Coding Dojo

I attended the Chicago onsite bootcamp about a year and a half ago and I haven't regretted my decision at all. The instructors are all very knowledgeable and helpful and the program is set up to help students succeed, both in understanding the material and securing a job post-graduation.  The career coach at my location, Donald, was very thorough and approachable; I consider career week one of the best aspects of the program itself. The curriculum is constantly changing which can be a little tough to navigate as a student sometimes, but I graduated having learned so much about the languages and about myself that overall it wasn't an issue. I'd recommend this program to anyone interested in coding or looking for a career change.

I decided to attend a coding bootcamp to upgrade my technical skills to improve my chances of getting a job in Silicon Valley. It worked! A Startup brought me on as a Tech-Co-Founder (where I built 95% of their MVP) and I am a contractor software engineer at PayPal.

The Coding Dojo has a very good online curriculum supported by algorithm sessions, demos, and belt tests.  I found it challenging but doable, and educational. The fact that they teaches you three full stacks was great and gave me a broad foundation in which to build upon.

I recommend the Coding Dojo as a part of a large personal program to anyone looking to learn how to code and break into the software industry.  ~Rick

Review co-written by MessageMind.com

It was quite a journey! I was a software developer already when I decided to take the Dojo, I have many years of experience mostly with Microsoft technologies and Windows Desktop applications.

But here in the US and especially in Silicon Valley, I wasn't able to get a job in software with my current resume.

So I listened to my friend's advise and started to search for a good coding bootcamp, where are many coding bootcamp in Silicon Valley so it was hard to select one, so I checked the technologies they covered, the training method, the daily basis, and of course, the commute, they have open house once a month, so I went there and saw the environment, talked to the instructors and students as well; taking all these in equation I decided to choose Coding Dojo San Jose (which is the Silicon Valley branch) and getting the Onsite program.

We had 2 weeks for web fundamental, a month for Full Stack Python, then we could choose between available technologies, I chose Full Stack Java which was a month again, and then for the last Stack I chose MEAN, after one month of MEAN.

At the end of each step, we had an exam, which was creating a fully functioning website, backend, and frontend, in a short amount of time, whoever creates all the functionally gets Balck Belt, minimum requirements have done gets Red Belt or Fails!

After passing 3rd stack we graduated, and then the most important part of the job searching process started, for two weeks we had group sessions with Job Development Pros, learning about creating or changing our resume, setup or improve our Linkedin account and learn about other job search websites, and also completing our personal projects.

So here is my advice, if you think you gonna come to Dojo or any bootcamp to so magically turn into a software developer, it is not going to happen! It is like the bodybuilding process, you have to work out, study, work out, study, and work out, and again study; Dojo shows you the way, gives you exactly the information you need to know, and give you the references to study and learn more, and deepen your knowledge.

Do this, and you will land a job for sure.

I was an experienced windows desktop C++ software developer before I came to Coding Dojo in Seattle. I want to extend my career and become a full stack developer. Through 100 days intensive and very hard training, I got Dojo's certificate and Web fundamentals, Python, Java and MEAN 4 stacks' belts. Most of the students in my same batch (with or without CS background) also won their certificates and belts. I really think it's a great achievement. Experienced instructors, nice curriculum and materials, hard worked cohorts, like to help each other's atmosphere, not a single one can be omitted.

Hope Coding Dojo get better and better.

The Coding Dojo was a great way to kick off my career. They have some of the instructors I have in all of my schooling. They treat you like an adult student and not like children. The program as a whole teaches how to dip your toes in a great amount of different thing. But gives you enough information to be able to complete a full project on your own. I came from a background that had a slight amount of coding experience but not in my day to day life. This camp did a fantastic job on starting from the very bottom to teach me everything I needed to know as a new developer. 

There is a lot to say about Coding Dojo, especially since I wasn't sure how legit a 'boot camp' would turn out and what 'employers' might think of it. But honestly, from beginning to end, Coding Dojo was probably the best educational decision I've ever made. 

Why the Dojo? 

- Price and Curriculum. 

