Coding DojoReviews of codingdojo.com

If you love puzzling together solutions logically and at the same time love letting your creative side flourish, then programming may be your calling--and Coding Dojo is an AMAZING way to immerse yourself into the software development world. Attending the on-site bootcamp was absolutely THE best decision I have ever made! However, it was an experience riddled with so, so much struggle, and yet it was (maybe even paradoxically) one of the best times of my life. Can you have zero programming experience and within 14 weeks become a full-stack developer? Absolutely. But, keep the following advice in mind for success: My Own Personal Background: I graduated U.W. with a degree in Linguistics, minor in Russian, afterwards I worked for 2 tech start-ups, however in non-technical, customer-facing roles (customer service and inside sales). AKA, zero coding experience. 1.) If you can, ABSOLUTELY self-study coding to prepare yourself for the intensity of the bootcamp. Preparation is like the bulwark to protect your sanity from the tsunami of information that is the Dojo's curriculum. I had only started and completed the pre-bootcamp coursework provided 1 week before starting, and I had to play an exhausting game of catch-up; yes, I completed the pre-coursework, but mentally I was still familiarizing myself with basic syntax--it's hard to focus on the higher level concepts they're trying to teach you, if you're stumbling on the smaller, lower level details. Do yourself a favor by familiarizing yourself with your basic building blocks and tools, so you see the bigger picture more easily 2.) Be prepared to put in A LOT of time. Again, for me personally, coming from a non-technical background, I had to put in 12 - 14 hr days and sustain this workload for 14 weeks, 0 absences, no excuses. It is not easy. But at the same time, nobody is forcing you to stay for half the day. You must be self-motivated, and ultimately PASSIONATE about coding to merely sustain said self-motivation for several months. Oh and also, don't work at the same time as schooling here (unless you're a robot and literally do not need sleep, because sleep is the only thing you're actually going to have time to do outside of studying). 3.) The Dojo's staff sincerely do their best to help you and have fantastic rapport with the students, however the curriculum is intentionally built to NOT give you all the answers. They aren't just teaching you to be programmers, but they are also teaching you to be self-sufficient as well. As frustrating as it may seem, self-sufficiency is a huge part of learning at the Dojo, and it will make you a better, more adept learner in life. 4.) Break the ice with everybody in your cohort. Make them your best friends during these 14 weeks. Your classmates will be your #1 support system when you're all learning together. If you've hit a wall, seek help from others. Give back and teach in return, as you learn profoundly when you teach and help solidify the information for yourself. Ultimately my experience was so positive because of the strong bond between the entire community, students and Dojo staff alike. Overall, you get what you put in. Put in the effort. Get the results. Graduating as a triple black belt, I am confident in my ability to whip out a full MVP app and deploy it under 5 hrs. If you are ready to dedicate time and hardwork, then I would absolutely recommend Coding Dojo to you.

One of the best learning experiences of my life. Initially, I was skeptical of the bootcamp due to their seemingly fabricated logo: "Learn how to be a developer in 14 weeks". Upon completing a B.S degree from the University of Washington, I thought it would be impossible to learn such a broad topic in a short time. Thereafter, I was completely blown away by the amount of knowledge I have gained during the 14 weeks. With limited prior programming experience, I put in 60 + hours per week including weekends and was able to achieve not only 3 black belts from 3 full-stacks of technology, but I was also able to find a full-time Software Engineer opportunity a couple week prior to graduation.

I had a wonderful experience going through the Coding Dojo onsite boot camp. The learning platform was well maintained and 99% of the time had everything I needed to help me learn. More importantly, the instructors I learned from were always helpful and focused on guiding me to figure things out for myself rather than giving me the narrow-scope answer I needed that second. The environment there was very positive, and they do a lot to get students to support each other. Going in to the program I had next to no experience in computer programming and that aspect of community really helped me not to get discouraged when I hit a road block. While I usually spent about 45-55 hours a week to keep up with the schedule, there were a lot of people who put in between 60 and 80 hours a week. For me personally, I would have had trouble working a job while going through the program. It is a really difficult 14 weeks, and it helps to be a quick learner as you are moving through topics quite fast. I would definitely recommend Coding Dojo to someone looking to become a full stack web developer. Before enrolling, make sure you're ready to put in a lot of effort sustained over 14 weeks dealing with some confusing topics. You also need to comfortable asking for help from peers and instructors because there will definitely be times when you need to. If all that sounds doable, I think Coding Dojo is a great place to rapidly develop the skills required to be a programmer.

