Sabio

I went to the info sessions of a few different bootcamps but it was an easy choice to pick Sabio.  The biggest reason for me was that at Sabio, you work on a real product for an actual client.  I think it is much more impressive on your resume compared to having a calculator/tictactoe project or whatever.

The program is great.  You learn full-stack development, and the languages you learn are highly sought after.   I had Aaron and Varr for instructors, and they are awesome.  There’s a lot of stuff to learn and you will definitely have lots of questions.  They’ll patiently answer your questions for however long it takes for you to understand.  The cohort size is small so there is lots of one on one time.

It doesn’t end with you just graduating, or after you find your first job.  The Sabio community of instructors and fellows  is there for you if you have questions about code, work, or anything.  Sabio continues to provide workshop events to help with your professional development.

I was at a job that paid OK, but was not something I really enjoyed.  I was definitely apprehensive to walk away from a steady paycheck to jump into this program in an entirely different field.  From zero experience in programming, I was hired 3 weeks after graduating.  I’m enjoying the code, and at a higher salary to boot.

My story is a little different from most who went through the program.  I was already an established teacher in a great school district, with good pay and benefits.  After 10 years in education though, I wasn't as excited to come to work each day like I used to and if I couldn't put my heart into what I was doing anymore, I wanted a career change.  After looking at many different options (masters, doctorate, other certificate programs all related to education), I knew I didn't want to spend 2+ years just to try out a career that I may or may not enjoy.  Fortunately for me, I was able to connect with a software developer who worked at my school.  Upon finding out that he was a music major that transitioned into programming through a bootcamp on the east coast, I started looking into bootcamps offered in SoCal.   

I researched many different bootcamps, but in the end chose Sabio because of the extended prep period (Phase 1).  While most other programs offered a 2 week intro period, Sabio offered 4-6 weeks of part-time prep time with an instructor to make sure you are actually interested in coding, you get along well with the instructors, and you really are ready to pull the plug on your last career.  There is a coding test at the end of Phase 1 to make sure you have the fundamentals and dedication necessary to be successful in Phase 2, their full-time 12 week program where you are paired up with a real startup company to build their prototype.  

I absolutely loved my two instructors at Sabio, Varr in Phase 1 and Aaron in Phase 2.  Both are extremely knowledgeable, patient, and just kind, well-rounded people that are pleasant to be around.  I was the only female in the cohort but that is pretty typical in a male-dominated industry.  My cohort and instructors were great, and fostered a collaborative learning environment.  Don't be afraid to get on the queue for the one-on-one time with the instructors, even if it's just for them to clarify what you need to do for the 2nd or 3rd time until you can wrap your head around the task at hand.  They are there for support.  That being said, you will definitely have to put in 70+ hours a week.  As Aaron said many times throughout the 12 weeks, "If it was easy, everyone would do it."  The more work you put in, the more knowledge and practice you'll get out that would better prepare you when you are ready to interview for jobs.

My cohort of 8 people all got hired for full-time positions within a month of graduating from Sabio!  I chose Sabio because of their longer prep period for true beginners, hands-on experience on a real life project, interview prep, and supportive instructors who do whatever they can to help you as long as you pull your weight and put in your hours.  I've already recommended Sabio to my brothers, who are interested in career changes.  I recommend going to Sabio's info sessions to see for yourself what the program is all about.  

Why Sabio --

Not too long ago, I decided I wanted to learn to code and become a part of the fast growing tech industry. I was working as an accountant at that time and to put it lightly, I despised it. Every morning I would wake up dreading going to work. I was always intrigued by programmers and even did some tutorials on my own.

