DevLeague

After graduating college with a CS degree, I had developed a cynical attitude about education as a whole. I felt as if I'd reached a limit in my capacity for technical growth in college, I considered other options to help me dive deeper into programming and something that would give me practical experience. I began working for the state as a digital archive specialist. After a year, for similar reasons, I felt I wanted more. A coding bootcamp seemed like not a bad bet. Thankfully there was DevLeague, right in the heart of my beautiful home of Oahu, Hawaii.

DevLeague was groundbreaking. For the first time, I found a place where better I did, the better DevLeague did. No amount of words can describe the rigor and the challenge of the program. An 80-90 hour weekly commitment is typical. I lost sleep and was challenged consistently. I was surrounded (and out-competed) by some of the most gifted people I’ve ever met. Once course is over, I was thrust into the job search, which was filled with entirely different challenges. For me it was personal projects, phone calls, contracted work, technical screenings, white boarding sessions, in-person interviews, salary negotiations.

And then, almost miraculously, things started working out. I was interviewing at places I’d only dreamed of working on. I had the confidence to choose which offers to accept and which to reject.

DevLeague truly provides a life-changing experience. Everyone from the founders to the instructors and TAs are amazingly brilliant people who not only understand the material but have a genuine desire to help others. The caliber of the students is phenomenal and diverse. Various people from different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. All in all, I have zero regrets about choosing this program. All promises were kept. It was the most challenging educational endeavor I've ever attempted but, thanks to DevLeague, I feel confident about my future as a Software Engineer at Microsoft. If you're passionate about the field and are willing to put in the hard work, there's no better place to learn software development. Plus, the beaches in Hawaii are a breathtaking added bonus. :)

For profit company that will ask you for $12,000+ up front with no guarantee of their services. The instructors are volatile and abusive, micromanaging, and will threaten to deny you a refund if you express any dissatisfaction whatsoever. Boring, soulless curriculum, secondary to freeCodeCamp--which comes with a price tag of $0, compared to the experience of paying over $12k to be harassed by angst-filled burnouts pretending to be educators. It's a true shame that their greed has infected the dev community in Hawai'i.

I had a great experience at DevLeague.  I joined DevLeague from a completely different industry, and had no coding background.  After completing the course I am confident in my ability to create full stack applications, and feel prepared to start a career in software development.  

The full time class is 66 hours a week, and can be mentally exhausting, but I always enjoyed going to class.  Some concepts might take longer to grasp, and it is important to take it upon yourself to put in the extra time where need be.  The instructors and TA's are great and there was plenty of opportunity to get personal help working through difficult problems.  The curriculum is designed to achieve results.  Students learn real, in demand skills that help start a career in software.  On top of that students are also gaining the skills to learn new languages and technologies on their own.  

The job assistance doesn't stop when you graduate.  DevLeague has a deep network with many connections, both in Hawaii and the mainland.  They help you prepare with mock interviews, detailed feedback, resume assistance, and students are encouraged to attend networking events where they can meet people in the industry.   

Overall I couldn't be happier with my decision to learn to code at DevLeage, and I would encourage anyone who wants to pursue a career in software to consider DevLeague. 

I just graduated from DevLeague two days ago and I am so satistifed from everything I learnt during this program. I am a belgian native and last year I decided to change career and go from a business career to a coding career. I didn't want to spend a full year at Colege and a bootcamp looked therefore as the perfect solution. After some research, I found about DevLeague and I have directly been seduced by their program. Isolated on a beautiful island, super intense schedule and with a curriculum that covers a lot of areas from the front-end to the back-end; this was the program I had been looking for.

The application process already set the tone of the program but this is a good thing as you can directly see if this made for you or not. You really have to be ready to put your life apart for twelve weeks and be ready to a lot of hard working. This is surely some sacrifice but in the end it is totally worth it. Twelve weeks ago, my knowledge were close to 0 and today I am now able to build web applications, develop databases, deploy a website, etc. Every topic is covered in deep and put into practise with daily exercises and weekly small projects.

