Code Institute

The course structure is well-planned, and the content is generally good. The videos are easily accessible, but I sometimes found myself missing more detailed documentation. Rather than just providing external links, it would be beneficial to have more in-depth resources directly available on the platform. I often found myself turning to Google instead of finding the information I needed on the learning site.
The LMS (Learning Management System) site is functional, but the content could be better organized. Currently, you see all 40-50 links at once, with additional sub-links under each, which can feel overwhelming and difficult to navigate. A "card" or box solution that groups the five different modules and their required materials would make the learning process more efficient.
A crucial aspect of any online course is ensuring that the integrated development environment (IDE) functions smoothly. Unfortunately, I encountered significant issues with Codeanywhere, which was later switched to Gitpod. The platform was incredibly slow, and I estimate that I lost about four weeks due to these issues. I often had to work nights and weekends, far exceeding 40 hours a week, just to keep up.
Regarding the course projects, I found the jump between Project 3 and Project 4 to be quite steep. It might be more beneficial to combine the first three projects into two, allowing for more time to focus on the fourth project, which was almost too large in scope.
On a positive note, the instructors and career team were excellent. They seemed genuinely engaged in the students' progress and success, which I greatly appreciated.
However, my greatest disappointment was with the mentors. I didn’t receive much feedback from them, and arranging meetings felt more like a formality than a source of support. I essentially completed the projects on my own, with minimal input from my mentor. It would be more effective to have instructors review the projects at some midpoint, providing feedback that could be acted upon before the final submission. While the feedback I received after submitting a project was detailed, it often came too late to be of immediate benefit. Read less

This course is amazing so long as you are able to motivate yourself. It doesn't just flood you with information, but through a combination of videos, challenges and portfolio projects allows you to not just learn the information provided by the course, but skills to learn additional information and create independently. It also has Hackathons which students can take advantage of so that team work skills development. Mentors and content are very good to assist with your learning. Comprehensive course. Read less

I managed to get the job I was looking for less than a month after submitting my last project.

Despite the course gives you the tools to work as a junior full stack developer I managed to find a job as senior Bioinformatician, by choosing the predictive analytics specialization.

As mentioned above the course gives you the skills the work as Junior Full Stack Developer with an average salary of 35000 £ in the UK.
Therefore, I found the advertisent a bit confusing as it looked like that after the course you could start earning 50000 £ on average.
50000 £ in the UK is the salary you will get after 2 years of commercial experience, right after the end of the course the salary is on average 35000 £ in the UK.

The skills you get are exactly what the market expects from you as junior full stack developer, with a particular focus on the front end.

The Career advisors are always available, I got an interview with a very short notice, nevertheless they setup a meeting and provided useful feedbacks and suggestions.

The mentors are not all at the same level, I had 4 different mentors, and only 1 of them was really looking at the repo and providing useful feedback.
Luckly he assisted me from project 2 fo project 4. I was forced to change him for the last project as he could not assist me with it.
The other mentors gave me the feeling they were not looking at the repo at all, and only provided very broad advice depending on your questions.

Overall, I strongly advice to enroll if your aim is to start a career as junior developer.

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The experience from the first interaction was just outstanding (even before joining the course). As I career changer it was really unsettling to know if the software development is the right path for me, I tried some small Coursera course but haven't gone far with it. 
I love the way you get to do a small challenges before joining in, just to see if:  1. You actually like it, 2. You are ok with the pace and time frame given. 
I read a lot of great reviews before deciding to join, and I am so glad I did. One thing is to promise and another to deliver. This boot camp definitely deliveres! 
You get so much support that it is unbelievable! 
You get:  
* Facilitator that checks in with you on a weekly basis; 
* Mentor who guides you throughout your project ( 3 insightful meetings per project) 
* Tutor support ( 90min a week ), this is on top of constant community support that you have access to.
*Access to amazing hackathons that just skyrocket your learning, 
*Job support ( webinars and announcement to openings - haven't used it yet as I am only half way there, but starting next week ) 
* ( Still have feeling I missed half of it) 
The course itself is well explained and focused on most up to date content. Often updated for accuracy and top of the game information! 
If you show up and do the work, this is a a joyful ride. It is hard, don't get me wrong ( for me with 2 young kids and part time job + I feel I need extra time to absorb the knowledge.) but it is so worth it !
Besides if it was easy, where is the pride I that, right. 
 I know I could probably do it by myself studying Coursera as I did for few months prior to this. But man, the speed I am doing it now is 10 times faster, the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself and having g people around d who understand the journey is a blessing, especially if you feel like you want to pull your hair out . 
Still, so so worth it!!! Thank you Code Institute and the team for making my career transition so fulfilling.  Read less