Though I had heard of many coding bootcamps, I was hesitant to go through one because I was unsure whether they would provide the skills necessary, in what seemed like a short 12 weeks to land a job as a web developer. Rather than shutting the idea down completely, I did A LOT of research and attended numerous info sessions. I was skeptical up until I attended Sabio’s info session. During this info session, I was impressed by how confident the instructors were about teaching anyone to code, if you were willing put in the time and effort. Having very little knowledge on the subject, this really stuck out to me. They spoke about the amount of students that get hired as web developers once they leave the program, which is just about everyone who is looking to find a job in this field.  They told us that Sabio provided professional development opportunities even after the bootcamp was over, so you as a web developer could continue to grow and learn. Though these were great factors already, it was the moment they mentioned that they bring in real clients who have an application that needs to be built. This is what their students work on during the 12 weeks of the bootcamp. I am a kinesthetic learner by all means, so when I heard this during the info session I had made my decision.

During Sabio --

During this 12 week period, you are focused on learning the full spectrum of web development, from front end to back end. What I appreciated most during this process was that there was also a focus on developing your problem solving skills, to get you to think like a developer, which is essential in this line of work. This program like most great things, is difficult and grueling, however you are given the tools and support system (Sabio and your cohort) to help you conquer these 12 weeks. If you submerge yourself into this new world fully, you will come out a winner!

After Sabio --

Long after you have completed the bootcamp, Sabio will be there for you. It’s amazing to me just how much they invest in each of their students, even if you’re no longer going through the actual bootcamp. Whether it’s for a big career decision you are facing, or a small debugging issue that you just can’t seem to crack. They also give you a community filled with alumni who have gone down the same path as you, who you can connect with and learn from or perhaps even build something with.  Once you’ve chosen Sabio, they are your family. As for me, I am currently employed and doing something that I finally love, all thanks to Sabio. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be where I am today and I am so grateful to have made this decision!

Real clients with real app ideas + awesome instructors + cool work environment + free coffee + free beer.

Yes, it is exhaustive, I was putting in 70hrs+ each week, but I was fortunate to have a supportive and really really funny cohort to pull me through while keeping me entertained. Shout out to my main instructor Aaron for always believing in me even though I was having a hard time believing in myself if I can do this coding thing. Coming from a science background was a complete 180 turn. Fortunately, Aaron was there every step of the way to guide me in the right direction without actually giving me all of the answers. He understands that everyone goes at their own pace and caters to us in different ways that challenge us and help us get better rapidly. The patience on this man has no boundaries. I asked him the same question multiple times and he just has a way to tell you to get your shit together without making you feel like shit. You will get shitty days where you will question what the heck you are even doing, but you just have to believe in the program and push on.

I found a job in less than a month after bootcamp and was given the salary that I asked for. Thank you Sabio!

What I appreciated about Sabio was the no nonsense environment. Don't waste our time and we won't waste yours and vise versa. Sabio teaches skills and sometimes more importantly concepts that are crucial to the web development world. These ideas serve as foundations for you to learn new skills with ease. Over all I would say the course is difficult. It is a bootcamp and it is demanding. The reward really pays off when possible employers test your skills and are impressed with your knowledge and comprehension of web development. The only advice I would give future students is to fully prepare for and intense 12 weeks. Other than that, It is definately a course worth taking if you want to change your life.

Plain and simple, this program is worth every penny spent towards getting the skill necessary to enter the workforce head on.

I was introduced to Sabio by a friend of mine that had been looking for bootcamps after I was laid off from my job of 6 years making 15/hr.

I went to the orange county meet up with another friend in a similar situation and we sold on sabio by the amazing orange county instructor Aaron. He supplied us with every detail we needed to know before taking the plunge into the intensive program.

after going through pre work at the culver city location and passing the assessments. we transition to Newport for our cohort and instantly meshed with the team that had already been working together down south.

the program gave everyone the tools they needed to pick up the skill set very effectively. Aarons one on one time was guided specifically to each person's needs and helped everyone crush their goals one after the other.

With the amazing teamwork that was built on top of Aaron's foundation of knowledge, there was no stopping us, and we delivered an amazing MVP to our client after an immersive 3 months.The time flew by and we were well prepared to enter the job market.