Last but not least, the human experience is also something unique. You will make great friends through this bootcamp and DevLeauge like to consider its students as part of a big family. You will really feel well welcomed and not considered at all as just a number.

I am now ready for a new step in my career and now exactly what I want to aim for. I am really grateful to Devleague to have succeeded this in twelve weeks.

Just graduated from DevLeague, and what an experience it was! 

Went from not knowing what a variable or a function was to being able to build real applications that people may actually use. 

Instructors were available ALL the time. Instructors and staff were held in extremely high regard in the dev community not just locally in Hawaii, but throughout the US. There were 2 instructors, 1 TA for our 16 person class, which I believe is highly personalized for these bootcamps and I felt that the school genuinely cares for each student's success and outcome.

Classmates, instructors and staff became family after this 6 month experience, totally life-changing.

Short story:
DevLeague is the bootcamp you want.

Long story:
Not feeling satisfied with my education at the time I wanted to check out different alternatives. I ended up leaving my Bachelors Degree in Sociology and joining DevLeague. Flying all the way from Mexico to Hawaii, with the Mexican peso doing really poorly, I was really hoping that the money I was investing would be worth it. DevLeague did not disappoint. For three months my brain was in a state of bliss while learning all this new cool stuff. The teachers really make sure that you are learning how to code well, you learn everything from the ground up so that you understand how frameworks and libraries work, and they really try to make sure you are writing clean, fast and efficient code.
The atmosphere there is amazing, everybody is really fun, loving and supportive, but what I love the most about people there is their humbleness. In DevLeague you come across insanely good developers, that take time off their busy lives to teach other people what they know. I admire so many people there. I was really satisfied with the course, I wished it had not ended.

Longer story:
I wrote a blog post about DevLeague
https://medium.com/@estefaniamorton/ode-to-devleague-ace97f9922d5#.bgloveoms

 I was your traditional college student pursuing a computer science degree when in my third year I realized school just wasn't teaching what I wanted to learn CODING.  I became bored at school and started to just teach myself how to code. I soon found out this was not easy and was not getting very far on my own. Main reason being, CODING IS HARD and its a vast ocean of information, I didn't even know where to start.  I knew I wanted a career in the tech world and that traditional schooling wasn't giving me what I needed. Thats when I decided to make a change.

I randomly met a guy at the beach that went through a programming bootcamp and talked very highly of how they teach and his experiecne. This peeked my interest right away he told me there is one right here in Hawaii. I instantly began researching bootcamps and decided that Devleague was where I wanted to apply. I chose Devleague because of the amazing communication I experienced when researching the school and could see they just had something the others didn't.  So I trusted my gut and applied the next day. They gave me a coding entrance exam which I have to say was very challegning. I worked around the clock on this project teaching myself different mark-up languages and coding languages. I struggled so hard with this, but along the way Devleague was there to answer any questions I had to help me without giving me answers. I knew then that they wanted me to succeed so I worked even harder to prove that I wanted to get into this program.  After finally completing this exam I received my acceptance into the program. 

After accepting the offer to attend the program, the work began instantly prepping myself  before I even step foot in the classroom. And once again, Devleague was there helping me along the way from video conferences, chat, email. Anything I needed I simply had to just ask.

Throughout the duration of the program, we were pushed and challenged everyday with new concepts. The instructors were able to take something very complicated and break it down in a manner that anyone can understand, then solidified these concepts through project-orientated learning. The instructors were so knowledgable and helpful with anything I needed. If I didn't understand something, I just asked and they would sit with me till I understood it. Thats when I really knew I made the right choice coming here. The staff would do anything to help me. To be honest, I wasn't the sharpest student in my class and struggled everyday. I don't know how many times I thought "can I really do this?" But everyday I worked harder, saught help, and came back the next day. Besides the classroom, we were able to attend software developer meetups and participate in some amazing hackathons. 