It is almost the cheapest school and with some scholarships, I was able to attend for about $10,999 compared to the full price of $13,000. If i didn't like it or couldn't understand the material within a set time I was able to get a refund so this was nice to have as a backup.

The fact that it taught 3 full stacks where others just focused on one allowed me to be a well-versed developer and someone to prove to employers that Im not a one trick pony. It tells them im able to find a stack, learn it, and create a full stack web application within a month. Even if the school was priced about more, this was still my biggest appeal. 

How are the teachers and faculty? 

I went to the Burbank location and so I started with Nick F.

- I had Nick for web fundamentals and started the first stack with him for Python. The one thing that really shines with Nick is how he goes out of his way to help someone. There were times where I would see him mentor students one on one away from the class in order to provide them with full attention. There were times when I would wait and somewhat 'watch' him to see if he would crack but another thing about him was that he had a lot of patience was talking to someone. It didn't matter the skill level of the individual he would still help out whenever needed. Also very kind and mellow.

- I had Eduardo for my second stack for Ruby on Rails and he was very well versed with it. He wrote the Rails curriculum for CD as well as taught courses with Microsoft. His personalty was more playful and funny and made the class enjoyable with jokes (it actually helped with the stress of the class) Ruby on Rails actually became my favorite language thanks to him. 

- Kevin. I never had him as an instructor but he would always be walking around after lectures and morning algorithms to help with questions and what not. Also funny.

- Patrick. Didn't have him as an instructor too but he had an awesome energy that made him easy to have a conversation with. Very knowledgeable and very funny. I would sometimes watch him instructing students and he had a lot of compassion. You can tell he really loved to educate and is one of the few out in the world who REALLY wants to do their job. Would have been awesome to have him for a stack. 

- Daniel. He's the community manager and although he attended to a lot of corporate matters, he would come outside the office and talk to people to see how they're doing. He was someone you could go to if you needed help with something not code related at times + he made it a safe place. A very awesome guy that is very easy talk to about almost anything. It felt very natural and he is there to help you when you need it! He was also a student at the dojo so he understands where we come from and the struggles we face as a cohort. 

What is a typical day like?

So the day starts around 8-8:30 and we start algorithms at 9. We usually work in groups to solve the day's algorithm and they can range from easy to standard software engineering algos. We go over the standard sorts and sets as well as going over data structures like BSTs and Linked Lists. Before the session ends we go over some solutions and we discuss any questions from there.

We take about a 10-minute break and start the days lecture with going over assignments that we might not have understood and then a small demo that is recorded to youtube and shared with the class. We are then free to do our assignments that go over core subjects till lunch. Around 3 we start another lecture that will go over the end goal assignment of the day and then we are free to keep coding until we are done for the day. 

- How are the exams?

Very hard. You must complete and code a full stack web application that involves an app that connects to a database +  performs basic CRUD operations with lots of curve balls and tricks hidden in the exam. You must then successfully deploy it via AWS (which is good to know when looking for a job) and send the IP when done. The time limit is about 4 hours. Most people do not pass the first time but you can take it up to three times. 

 - Is there food?

There are some snacks in the kitchen that gets ordered every week as well as water and coffee. If you're lucky enough you can salvage some pizza after an open house. But there is PLENTY of food choices within the radius of the dojo. SO many choices. ( I really like chronic tacos a block away but some disagree, lol) But the best place to go is Gyu Kaku for lunch. You'll thank me later...

- What are the job statistics at the dojo? 

What people need to understand is that finding a job, in general, is very difficult, especially in a growing industry like tech. The dojo doesn't give you and hand out jobs left and right, it is up to you to practice how to talk to people during an interview as well as studying for the role. 

- Did you find a job?

After 2 months of phone interviews, and 1 in-person interview, I am pleased to say that yes, I am currently a Jr full stack dev :) 

- Will I find a job? 

Depends on the person. People need a lot of practice with talking to people, presenting themselves, knowing about the role, and knowing the language. If you want to be a Software Engineer, know your algos, know your data structures, know your language left and right. Practice Every day. Make killer projects. 

-How does the Dojo help me then?