While I Felt confident in my skill, I was a little nervous about my opportunities being someone with ZERO programing experience before Sabion, and no college degree to fall back on, but within 1 month. Everyone including myself were hired out of our cohort because we stuck the the plan that Sabio puts in place to effectively get a job.

I was able to find a job that payed me much more than my last job, with a atmosphere and location right where I wanted with only 6 months of pedal to the metal work.

TL;DR - Sabio is 100% worth it and you would only be hurting yourself going somewhere else.

- Employed Sabio Fellow with no college degree or experience

i had a good career in business as an account executive, but chose to change to programming and I am so thankful to have found Sabio. I took the class in OC with Aaron, and let me tell you... this guy was an amazing instructor. He really pushed me to the limits and never was irritated with me. Beyond that, we had amazing cohort, and everyone was helpful and got along great. It was one of the best experiences of my life. If you study and do what Sabio tells you, and you try your best, YOU WILL GET A JOB. Sabio also truly cares about you and wants you to succeed. It's the best Bootcamp ever. I was able to learn a brand new stack for a take home project for a job I wanted, I crushed the project and now I'm hired making 85k, straight out of the Bootcamp, no prior experience, no computer science degree.

Best decision of my life. Sabio really is amazing.

I did a lot of research before I chose to enroll Sabio and I don't regret my decision. My experience at Sabio was simply amazing. I not only learn how to code, but also build a great relationship with amazing people. I loved the culture and this is another thing that differenciates Sabio from the other coding bootcamps. Gregorio and Liliana are very considerate and hard-working, they are always there to support with any needs and they try their best to make the program even better. The instructor was very knowledgeable, patient and encourging, and he was always there to provide hands-on support. I couldn't ask for more. 

The curriculum is well structured. You start from the pre-work where you learn the basics of programming language and this helps you a lot when you get into intensive 12 weeks program. Another great thing about Sabio is that you get to work on the project for a real company. They apply industry standard practices so you get the feel of working as a developer in the real world. 

The intensive program was definitely challenging, it required 70 hours of coding a week, and there were tons of information to absorb in such a short period of time. But it really pays off in the end. I've graduated 3 weeks ago and am already working as a full-time web developer. I am so happy with the outcome and excited about building my new career!

My story is not unlike other stories. I came to coding because I was looking for new opportunities. In my particular case, my career as a freelance music engineer was not providing the security and stability I craved. So a friend suggested that I look at coding bootcamps in the Bay Area where he’d recently found a job working as QA engineer. He was seeing that people without CS degrees could find work in the industry.  I decided to look locally and found, to my surprise, a couple of bootcamps in Los Angeles that looked interesting.

Sabio was the first that I looked at and I was really impressed with Gregorio’s description of the program and his passion.  In fact, I judged each subsequent bootcamp info session by what Gregorio had to say that day.  I was impressed with Sabio’s dedication to inclusiveness. I was impressed with the fact that recent grads are not hired back by the bootcamp.  This was important to me because it meant that they weren’t padding their employment stats and that they cared about the level of instruction and mentorship.  I was also impressed by the commitment to further development, through meet ups and hack-a-thons, after the program was done.  Finally, Gregorio and Liliana truly seemed to care about the welfare of the participants.  Their goal is to build developers and their commitment was palpable.

I began the actual 12 week bootcamp in July and the experience was tremendous. You aren’t just taught syntax and the programming patterns, you are taught to apply and debug.  You are taught best practices and good coding habits.  And being a full stack program, you get to participate in all the layers from front to back.  As someone who has always loved getting under the hood, seeing how it all fit together was one of my biggest thrills.  

As far as coding skills, I feel very confident.  However, there is always more to learn. But part of the program is encouraging curiosity and good investigative skills.  And if you get stuck or need advice, the instructors are there.  John Darragh was extremely knowledgable and really great at directing our efforts towards the best results.  Sabio also fosters a great collaborative environment as well.  My cohort was an integral part of my learning experience.  I could always turn to my neighbor and ask for their opinion and we all learned from each others failures and victories.