After completing the program, I look back at all my struggles and am happy I went through Devleague. They taught me the skills I needed to be a successful and confident developer and went out of their to ensure I had a great experience. Even after completing the program, the help still flows continously from job assistance, coding questions, interview prep and this list goes on. Devleague's motto is " to have a great experience before, during, and after the program". Well let me be the first to tell you they nailed it. In summary, if you want the complete package then look no further!!!!!!  You aren't just another student to them, you are family and I felt that from day one. I would like to thank the entire staff at Devleague for everything you have done for me and continue to do. Happy Coding :)

DevLeague was undoubtedly the best decision of my life and this isn't an overstatement. 
 

My Background:

In college, I originally majored in Computer Science. I enjoyed creating programs and the satisfaction I felt from making a working product. However, towards the end of the first year, I was beginning to doubt myself because the material was getting more challenging and all my classmates seemed to have been coding long before college started. I ended up changing my major and graduating with a degree in Health Science. I didn't believe in myself, and that was the biggest regret in my life.

I began working at a hospital in Boston performing administrative work. I knew right away that this wasn't the career path for me. I desired a technical challenge and I wanted to gain skills that were both rare and valuable in society. I began learning how to code again online. I enjoyed it a lot and I ultimately decided to quit my job and move home to Hawaii to start DevLeague.

I wanted something more for myself so I decided to believe in my abilities and take a risk. I left my life of comfort and normality in hopes of a brighter and more challenging career.

DevLeague:

Instructors/Job Assistance

• extremely helpful, passionate, friendly, and knowledgeable
• encourage your problem solving skills by assisting you towards an answer instead of providing you with answers
• genuinely cares about your outcomes after the program and are there to help you make connections and prepare you for interviews 

Curriculum

• large range of topics covered but also covered in depth
• many of the topics covered are job requirements or preferred qualifications for software and web development jobs
• assignments were both fun and challenging

Summary

I thoroughly enjoyed studying at DevLeague and I would encourage the program to any friends who want to learn about web development. My advice is to believe in yourself and never give up.

I heard about Devleague rougly in the middle of 2015 over the radio thinking to myself what Devleague was all about, sadly, i ignored it and continued looking for a job. I Graduated with a Bachelors of Political Science thinking i would be a civil service employee for either a state or federal agency. For my entire life, i had always been involved in public service (National guardsman for 10 years)

Fast forward to April 2016, a friend that i had gone to school with told me about Devleague, i was still hessitant...

July 2016 i met with my friend that had finished the program a year prior during my lunch break and told me everything that he loved about webdevelopment and thus that sparked my journey. After lunch i signed up for Devleague, interviewed and saw the coding challenge... 
After looking at the coding challenge i contemplated on if this field was for me. i was able to make it into the August Prep-course which Victor taught, this course gave me enough to learn fundamentals of HTML, CSS, and Javascript, which was needed in to finish the coding challenge. The Prep-course was extremely useful, due to the fact that i had no prior experience with code. Without out, i probably would not have made it finish the coding challenge. *FUN FACT* i actually QUIT my full time job prior to even being accepted into the full time course, HUGE gamble but it paid off!
I got accepted into Cohort 13, September to November and thus begun my journey into the Web dev community.
Let me remind people that this course is seriously not for everyone. There will be many moments of highs and lows, many moments of contemplating of quiting the program. Fight your fears, Make it through, trust the instructors, and embrace the merges! Because everything will come full circle in the end!

Looking back 3 months ago to today after completing the bootcamp, i would never imagine that i could be capable of building a website *full stack* *front and back end* and present it to friends and family!

Fear and the uncertainty drove me to complete the course! Run with it and don't look back!!!
 

If you're on the fence about joining Dev League, I would recommend jumping into it. You will enjoy your time in class and dont give up on yourself.

