a new skill but that isn't there yet. Don't think of it as a 9-week program, but more like a 6-month program followed by several more years of developing youself in a new industry. Figure out as soon as possible whether you like it, but don't base it on whether some tedious codecademy course is 'fun'- most of your time for the next 6 months will be spent googling and doing othe rtedious work and wondering why you always feel 2 days behind.  This is a 2+-year commitment, depending on whether you have dependents, safety nets, savings and so on.

And seriously, don't bother if you think gamergate is about ethics in journalism or that diversity in tech is some PC crap. you will embarass yourself and bring shame to the program. 

I was a little hesitant at joining a coding bootcamp at first. I had been coding for two years prior, but still needed a leveling up experience wise. When I spoke with the staff at the Dev Bootcamp SF location. I knew it was the right decision for me. It was amazing to see a school approach learning the way that they did. It is really important in today's world to not only be capable of coding at a high level, you need to be able to collaborate effectively too. Dev Bootcamp's focus on those topics, I think, makes it an amazing choice.

Over the course of the program, you get quality instruction and insight from people actually in the industry. I truly believe that their approach helped me to land the job I currently have and I have been trying to get into Ops for a while. 

Chicago location has become a sort of mecca for meetups and conference afterparties. They do a great job of hosting speakers and outreach to potential employers. Great student:teacher ratio, at least in my cohort. 

After graduation you are invited to become part of their hiring network which is quite extensive and emcompasses companies from coast to coast, not just in Chicago. You are, as they say, part of the DBC family for life, and job assistance can continue even after the first job search into your second and third, etc. 

One of the things I liked the most was the section of the curriculum that focused on current issues of inclusivitiy and diversity in tech and how to give and receive feedback and work more effectively in a pair and group projects. I think this is a massively undervalued skill in the industry today and in the formal education, so if you acquire these skills now, you will have a leg up on a recent traditional 4 year CS degree grad. 

All in all a very positive and enlightening experience. Highly recommended.

I dropped out of college to attend Dev Bootcamp a year and a half ago, having only done the equivalent of one year of CS in self study. The experience was the definition of disappointing. The curriculum was all either exercises I'd done as part of my self study or some of the worst I've ever seen (ie. program an imaginary hospital even though we already gave you a week of exercises in the subject, OOP programming). When I approached teachers with questions, they would say that they'd talk to me after class and literally would avoid me afterwards. The absolute worst of it all was job placement. Stephanie refused to give me the counseling, resume help, and teaching I desperately needed, telling me to instead go talk to my fellow alumni. I wrote her bogus check in emails about how I'd saved orphans from burning buildings and she replied as if I had given an actual check in. I never was put in contact with companies. I was not alone in this, with few of my cohort getting jobs. Only the ones who previously had connections did. Later I enrolled in another bootcamp out of desperation. The precourse curriculum for that camp covered more than the entirety of Dev Bootcamp. They also provided the career help I needed, and I got a job making 6 figures with options and benefits 3 weeks after graduation. There are good coding schools out there, but Dev Boot camp is no longer one.

I thought it was awesome how they design and iterate everything based on student feedback. The environment, space and culture were all great but there is room for improvement instilling the correct mindset for continuing learning once the program ends. The bad (perhaps with any school) is that the best teachers are assigned to you by chance. In an ideal world it would be nice to have less discrepency in regards to the talent of the teachers. More to the point about instelling the correct mindset after graduation, you are caught offguard when the program ends and you're an adult again. There should be more emphasis from day 1 that things will be harder outside of the program. We need to be comfortable stepping out of the bubble while still having coding mentorship while working alone.

Also I wish there was more emphasis on data strucures and the science part of what we're going. It's a challenging thing to do because the more serious science you teach, the less you risk making things boring. DBC was a lot of joy. There's algorithm night every wednesday which is open for anyone but you usually end up not going because you're busy with other stuff. Getting into the program is too easy which means there are some students who aren't as serious as you are. That was a little frustrating. 

Overall to end in a good note it is a necessary experience if you want to become a coder and a lot of the bad things I described I am sure happen in other bootcamps as well. I 100% recommend DBC but if you're very serious about learning and doing this as a career, make sure you research and ask questions. If you're the laid back type who loves coding and technology, DBC is the perfect place for you.