There were a lot of long days and tough challenges but the message, to trust the pattern and to stay positive, given by Gregorio on day one, held true. I am now gainfully employed, my financial situation is greatly improved and my career is finally at a place where I feel I can build and grow professionally. I am doing something that interests me and challenges me daily.  I owe everything to this experience, to Gregorio and Liliana, to John and my cohort and to the greater Sabio community, who have really become a second extended family.  

This review is not intended to get you to sign up for Sabio, I'm merely going to state my experience and I’ll leave the decision making up to you. Skip to the bottom if you want the abridged version.

Unlike many people probably reading this, I actually knew someone who went through Sabio (his name is also Brandon and provided one of the reviews below) and I had the opportunity to grill him on his experience, what he thought it was worth, if it was a scam, etc. And after an hour and a half of interrogating him I don’t think he said a single negative thing about his time at Sabio, but even then I was still skeptical because this seemed way too good to be true.

But I gave it a shot and checked out the info session with Aaron. It still sounded good, Aaron seemed like a great guy, and Sabio was extremely transparent about everything including their placement rates, salary expectations and work load which really appealed to me cause it showed they have nothing to hide and are proud of what they’ve accomplished.

After the info session, I looked at the websites for two other nearby coding schools who I won’t list here and ruled them out for the following reasons: 1. One of them had a curriculum that is a waste of time. That bootcamp would waste two weeks of your precious money on HTML/CSS when you can just learn that on your own in a day to be honest (and in Sabio you learn it during prework). 2. The other bootcamp was not really established, didn’t seem to have a good track record, and the students’ final projects were not something I would want to show to a potential employer (compared to in Sabio you work on a real business-ready level application).

So, I started prework with Varr (who is going to now start his first cohort in 3 months) and he was fantastic—he explained everything clearly and concisely, and the man gives the best metaphors and analogies I’ve ever heard besides being a really cool guy. Fast forward several weeks and we start the 3 month intensive.

First, the Newport location is incredible. There is unlimited free coffee, tea, and beer. The common space with the tv, couch, and kitchenette are fantastic for lunch and unwinding. The weather is great and the nearby food is delicious (although expensive, smarter people than I packed their lunches regularly).

Secondly, I was extremely fortunate that I absolutely loved my cohort of 8 people. We all got along together very well, and they made the 3 months go by so quickly. The whole time we were joking and having fun while coding so it never even felt like we were working.

Third, and most importantly, Aaron is a goddamn god of an instructor. Aaron is highly knowledgeable, and is able to phrase everything is such a way that anyone can pick it up. He is beyond patient. I would go up and ask for help on the same problem several times in a row, and he would guide me through the process while leaving the learning up to me while not getting even slightly irked that I basically asked the same question five times. And I think one of the most underrated and best qualities of Aaron as an instructor is his ability to tailor the curriculum and what you’re doing to your skill level. If you’re blazing through everything, he’ll give you a harder feature to implement; if you’re weak at something, he’ll give you a task that will shore up where you’re lacking to get you up to speed. Besides being an awesome, funny, cheerful guy; he really cares about seeing you succeed and that feeling is palpable in your learning environment.

Okay, that’s all nice and great and all, but what about the jobs and your preparedness afterwards? Sabio helps you to a ridiculous extent in your job search. They review your resume several times over, hire a photographer for your LinkedIn headshot, and provide you with unlimited support. I went into interviews and absolutely amazed employers with how much I knew with 3+ months experience. You will be so well prepared if you just follow what they ask you to do. The job market for .net developers is crazy and all of my cohort has had interviews nonstop.

Exactly a week after the last day of class I not only received one offer, but two offers. One for 70k and other for 80k.

Gregorio, Liliana, Aaron, and ALL of the Sabio alumni are so unreal helpful. They are constantly helping everyone, posting jobs, and providing continued support—hell, Gregorio just helped someone debug some code at 1am on slack. And throughout the job search they have been nothing but helpful and responsive. If you have any questions at all they WANT to help you and will answer all your questions.