Pros:

• I found the first four projects challenging and enjoyable. 
• The mentoring structure is excellent.
• Student care team was very helpful.
• A good deal of the course was well structured and informative, especially HTML and CSS content.
• I learnt a great deal overall.

Cons:

• Some of the content was poor. Design Thinking stands out as the worst and a quick search on slack will tell you most people skipped over this module entirely.
• Linking concepts in latter projects seemed a bit disjointed. The agile section shows you the preferred tool for implementing the methodology which in fairness was decent. Cut to lessons for e commerce project 5 and the instructor was using a spreadsheet.
• Project 5 was a let down for me. The content was outdated (Stripe card elements deprecated and JQuery) and the module content was not particularly engaging.

Overall the course is good. The Irish government paid for me to do it via Springboard so I can’t really comment on value for money.  Read less

I definitely feel like this is a worthwhile course if you are looking for a career change and you are technically minded. It takes a lot of effort but is doable alongside a job. I was an estate agent when I started and managed to get a junior role before I had finished the course.  Read less

The course layout is not very well structured. Going from 1 coding language to the next. You're constantly doubting yourself if you study in the right way. Worst of all, if you start to get behind, it's basically over. There's not a lot of support. The time schedule is basically holy. It seems like they want you to finish the course as soon as possible so they can welcome new recruits. It's like a factory and you're the product. I'm very disappointed and regret spending all my money on this course. Read less

Not for the faint-hearted, be prepared to put in some extra hours, hardest course have ever done.  Amazing experience!  Amazing learning curve...........great programme!  Be prepared to do extra research, do extra coding and connect with the mentor.  Mentor Daisy McGirr is an utter legend!  Could not have gotten through this without her dedication to excellence.  Also big Thank you to Helen Mill for being so kind and supportive.  Jim Morel kept us motivated and always there to lend a hand.  These folk are the real deal, it is what made Code Institute stand out for me......................(beside killer skill-set). Awesome........... :-) Read less

I recently completed the the Diploma in Full Stack Development. It took me about 1 year to complete. I found the course fantastic from start to finish. The content and delivery was great. Be prepared to work hard - you have to put in the hours but it's well worth it. I did the course via UCD and got some support via Skillnet - I felt it was great value for money given the volume of the course. I did the course to upskill in programming rather than career change - I got exactly what I wanted out of it. I would highly recommend it. Read less

I just completed Code Institute’s e-commerce path and the past year has been very impactful for me. The course was fully remote and I’ve been impressed throughout the course of how this was handled as it’s not easy to put together content, support, and networking opportunities for people across borders and in different time zones. 

I am very satisfied with the outcome, and although you can technically learn all of this via other (free) paths you will not have the same support, nor a diploma to show to future employers. The standards they expect you to follow are strict, but fair, and just the fact that you have the purchase of the course + expectations + deadlines weighing on you will push you to reach your goals. You have plenty of support and I never experienced poor or delayed feedback to my questions or concerns. After completing the course you have it on paper that you can create fully functional full stack e-commerce applications in line with university/industry standards.