I've got to say, my time at Coding Dojo was really great. As a means to leverage a career change, I have no reservations recommending the company. The short version of this review is that the people and the curriculum combine to provide amazing support to the students during their studies, and prepare them well for finding a solid, entry-level job when they're done. I'm extremely happy with my decision to go to Coding Dojo. For those interested in more detail, here are a few points I'd emphasize: 1) The curriculum: they teach three full stacks of software development over fourteen weeks, which can give you a great range of marketability. I was at the DC campus, where they only teach MEAN, Java, and Python (in addition to a two-week standard unit on HTML/CSS/JavaScript). This represented less selection than at other campuses, I know, but the languages were very well chosen for the area, and I felt like what I'd learned matched up really well with job offerings in DC when I was done. The learning platform itself is well curated, too, and they take the creation of useful materials very seriously, soliciting lots of feedback and responding to it well. I also appreciated that Coding Dojo puts a healthy emphasis on learning core CS concepts like algorithms and data structures. You spend about an hour every day on this material, drawing from an in-house textbook that I'll be going back to for the rest of my life. The material I learned in these sessions, beyond being darned fascinating, was also extremely helpful when it came to job interviews in the tech field. They approach the material well on a philosophical level, too. The company's founder is very big on the idea of helping you become a self-sufficient developer, which means you're learning how to learn while building coding projects. In practical terms, this means they're trying to strike a balance between making sure you feel supported in your learning but not holding your hand through every assignment or topic. This generally works great—they'll point you to a source of online documentation instead of just handing you sample code, and you get used to using the sorts of problem-solving tools developers have to use all the time. On the other hand, that's a tough balance to strike consistently (like in MEAN stack, where the curriculum had a few hiccups stemming from the inclusion of some newer JavaScript material), which is where the next point comes in... 2) The staff. The instructors and administrators at Coding Dojo were all top notch. Constantly available, friendly and encouraging, and above all knowledgeable. When the Dojo's online learning materials leave you feeling at sea, and you've beaten your head for a standard twenty minutes (more on this in a second) against the docs online, the instructors are right there, endlessly patient and unfailingly helpful. I felt like I had a bunch of really good friends who also happened to be great coders. They were genuinely invested in my success, and it showed all the time. Beyond which the administrative staff—the head of the DC campus and the community manager—were always friendly, kept the place running smoothly, occasionally issued gentle reminders for people to wash their dishes, and helped foster a great sense of purpose and community at the school. Finally here, a word about Herman Pryor, who was our career services advisor. The Dojo runs a week of workshops at the end of the months of instruction, and at the DC location it was Herman's show. He has a palpably clear vision of how he wants to help you approach your job search, and the week was both highly informative and, not to be too corny about it, downright inspiring. I came out knowing the nuts and bolts of putting together a good resume, setting up a cogent LinkedIn profile, and how to conduct myself in an interview; beyond that, I felt that, in approaching the job hunt, I wasn't just going around begging for a job. Herman made sure we asked ourselves what we really wanted in a career, and showed us how the nuts-and-bolts tools of job hunting contribute to finding an employer and a career track that will be really satisfying for all concerned. 3) The people. Finally, I loved the Dojo's feel of upbeat camaraderie. The instructors have their role to play here, as I mentioned, but beyond that the school does a lot to encourage it among the students. There are sports outings now and then, where everybody gets to laugh about how athletically disinclined they are, there is plenty of space to eat and chat together. Then there's the twenty-minute rule, which I alluded to above.This is solid Dojo policy: if you get stuck, take twenty minutes trying to resolve the bug in your code. Don't short-change yourself by taking less than that and just hitting someone up for an easy answer, but don't stay stuck on anything for longer than that. The brilliance of this policy is that, once the twenty minutes are up, you're not supposed to run to the instructor yet; find someone else in your class who might be able to help. Figure it out together. It's hard to overstate how much emphasis this received in the Dojo: if you're giving help to or getting help from other students, you're doing your best learning. This means everyone felt comfortable approaching everyone for help—it never felt like a burden. And it did help everyone to become more self-sufficient. You don't want to come to someone else and just say, "My code doesn't work. Fix it." That's a waste of everyone's time. You want to formulate targeted, useful questions, get the help you need, and get everyone on their way. This culture of helpfulness and mutual encouragement, coupled with the quality of the learning materials, made my time at the Dojo a genuine joy. As hard as it was—I was putting in ten to twelve hours a day most of the time—it was still exciting and enjoyable because the material was well curated and I felt extremely well supported on all sides. On leaving I dove into a job hunt feeling like I knew what to expect and what to do, and after not quite two months landed a job offer I'm excited about. I wish I had more thumbs so I could give this place more than two thumbs up.