The Burbank location has a career advisor and honestly, she is so awesome, sweet and knowledgeable. After you graduate for 2 weeks you meet with your cohort and discuss resume building, portfolio building, LinkedIn and social strategy and salary negotiation. There was so much that I didn't know that I'm glad Mikelynn helped me with. We have met multiple times to discuss phone interview strategies as well as negotiation of salary for my current position. She will be there to help you even after you finish the dojo so its another perk I'm glad this place has. 

- Did you make any friends?

a LOT. Mainly with my cohort but the thing is that my cohort was very strong. We all got along and we were always going out to eat, happy hour, and working with each other on assignments. I actually have really close bonds with them that I made in just 16 weeks and it feels like I knew them forever. One of my closest friends in my cohort actually works 1 block away from me and we catch lunch a few times a week. Very crazy how life works lol 

- So what are your complaints then?

As cheesy as it sounds, I wish it was longer. I had so much fun as well as learned so much to help me start my career. I had so many memories, good laughs, and strong friendships that I really do miss when we first started. I do miss the happy hours we go to on Fridays and just discuss life in general. I would attend the dojo all over again if I could. 

- Did you feel the dojo was a safe place? 

Of course. Our CM was very compassionate when running the dojo here. He made us feel very welcomed and that we could come to him for anything if we needed it. 

Coding Dojo opens up many doors for anyone trying to get started in the software devlopment world.  Their curriculum gives students the framework and foundation to go out and get a good job in the tech industry and really hit the ground running in tech.  

Their approach to learning and instructing is well-balanced and by the end of the 14 week program, you will really feel confident with your skills.  Every day starts with algorithms on a white board which gets you used to being comfortable in an interview setting.  Additionally, the curriculum covers 3 full stacks which forces students to pick up languages very quickly adapt to different OOP oriented languages.  These skills are immediately transferable after graduation because of the fast-paced industry itself and the never-ending cycle of 'in-demand' languages that you'll have to always be learning.  

Overall, Coding Dojo gives you the environment and curriculum needed to really progress quickly with programming.  It's up to you as the student to put the work in day in and day out and to never stop learning new coding techniques and languages.  

My experience at Coding Dojo has been stellar and everything I was hoping for in a coding bootcamp. The combination of  engaged Teachers, and TA's, plus the excellent material and teaching style has given me the solid foundation of tools and confidence that I was looking for and that I will take forward to tackle any challenge I meet down the road.  Add to that a super informed and helpful career services advisor who reached out on day one and made it known that I was not in this alone - and I knew that I had made the right choice by going with Coding Dojo!  

As a successful student at Coding Dojo here are a few strategies that I have helped me excel in a sometimes tough and isolated on-line learning environment. 

1. I actively reach out and ask questions (a lot) and take nothing for granted: The teaching staff at coding dojo is super responsive and always there to help when I didn't understand something or was feeling behind in the course work. I noticed that a lot of other students would say they were behind but then not ask for help or clarification. It is up to us to be responsible for our learning experience and the more I hold myself accountable, the more I get things done. In an online learning environment, ultimately there is no one holding your hand and you have to have an amount of self-starter attitude to succeed. That being said, Coding Dojo does a great job of creating a learning community through the messaging platform Mattermost and through live lectures and code reviews via Zoom video conferencing. With those tools, even though you are many miles apart form fellow student and teachers, you have the opportunity to connect and learn from each other.  

2.  Helping other students: One of the best way for me to learn is to actively engage and help out my fellow students. Any time I had the chance to help someone that was behind I jumped to try and assist. There is a great amount of material covered in a bootcamp and sometimes it can feel overwhelming trying to retain all that material.  One great way to keep and solidify that foundation that you are building is to help someone else. You learn what you really know and what you need to work more on when you are trying to explain it to someone else. On top of that, you just helped someone else, made a stronger connection and built your own confidence up a notch.  Win win win!

3. Code reviews are not optional in my mind:  Each class offered an optional code review each week (sometimes more) and I found this to be one of the most valuable learning platforms. Again, most students in the program only seemed to do the required work, but my mindset was that I was going to get the most out of Coding Dojo and take advantage of every opportunity to learn. During code review I had the chance to get comfortable and confident coding in front of my peers. I was able to ask in depth questions, and explore more advanced topics at points because I was one of only a handful of students to regularly show up and actively share what I was working on.