Honestly, I didn't know what to expect, but I am absolutely so glad I did Sabio. 

SUMMARY

-EXTREMELY worthwhile experience

-Aaron is incredible, Newport location is great, cohort was awesome

-Came out with two job offers for 70k and 80k within a week of finishing

-Continued support is VERY REAL past graduation – they want to see you succeed and keep succeeding

-Just going to class every day isn't going to get you that job; you have to come hungry to learn, bust your ass, and hustle-- but if you follow their guidelines you will come out with a job (or several) and a great community

-If you read all of this, then you should do yourself the the favor and at least check out an info session

MAJOR DISCLAIMER: If you are just looking for a post that validates if you'll learn what you need to learn to be able to get a job then read no further. You will get the skills to be a hireable full stack web developer. You will get a job. You will make more money than you've made before. This post is not intended for you.

This post is intended for the dreamers, the people who are lost looking for a greater purpose in this marathon called life, the people who have no sense of direction in life's course. This post is for you.

6 months ago to this date, I was exactly in the position you're in at this very moment. Feeling inadequate, searching for something that gave your life meaning, working a dead-end job that is tremendously insignificant to you. I was going to school studying Computer Science and I hated it, absolutely despised it. I wasn't learning anything applicable to getting me closer to building the apps that I wanted to create, just learned an abundance of theory, which is fine if that's what you desire, but I needed to gain practical skills. So I began looking for bootcamps after hearing a ton of great things about what they help people achieve.

Then BOOM, a find a bootcamp called SABIO, coincidentally on this very website course report. I began reading reviews, as you are doing right now, and researching further into what exactly this bootcamp provides. After further research, I said screw it and went to an info session and got to meet the man behind it all, one of the Co-Founders of Sabio Gregorio Rojas. The man was very upfront and honest with us about what to expect if you decided to go through with joining the program. As a man who appreciates blunt honesty, I knew this was the place that I needed to be. 

After finishing my semester I jumped right into prework and grinded it out so I could pass the assessment and start the intensive program the following month. Once you're in the program be prepared to be challanged physically, mentally, emotionally. There is no half-assing this program you're going to have to give it your all, 70 hours a week for 12 weeks is not an easy task. However, don't feel like you're alone. Your instructor, who has at least 10+ years experience in the industry, knows their shit and will be there to help guide you. Your cohort, who you'll be going through war with. These people are going to be your family for the next 3 months. Help each other and build each other up because you will all need each other at some point. I was very fortunate because I had a great group who just meshed very well each other and have made lifelong friends because of it. 

So 3 months after I started the intensive program, what has happened? Learned things about myself, about my character that I didn't even know was inside of me, learned the skills to be a full stack web developer and feel I can go to any company and contribute right away, created an awesome web application, learned the skills to create my own web application, had a Q&A with representatives of Snapchat, won a hackathon in my 9th week of training, got a job offer in my 11th week of training, and started my first day of work at my new job 4 days after graduation. 

Words can't even begin to describe how appreciative of Gregorio and Liliana for giving me the opportunity to change my life for the better. I was in a dark place and Sabio helped me find light again, they saved me. I'm not going to try and sell you on why Sabio is better than every other bootcamp out in the SoCal Region and as Gregorio would put it "do whatever that makes you happy", which he doesn't say in a sarcastic manner, he actually means it. However, I will say if you're looking for a bootcamp where the Founders care, the instructors care, even the alumni who graduated prior care, like genuinely care, about your well being and learning and growing to become a fantastic programmer in the industry. 

I want to thank Gregorio and Liliana for creating this program and giving us a chance to change our lives. Your vision has changed the world without you all even realizing it yet. I want to thank John, my instructor, for having the patience and for guiding me through this process. I also want to thank the other instructors Jimmy and Aaron for the help you gave us when we needed it. I want to thank my Cohort for being the best group of people I've worked with, you guys have now become family to me. I say this with an unwavering certainty that there is no one I would have rather gone through this process than you all.

Thank you Sabio for everything.