DevPoint Labs

I really loved my time at dev point labs. I had tried to learn JS on my own and kept hitting roadblocks. My understanding is now far beyond where I would've have gotten to own my own. The course is hard and you will get out of it what you put into it. 

I was able to learn from (instructors) and with (students) some crazy smart taleneted people and build great projects. Dave was a great instructor, while the course and cirriculm moves fast he was always wililng to give insight on where to go to learn more and go over topics learned in class. In reality you find out that it's hard and frustrating to learn to code in such a short time you really have to practice, practice and practice more to pick it up. 

I gave five stars for experience, instructors and cirriculm and an NA for job assistance. I came into the course happily employed so I didn't participate in any of the job assistance activites. So I can't speak on the job assistance aspect.

I will say that going through the course has made me way better at my job as a SEO Product Owner. I've nerver found working with developers more rewarding. In that sense it has defintey helped my career. I also am working on my own application that I intend to complete all the front end and back end dev for, which is something I would have never been able to do before the course. I still gave NA for job assistance becuase I think my job feedback is probably not relevant to what most prospective students are looking for.

If you are thinking about dev point I highly reccomened and advise to make a time committment, to attend all the classes and do homework, do good prep work before cohort and don't get discouraged when it gets difficult. You will be successful if you work at it and you will be very glad you did!

I went into DevPoint Labs' Immersive Afterhouse FullStack JavaScript course in the winter of 2016 having almost no experience coding. I had done some minor QA and UAT working in my previous job, but nothing prepared me for what I was about to get into. In retrospect, I wish that I had devoted two to three months of preparing for the course than just jumping into it the way that I did. The course was killer. I had a blast but it was filled with sleepless nights and a lot of frustration. The instruction was awesome however, I do wish that there would have been text material to study from and more guided tutorials to SLOWLY take us through some of the basics so that we could have a solid base before moving on to some of the more advanced frameworks and libraries. Having had no experience in coding whatsoever, I was pleased to be able to tackle building responsive and beautiful apps with the skill set that I learned.

This being said though I do wish that I would have had more of a base for learning the actual context and meaning behind a lot of the syntax in JavaScript. I am one of those people that need to do things over and over again in order for them to stick so sometimes the speed at which we covered the material was really intense for me. 

The only downer for the course that I would have to bring up is the Job Assistance factor. I had a lot of help on putting my resume together but when it came to getting ready to apply and prepping for interviews, I have to say in the most constructive and honest way possible that we really didn't cover interview prep all that well. Looking good on paper is one thing but being able to answer interview questions intelligibly and confidently is vital to scoring a job in web development. Interviewers will probe your knowledge of libraries, frameworks, and how you interpret basic syntax to make sure you really understand and that you aren't just copying and pasting code from the web. They will question you relentlessly to find any weakness..it's not something you can bullshit your way through.  You can't google your way out of an interview. 

Overall Experience

First off this should be a 4 1/2 star review for overall experience but they don't do 1/2 stars. I loved my experience at DevPoint Labs, I will say that learning style can be rough for some people. If you need to learn how to program for less money than a traditional computer science degree, this is definitely the place you should attend. 

Instructors

I had 3 different instructors during my 11 week course at DPL. All of which gave me a different perspective on how things can be done. I've stayed in contact with almost all the professors that I had. All the instructors that taught me were more than willing to provide help with any issues I had, this includes real problems, like balancing an grueling work load and spending time with loved ones. 

Curriculum

DPL does a wonderful job of teaching the bleeding edge of the tech world, which is great, albeit a double edge sword. This is an 11 week course, so obviously they can't teach everything. I would love to see a stronger push into the foundations of the course, I was in the FULL stack rails course, and going into my first job I was lacking some more basic understanding of Ruby, and even javascript. That being said, if you dive into this course and do extra coding in your spare time you can make up for this. 

Job Assistance

As far as job assistance goes, DPL excells at this. They do everything they can to help each student fullfill their goals, if that student wants to be a developer within a year, that's what they help them achieve. I actually got my first job from being on the DPL alumni forum, and I can guarantee that I wouldn't have heard about it without being part of their amazing community. The school will give a series of mock interviews that will help the students prep for the real world, which helped me immensely. 

DevPoint Labs is an excellent program set up to really get your career started in the technical world. Its been invaluable to me and I'd highly recommend it to just about anyone. I say "just about" anyone because it's not for anyone. This course takes a lot of hard work, and if you're not willing to put the work in, then you shouldn't bother coming. When I attended, I went to class from 9 to 5. I spent every minute trying to absorb all of the information that we're given. After I went home I coded some more. I finished every homework assignment and built every program we were challenged to build. As a result, I leared the skills I needed.