4. Optional algorithm studies: I made a habit and commitment to take on optional material in algorithm studies. The problem solving skills I developed/gained taught me recognize what was being asked of me and how to break a problem into small steps to achieve that bigger goal. I think anyone looking to excel in a coding boot camp should incorporate regular algorithms into their daily practice. I'm thankful that Coding Dojo had great TA's to help inspire this practice in me.

Can anyone learn to code? I honestly think so. But I also know the reality is that you have to want to learn. Anyone that decides and chooses that they want to can succeed. By setting ourselves up for success, allotting the time needed, and holding ourselves accountable I firmly believe anyone can thrive. Coding Dojo has provided an excellent platform and community for me to get to where I wanted to be in a relatively short time and I would highly recommend it to anyone that is looking for a chance to level themselves up!  

Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking. But it's true. I used to be digital marketer, and I got a job offer yesterday as a Junior Developer two and a half weeks after graduating from the program. Here's the thing though: I worked my butt off for it.

They told me that this would be the hardest thing I've possibly ever done in my life—and that's true. They said it would be 60-80 hours a week of effort. My mileage was closer to 50. The bottom line is that it's going to be hard and it's going to be a lot of work. However, can you do it? I believe so. Is it worth it? Most definitely.

I do extremely well in an academic environment. If you don't do well in a classroom setting, you might want to reconsider. But I will tell you this: you will get exactly what you put into this program. If you put in the time and do all the assignments and work on projects and apply for jobs, I don't see why you can't make the career switch that you're hoping to make. 

I'm really glad I made the decision to join and graduate. I have discovered a career that I actually like. And the pay increase (the job I got offered pays 40% more than my job before the dojo) is a nice benefit too—and this is just the beginning.

I’d like to share my experience after enrolling, attending and graduating form Coding Dojo Dallas (Full-time).

A little about my background, I’m an engineer, I worked as a web developer for a about 4 years (Classic ASP),

Then I moved to other fields and after decided to go back to web development. In order to do that,

I wanted to learn new web technologies. It was hard hard to find a place where you could learn

most of what you need in just one place and at the same time. So, finally I found Coding Dojo Dallas.

I decided to enrolled with them because in their program they offer to teach you 3 full stacks (Python, Ruby and MEAN).

What to expect: Coding Dojo is an immersive full-time coding bootcamp where you are going to be learning all the fundamentals for web development, from the Front-End to the Back-End and databases. First, you’ll spend 2 weeks learning the basics (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, Git and Terminal), then you’ll jump to Python Django with MySQL for about 4 weeks. Basically you start learning the fundamentals of Python, then OOP, then MySQL, then Django, and finally you put everything together to start building full web apps using everything you’ve learned so far together and then you are expected to take an exam to test your skills and be able to move forward. Next you repeat the process but for Ruby on Rails with Postgres and also they increased the level of difficulty by introducing a few new concepts like authentication and authorization, among others for about 4 weeks and finally the same again but for MEAN (Mongo, Express, Angular, Nodejs).

How is going to be a normal day: A normal day starts at 9am (oficially, but if you are really interested you should be there between 7 and 8), then you start working in algorithm for about 1 hour in small groups on whiteboards, after that usually is a morning lecture of about 1-2 hour and then you start working on small assignments to cover different aspects during the rest of the day. There is a second lecture in the afternoon and the you go back to work on your assignments. Your instructor is going to be there always, so I you have questions at anytime you can ask for help if needed. The day ends at 5pm. Now, depending on how fast you learn, or what are your current skills in development, you might move faster than others, it varies from person to person. Most of the people that joined my cohort, they didn’t have previous coding experience, so the spent a lot of time in the Dojo, some of the arrived early in the morning, about 7am and left the dojo in the night and even working on weekends, that’s because there there are so many things to learn and it takes time to understand everything and to be able to finish assignments on time.

I had the fortune to learn from a highly skilled teacher, Matt, during my time at the dojo, and the lectures are very important because that’s where you can actually ask question while building small projects or features so you can apply that knowledge into your own assignments. So regarding instructors, they are GREAT and very well prepared, at least in my experience.