Before I started at the Coding Dojo, I had very little experience with programming. I had always wanted to become a developer, but for whatever reason I had never taken the steps to get there. A few months before enrolling at the Coding Dojo, I decided to start taking the steps to become developer by taking several free online courses and reading several books. I found these things informative, since I essentially knew nothing. However, this wasn’t enough for me. I knew I needed to have a structured curriculum and personal guidance, if I ever hoped to switch careers. I began shopping around for boot camps and was accepted into two local programs. Before deciding on which of the two boot camps to attend, a friend recommended the Coding Dojo. My friend had a family member who’d been through the camp, and they had spoken positively on their time there. I looked into the Coding Dojo and decided upon attending their course because of the flexibility with the part-time program, the stack options, and the price. During the 20 plus weeks at the Dojo, I had taken both the Python and MEAN stack. Every instructor I had was knowledgeable, informative, friendly, and more. Through lectures, videos, and exercises, the instructors and the course content taught me how to be a competent developer. This meant learning how to approach problems, to be self sufficient, and write clear, concise code. I am happy with my experience at the Coding Dojo and it was money well spent for me. I highly recommend the online boot camp. I will offer a word a few words of caution if you decide to take the plunge; make sure you take the time to really dedicating yourself to the program, do your algorithm training, don’t be afraid to ask for help (I always suffer in this area), and don’t beat yourself up if it takes you awhile to really know what you’re doing, just keep at it.

Choosing to attend coding Dojo was one of the best educational decisions I've ever made. That being said, it is not for everybody. However, for those that are willing to devote nearly 1000 hours and over 3 and a half months and have the sincere desire to succeed, Coding Dojo is like a haven for coding education. The environment replicates that of an actual workplace but still allows you room to make mistakes, leaving you very well prepared for the workforce. The instructors are unbelievably talented and so are your classmates, who will become not only your best help and collaborators, but friends as well. Coding Dojo recognizes that what they teach is hard and learning it in such a short time is even harder, so they do everything they can to frame the curriculum in the easiest, clearest way possible and work to hold you accountable. One unique thing about Coding Dojo is the daily algorithm challenges. These are excellent technical interview prep and are extremely valuable to you as a future job seeker. Furthermore, I was a huge fan of the Dojo's three stack curriculum. I firmly believe that this method of teaching is the best way to prepare for a career in an industry where technology in ever-changing. You will leave coding dojo with a newfound ability to learn at a rapid pace, more coding knowledge than you know what to do with, and an overall excitement to start your job search.

Choosing Coding Dojo was the best decision I ever made! I was working as an Accountant after graduating from UW for about 4 years but decided that I couldn't see myself continuing in this career. I took an all day coding class at another boot camp and fell in love with coding! I was originally going to go with that other boot camp but discovered Coding Dojo while doing some research. I loved how I would get to learn 3 stacks in 14 weeks! I understood that it would be very intense and take a lot of time out of my schedule but I was willing to put in the effort. The instructors, TA's, and other students are there to help you out along the way which is a big bonus. I truly enjoyed my experience at Coding Dojo and would highly recommend them to anyone interested in learning about coding!

Coding Dojo was a great experience. I ended up doing the online program since I am not near any of their campuses. If you are doing online, make sure you can make the time commitment. You can't slack or do just a few hours a week. The lecture schedule was good as they offered 2 lectures per week plus code reviews at the end of the week where we can review assignments or go over anything. The 2 lectures during the week they would offer 2 times, so if you missed one, you can catch the second one later, plus all lectures are recorded so you can access them anytime. The TAs are very helpful, you can message them or your instructor on the Mattermost channel and get help when needed. A few times even while getting help, we ended up starting up a Zoom video conference. The learning platform is nicely laid out. The programs themselves are good, you learn a lot but you also learn how to do things on your own. One of the main focuses of the dojo is to be a self sufficient developer, trying to problem solve and figure things out for yourself first. This definitely helps when you go out into the job market. When online you learn 2 full stacks where if you are on campus you learn 3 full stacks. As you start applying you'll see how much of a benefit this is knowing more than one stack as you can apply to more positions and companies are looking for candidates who know more than one language, framework, DB. There career services is awesome, they really set you up for entering the job market, from your LinkedIn profile to your resume to creating job alerts. Also with networking, how to present yourself, interviews, and when you graduate you are always able to reach out for advice. You can also get the alumni pass once you graduate which gives you access to the entire learning platform so if there any other stacks you would like to learn you have access. I would recommend Coding Dojo to anyone who is serious about starting a career in the web/software development field, but you must be committed. If you are near one of the campuses I would suggest to attend in class, nothing can beat that full immersion but if you can't then the online option is a great choice as well.