The content is very engaging and helpful and they give you a clear path to your goal. They don’t teach you everything (you find out during the course that it would pretty much be impossible), but they give you the tools you need in videos, quizzes, and exercises, and they have a ton of slack groups that are really helpful. Also, they offer a lot of courses on LinkedIn, job hunting in general, and share job posts all over Europe every day.

About the negative:
On a personal note I started to feel the solitude a bit, but that we mostly due to me doing the course over a year. You can do it in a few months, and that would probably have been better. In any case you have to get used to mostly everything being via text or video, so whenever you have a questions you have to be prepared to be proactive, search the Slack forums for info, and always type out and post your problem(s) instead of explaining them in person. You get used to this, but if you do the course over a year you may start to miss face to face interactions.

Also be aware that the company is based in Dublin and the careers team is mostly engaged in the UK. They will share job posts from different countries but the majority of them are in the UK. This is just a little side note and did not subtract from all the other great content they had.

Overall:
I would definitely recommend this course to anyone who is interested in learning how to code. You start from scratch and work your way up to understand complicated flows to produce and realise a plethora of projects. I can only speak for myself but I at least feel confident in starting a junior developer position with the knowledge I now have.

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I really enjoyed my time with the Code Institute. I found the material was very incremental which is great because there are no big jumps that left me completely clueless. I was pleasantly surprised by how good the supports are even after graduating, both tutors and students alike were willing to help at all hours of the day and for hours on end when I encountered issues. The structure of the course was fantastic but the supports really went above and beyond.  Read less

it was a waste of up-to 6000€ from my own money, *the 5 stars reviews are for 5 day challenge not for actual course* which is very behind on tech-stack and teaching skills. the tutor support/mentoring is a joke. they are just after your money, buy courses on Udemy and learn from there. Read less

its better to learn from Udemy or other website when you are going to learn on your own. the tech-stack is old and not explanatory. you'll have to take a-lot of help from other online resources anyway. and tutor support is a joke. 
Its would be lot better to learn from online sites and then do a coding bootcamp for free (many available in Europe) . Read less

Once you pay them the €6k, you are never seeing that money again. Even if you don't enjoy the course, or find it useful, you'll never see the money again.

Even the biggest guru's & scammers in the tech field selling courses like this give refunds at any time - because customers are the backbone of any business.

The minute you pay them, that $ is going straight back into their marketing budget so they can rope in another innocent person through their YouTube ads, get them on a sales call with a slimy salesperson - selling a fake dream.

The mentors they hire to help students are a joke. It's actually funny how bad they are. 

Code Institute makes a lot of promises but are yet to deliver. The content is subpar to a lot of free content on YouTube. 

There is a very little chance you will succeed from doing this course.

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I found this course to be very helpful. I had prior computer science experience but didn't fully grasp how each discipline fit together until this course. The videos were easy to follow along and the projects were adequately challenging. For anyone looking to freshen up on the basics of full stack development I would fully endorse this program.  Read less

Code Institute caters a quality education for Software Development. It's been an amazing experience with student care, tutor support, mentors, job facilitator and Code Institute team! They never fail me whenever I reach out and needed help. They never give up motivating students and give every help they could offer until you can finally make it! There are Hackathons too for their students to develop skills and experience working with developers and co students. Well done Code Institute team. Highly recommended! Read less

A year ago I decided to change my career and become a programmer. I couldn't have chosen a better guide to take me along this path than the Code Institute. A very professional program helped me understand the secrets of coding. Here theory meets practice! The team of professionals at Code Institute were very helpful and interested in my progress. Tips from mentors and tutor support helped me solve problems and create "real" applications.
Career Hub, which is a great team that helps in finding a job and preparing for interviews, deserves attention.
The course is very flexible! I studied and worked full time.
It was hard work, but it was definitely worth it! Read less