Career services: Once you are done, you will spend 1 week in career services, during this week, you will learn the basics you need to apply for jobs, things like your resume, social networks, job search sites, interviews and thing that maybe you already know but is not a bad thing to refresh. It’s important to mention that their job is not to find a job to everyone, but to give support if needed, they also try to set up presentations with employers where you can show off your projects to them (this happened a couple of times during my time there, they have room to improve in this area buiding relations with more potencial employers) and have the chance to be employed. They also will publish jobs from time to time so everyone can apply if interested. It took me 2 months to get a job, I applied to about 70 positions, I had 3 interviewes and 1 offer. Job hunting is a very hard an exhausting thing to do, it might take longer, so be prepared because very few people are able to find a job right after finishing the bootcamp. What best worked for me was networking.

Bottom line: If you are a new to web development, I highly recommend this as an option but I warn you is going to be tough and hard, so be preapred. If you are an experienced developer, it will depend on what are you looking for, in my case it worked well because it was a refresher for me and also learned a lot of new things on basic levels. In Coding Dojo you will learn the fundamentals, is up to you how far you get. You will get what you put in this!, it's no magical, it takes a lot of effort and time, so base on this, the results are not the same for everyone.

Hope this helps!!!, and good luck!...

This place is very unorganized, and unprofessional. The internet was super slow, and many days was completely down. The platform was under construction while using it, so it ended up having two seperate Python courses which confused people and ended up splitting the class. Many of the lecture videos are done with earbud microphones which makes the audio on some them terrible and hard to hear even at max volume. Their career section was a bunch of links to youtube videos, and every now and then they send you email on a job lead in like Detroit. The class room was miserably hot. I did the course during the summer, and I don’t know if the air condition was broken, but I would just sit there and sweat while coding. A bunch of people tried to bring in fans, but it just pushed hot air around. They also have a bunch of old mismatched monitors for people to plug their laptops in to work, which are alright. However they never had enough adapters for everyone, so every day multiple people would get screwed and not be able to use a monitor.

Onto the curriculum. Looking back on it trying to do 3 full stacks in 3 months is absolutely bananas. I think it is just too much to try to fit into 3 months. They push this idea of working 70-100 hours weeks which you have to do if you want to keep up. Pretty much everyone falls behind the schedule. People fell behind so much in my Python stack that the teacher has us skip the database section. Another thing about working such long weeks is that I think comprehension really starts to take a hit. Working with complex topics really takes a mental toll, and I definitely think quality of time spent on these topics outweighs quantity. At a certain point people were just throwing projects together to keep up instead of learn. Half way through I switched to the online version which was much nicer because it saved me a ton of money, almost  2 hours a day in commuting time, and I found I was less stressed to rush through projects. All in all I don’t think Coding Dojo was worth the time or money investment at all. I still absolutely love coding and think it is a great field for people to be in. If you want to learn there are a ton of free online sources that you can earn a ton from for way cheaper. Also there are really really smart people that make Udemy courses that you can get for $10 dollar. I think i learned way more from Free Code Camp, and Udemy then Coding Dojo. If you are still looking for the structure of a boot camp I would check out Epicodus or Code Fellows. I have heard really good things about these programs from people at meet ups, and some of my friends. Also looking online their curriculum seems much better. Anyways this just my two cents, and I hope its helps you make a choice that is best for you.

I highly recommend you choose a different coding boot-camp. I attended the onsite and had a horrible experience. They cram 2 classrooms into one small room with the instructors trying to talk over each other. There is only 1 hour of lecture where they literally just go through an assignment piece by piece. The instructors are almost all just graduates of the coding boot-camp that cant get a job elsewhere. 

The one positive was the learning platform(at first) the web fundamentals and python section was absolutely wonderful. I was able to get 97% and then 98% on my first two exams where most fail. The MEAN stack was horrendous though. When I contacted them about it they said "sorry it's not finished yet we are still working on it" SO why are you taking my money for it then?

Oh and don't get me started on the communication times. I would email and not get a response for 3-8 days. consistently. Please don't waste your money here. There are plenty of better alternatives.