Pros: 
The instructors were amazing, they were super supportive and knowledgeable in all topics that we covered. The classroom environment was amazing as well, I had a ton of fun over 12 weeks and would definitely do it again. In 12 weeks we covered a ton of content, created a bunch of projects, and we also learned how to build a full application from the ground up. Along with all the technical knowledge, you also create life long bonds with your classmates. I enjoyed the challenges that I faced and conquered and look forward to a career in web development.

Cons: 
None, the hours are long. But when you and your classmates are figuring out challenges and problems, time flies by so fast that you might not be able to finish solving the problem.

The driving force behind my decision to join a coding boot-camp was waking up everyday and not enjoying the career I had. The lucrative salary was the only reason for me getting up in the morning and going to work. I spent many years in the IT field however,  having held various Consultant and Analyst roles, these positions never really allowed me to execute anything myself. I was always promised training and mentor-ship but there was never enough time. I kept taking on more and more work that didn't allow me any room to learn the development side of IT. I wanted to be more creative, I wanted to build things, I wanted to make something that people used but I needed to learn how and college wasn't an option for me. 

Decisioning- Before selecting Dev League, I spent many hours researching other boot camps. A few things that stood out to me from Dev League were the class sizes, the selection process, and the involvement of the founders. The smaller sizes appealed to me as I figured I would get more one on one time with instructors and not fade away in the background or be seen as just another student. The selection process is also a bit different from other boot-camps. Dev League requires you to complete a coding challenge that is evaluated for acceptance by the founders. Good thing Dev League also offers a prep course that covers some fundamentals of programming. This really helped me in completing the coding challenge. I liked that Dev League doesn't just accept anyone willing to pay the tuition. I knew upon being accepted that I would be in a class with like minded individuals who also put in the time and effort to complete the challenge and the founders were the ones making that decision not some recruiter or senior developer or anyone else. There was never any mystery of who they were. I would say that was the biggest factor in my decision.  So, I sold everything I owned and my husband and I packed two suitcases and we moved to Hawaii!!!

Experience in Dev League- If you're looking for a boot-camp that is just going to feed you lectures and give you homework this will not be a good choice for you. The instructors do a great job of giving you enough information until the light bulbs go off in your head and the rest you have to figure out on your own. A lot of time is spent researching and coding trial and errors. Part of what Dev League strives for is teaching students how to teach themselves. Which was frustrating for me at first, after pounding my head against the wall a few times I really just wanted to yell at the instructors to just give me the answer! However, I think my toughest times were my greatest lessons. I chose to take the full-time course because I wanted to be 110% focused without any distractions. The days were really long, 6 days a week from about 9am to sometimes 10-11pm for me. It definitely takes a lot of self-motivation and drive to complete the course. Do not expect a hand out. Dev League definitely makes you earn your stripes. You are ultimately responsible for your own success. Dev League helps aid to that success by providing a great network of resources and support. Not only did Dev League offer professional advice on my resume, but a Linked In profile/social media review, active email distributions on open positions within the Dev League network all around the world, professional advise from the founders, and an extended "FRAMILY" of Dev League alumni. All of which I was not expecting. Also, from the beginning of the application process, to the Skye interview, to the prep course, the full time class, part time class, prep course, the networking events, the coffee hours, the happy hours, and all the way to after graduation the founders are involved in ALL of it. 

Conclusion- Joining Dev League was the best decision I ever made. It was a huge sacrifice for me to leave my family, friends, belongings, and LIFE behind in Austin, Texas. I moved to Hawaii not knowing anyone, I had never lived outside of Texas. The course itself was not easy and it really made me learn how to brand myself as a person verses just making myself marketable just to get a job. It was the best investment that I've made in myself. I've made really great friends and connections that will last a lifetime. Three weeks after Dev League I received my first job offer as a Data Conversion Developer Analyst. A hybrid position that was created for me by an employer in the Dev League network.

If you would like more information about my journey to Hawaii or my experience in Dev League and life after Dev League, please feel free to email me at infonataliemacias@gmail.com.