The instructors are amazing. I had a bunch of different instructors when I attended and I learned great things from all of them. These instructors are super bright. During projects including the capstone, if I was ever stuck on an error that I couldn't figure out, it wouldn't take long for the instructors to see what I was doing wrong and help me fix it.

The DevPoint community is really set up to help you succeed at finding a job after graduation. It's all about networking and meeting people in the Dev community. If that doesn't intrest you, then I'd reconsider your coming to DevPoint. This company will help you to find the job that you need, but they're not going to do all the work for you.

I am super grateful for the opportunity I had to go to DevPoint. In a year and a half, after knowing barely anything about coding or html/css, I'm at close to a 6-digit salary and loving my job. It hasn't been an easy road, but if you're willing to put in the hard work it will pay off.

Some things DevPoint can improve:

Their TA's weren't very helpful to me. It seemed that no matter how often I went to a TA for help,  they couldn't help me solve my problem. They did however provide good walls to bounce my ideas off of, and I ended up just figuring out most problems on my own.

The DevPoint guys really want each student to succeed, but as time of graduation approaches they really focus in on those students who are most likely to move on faster in their career. They set up special interviews with a select number of students in the course (I wasn't one of those because I was planning on getting a part-time job to continue my formal education at college) to meet with a future employer. I felt like it was unfair that they were excluding me from that opportunity. I ended up getting that employers contact info from another student in the cohort, applied and got the position. (Like I've been saying, its set up to make you succeed, but YOU have to make it happen. It's not just going to happen upon you.)

Despite these flaws, I give DevPoint Labs 5 stars because if I had the chance to do everything again, I definitely would. I've refered lots of friends and family. Great job DevPoint, and thank you for the wonderful opportunities!

I just can't thank DevPoint Labs enough for the opportunity to attend their great bootcamp. With the skills I learned at DevPoint I was able to secure a junior software engineer position less than a month from graduating. If you have the drive and passion, then DevPoint's proven curriculum and instructions will prepare you for your first job in the tech industry. Another factor to consider is the amazing community DevPoint has created, from the meetups to hosted chat you can always find a helping hand with any industry questions you may encounter. There is no doubt that I would not be where I am at today if it weren't for taking the plunge and enrolling in DevPoint's full-stack course. Thanks to everyone at DevPoint. 

• I wanted skills that could elevate my career —I had no experience in coding
• I find coding fun, challenging, and satisfying —DevPoint has taught me how to think like a developer
• DevPoint came highly recommended from a friend who is a graduate and currently working as a Software Engineer
• Curriculum is challenging and current
• Instructors are invested in the curriculum
• Access to a network of DevPoint Alumni working in the field

Go in prepared to push yourself every day for 11 weeks and you will see yourself grow beyond measure.

I had been teaching myself HTML/CSS/Javascript for over a year before looking into a bootcamp. I can tell you that when i started attending, my development capabilities absolutely skyrocketed. The inside tools and tips you learn by attending are invaluable.

My experience with DevPoint Labs could not have been any better than it was. They have always been amazing at bringing talented people in to teach and mentor their students. The environment at DPL is so uplifting and inspriing. Even when i go back to mentor a hackathon I am always leaving with an amazing feeling – wanting to build something awesome.

I went into DPL on a whim. I was sorta' doing nothing with myself. 25, single, was doing the typical Utah work... (call center, customer service, alarms, etc.)... My buddy called me one day and asked if I wanted to do this course. Didn't have anything else going on. So I said "sure". I went in, met with them, got accepted, started the first day, and fell in love with it.

Jake Sorce and Dave Jungst are excellent teachers. "Let me Google that for you" became a mantra in my life (thanks Jake, really turned things around for me). I loved going to class every day. I was learning a lot and from two people who teach very differently than each other, which I think was pivotal for me to not get stuck doing things a certain way.

Nhi, Will, and Ty are awesome founders and administrators for the program. They really care about you succeeding and will resourcefully help you find a way "in" if you're willing to put in the effort. Mark Anthony was super helpful in helping me tailor my resume into something that left potential employers with a desire to meet with me.

My first job out of school was in C#. Now I work in WordPress, Joomla, and some static sites. But, I build custom software for some of our clients and I do most of it in Ruby on Rails. My employer and clients are happy with the approach that I take to both web and software. They appreciate that I have instilled in me the desire to become better. I'm the only web developer here and they hired me over people with more experience and similar salary requirements because of the way I was taught and the way I approach my dev work.

Major shout-out to the fellas at DPL who helped me become a developer and hone in on skills and talents that I knew I had (or could have) but wasn't doing anything with.