Firstly – I apologise for the novel. This is only the highlights from the issues I and my class faced while attending a course with this college. All issues can be backed with evidence if requested. I would like to convey very clearly that I am exceptionally unimpressed with this course. I have found it far below the standards that I would expect from a course partnered with UCD (well technically UCD Professional Academy). Furthermore, I feel the cost of €7995 cannot possibly be justified given the poor quality of the teaching and the course material itself. I would strongly recommend you do not partake in this course. There are so many other Bootcamps and code course out there. Don't let the fact that this course is partnered with UCD or supposedly has "college accreditation" mislead you.  Changing assessment criteria while students are actively working on the projects in question (initially without telling the applicable students). When this was raised a response of "simplifying assessment criteria to inflate pass rates is acceptable because employers will not know and it is done all the time in third level education"... This, in my opinion, is just wrong and confirms that this certificate will not have any real industry value.  Course content issues:- Recommended tools do not provide sufficient functionality for merit/distinction grading (ie using github projects as a full Agile project management tool for linking epics to user stories to tasks and bugs)- Much of the content is almost a carbon copy of that found on freecodecamp and codcademy sites- Walkthrough code supplied on the college GitHub, doesn’t align with the video project walkthroughs and often has errors which are detrimental to the operation of the program- Numerous spelling errors and typos across the online content- When a student does raise a bug/issue/typo, there is no open communication, instead defensive responses, (therefore personally I have ceased to raise defects/bugs) The Masterclass promise was: “…there will be 8 x 7.5 hour Masterclass sessions to complement your online learning. The first seven sessions are hackathons, designed to develop your practical competencies, challenge your problem-solving abilities and advance your understanding of the concepts that you are learning. Each session aligns with one of the mini-projects within the course…”Only the first Masterclass included a hackathon, all others contained a limited morning of "lectures" followed by an afternoon of "time to work on our projects". Facilitation courses- Contained lectures which regurgitated course content, not the class discussions/learning sessions promised- One class didn't even occur, it was rescheduled after the fact. Mentoring sessions. Promised at 1hr each. Halfway through the course these were reduced to 30 mins. I was lucky, my mentor, who no longer works with CI, was amazing, but I have heard so many horror stories from fellow students. Tutor support- This is a text based message service that you can only avail of if you use Gitpod (the college recommended developer platform)- Spent almost 2 hours on the line to troubleshoot an issue, the initial agent couldn't help me and was only "online for another 15mins" so put me back to the queue. Left the call with no answer (took a Dev at my day job 5mins to trouble shoot the issue)- Next time I tried to use Tutor support I was informed I had used up my Allowed time and took over an hour to receive a response, after another hour without response I decided it was a waste of time.(issue was determined to be with Gitpod, all issues stopped once I started using VS Code)- Unless you develop your project exactly as per the video examples, tutor support cannot help you The college does not understand the difference between Unit tests and automated/manual functional testing. This is a developer course that does not require the creation of unit tests, but will fail you if you do not breach Facebook T&Cs and create a fake Facebook Business page for a project... During the process of dealing with my complaint (yes, I raised all of these issues with the "college" in a process that took months) they appointed an individual to be a Cohort Coordinator for UCD. A meeting was requested and agreed and then the Cohort Coordinator failed to respond/confirm/attend. I was passed around until I reached the Customer Relations Manager for UCD Professional Academy. During this call, the manager admitted that mistakes have been made with this course and that the level of service provided has not met the expectations of any party involved, and an offer was made for a €1,000 refund and the ability to attend a different course (neither of which I accepted). During this call the Cohort Coordinator made false accusation of "Aggressive" messaging (which are unfounded, and I am more than happy to provide proof) and informed me I should cease to use the group channels when asking questions (even if the questions effect other students). To make such an accusation during a complaint resolution call is deflective and inappropriate. It goes to show how little Code Institute care about its students and how inexperienced the company is as a whole. From my experience, most of the students that are employed after completing this course, are employed directly by the college. Do not let the partnership with UCD fool you. This course is definitely not value for money. It is not consistent in its assessments and all of the content can be learnt elsewhere for free, or for a small fee if you prefer a more structured approach. Read less