Turing School of Software & Design

Turing was exactly what I wish I could do in college. As a high school student, I took a few intro programming classes to get me interested, but the system was awful for me. I got an hour of each day sitting in class, most of the time not paying attention to the teacher and working on my own, which actually helped quite a bit. Almost all of my learning toward programming was in that time I got to spend fooling around on my own. But then my hour would be up and I'm on to the next class that I can sleep in.

After high school, I knew I wanted to go to college for some kind of computer science, but I wasn't very fond of taking a lot of other classes in college that I probably would never use. I went to speak a computer science professor to plan out my next step in life, and he recommended I check out Turing. This was exactly what I was looking for: a very focused and specific education without any of the typical schooling nonsesne.

Hopefully that's enough background to understand my actual review.

Overall Expirience: 5/5

I was excited every single day through the entire 7 months to show up in a basement with no windows. The community, including both instructors and students, at Turing made it easy to want to learn more. Everyone brought their best, which I appreciated quite a bit. Everyone was able to stay motivated and put in a ton of work 5 days a week.

Instructors: 4/5

I began at Turing as one of the first few "guinea pig" classes. When I started there, a few instructors were very evidently new, having hardly any teaching experience. If they had stayed that way the entire 7 months, I probably would have rated this category lower. Every instructor was there because of a passion to teach, and not for any other reason. I saw instructors hired that came in honestly as awful teachers. Then after only a month or so, there was obvious improvement and huge drive to improve as a teacher. I graduated about a full year ago, and I'm certain all of the instructors, including new ones, either are great teachers now, or working hard to become one.

Curriculum: 3/5

When I was at Turing, all of the curriculum for the first few months was very fleshed out and worked well for everyone. Further along, the projects got much more vague, as did the teaching for new material. Keep in mind again, I was attending very early on to Turing, so I assume this is improved quite a bit by now.

Job Assistance: 2/5

I'm a bit of a special case for this section in the fact that I was just out of high school and never had a job before. I had never learned about or had to do any job searching, interviewing, etc before, so I was fairly lost on starting this up. Turing did plan a few job fair-like events, helped with some resume writing, but I hardly got much more out of it. I won't put all the blame on Turing though, I could have been more helpful to the process myself, but overall I struggled heavily looking for a job between my age, my 0 expirence, and the resources provided by Turing.

I graduated from Turing in December of 2014, officially making this review long overdue.  It also puts me in a bit of a unique situation.  Yes, I finished the program over a year ago, but I've been deeply involved with the Turing community for the better part of two years.  Seven months as a student, the rest as a mentor.  There are several reasons I've stuck around for as long as I have, and I'll do my best to express those here.

If you're looking for a tl;dr, here it is: if you have a chance to attend Turing, do it.  The instructors, curriculum, and all of the amazing people I've met along the way enabled me to become the kind of person I've wanted to be for years -- both personally and professionally.
It really did change my life.

Before we get into too much detail, there's one thing that's particularly important to me -- the Turing community.  I was fortunate enough to see Turing grow into what it is today: a thriving, open, and kind community of educators, students, alumni, and friends.  They're the reason I am where I am, which is why I'm doing my best to pay it forward.  I've been a part of Turing get-togethers in at least four major US cities, and I've barely scratched the surface.  If you do decide to attend Turing, the community will be your biggest asset.

Though my work took me away from Denver well over a year ago, I think my proximity to Turing over the years gives me a good foundation to speak to the program's values as well as the current state of things.  Turing began as twenty strangers in a basement -- little did I know how many lifelong friends would be among them.  And a lot has changed since then.
The staff has grown at least four-fold, the curriculum is constantly evolving, and plenty of new initiatives like student-led workshops have been introduced.

My thoughts here will draw from the whole of my time at Turing, both as a student and as a mentor.  Be forewarned that this review will be overwhelmingly positive, because that was the nature of my experience.  Take from it what you will.

I want to emphasize that I mean every word.

Instructors

Many of Turing's instructors have professional teaching experience -- they were teachers first.  As an educator, technical expertise is only useful if you're able to share that knowledge effectively.

I saw them continually go above and beyond.  They put in long hours, often with little recognition.  Staying after-hours with students, running workshops, acting as a project manager for student side-projects, and organizing extra-curricular activities like teaching computer science to middle-schoolers.  To me, they are friends and mentors who genuinely give a shit.  I appreciate them, and I can say with certainty that you will too.

Curriculum

It was immediately clear that Turing's mission was to train application developers.  I appreciated the curriculum so much precisely because it was project-driven.  We touched on computer science fundamentals, but what I really gained at Turing was the ability to solve problems.  More specifically, the ability to solve problems in the pursuit of writing production-quality software.  We focused on specific technologies, but my biggest takeaways were language/framework agnostic.  We learned how the web works, how large web applications should be structured, service oriented architecture, how to communicate via APIs, etc.

Here's a quick rundown of my experiences with each six-week module:

Module 1: Ruby

This was my favorite module, and arguably the most challenging.  We covered computer science fundamentals, and learned Ruby/object-oriented programming in a non-web environment.  We built things like text-based games, command-line applications, and a database management system.  Working with plain old Ruby for six weeks was incredibly important for my development.  Learning about things like paradigms, design patterns, and how pieces of a software system interact gave me a strong base to build upon when our cohort eventually moved our focus to web programming.

Module 2: Web Basics, Sinatra, Rails

During the first 3-4 weeks we built a few smaller web projects using Sinatra culminating in a restaurant ordering application built with Rails.

The two most valuable things I learned during this module:

* How the web works (clients, servers, protocols, etc.)
* How Rails treats the MVC pattern

The concepts I was exposed to have proved useful to me on an almost daily basis.

## Module 3: Rails in depth

Here we explored more advanced concepts like multitenancy and complex authorization schemes.  We also began to dive deep into JavaScript, as Steve Kinney, the resident JavaScript expert, had been part of the staff for a few months at this point.  I enjoyed frontend development so much that I decided to do it full-time.  With good reason, JavaScript has consistently become a bigger and bigger part of the curriculum.

Module 4: Performance, JavaScript

Here is where my cohort took slightly different paths.  Some found they loved solving scaling/performance problems and pursued more advanced backend programming.  Others, like me, found we loved building rich, client-side applications and dove into JavaScript frameworks like Ember.  Either way, it was exciting to see how many of us found our niche as developers during our last six weeks.

The final module had a heavy focus on external APIs.  One of my final projects aggregated music from sources like SoundCloud, Twitter, and YouTube.
API Interactions like this are a huge part of modern web development, and I draw on my experiences here often.

Mentoring

The mentor program is dear to my heart.  At Turing we were part of 'posses', small groups of students who were paired with as many mentors -- all of whom were freely volunteering their time.  Pairing with mentors was crucial.  I saw how professional developers went about the craft of programming, and I still incorporate what I learned about their processes into my own work.

Many graduates end up becoming mentors themselves.  I've been fortunate enough to work with several students throughout the duration of the program.  They went through many of the same struggles I did, and saw the same kind of unfathomable growth.  All of them are now taking the world of professional software by storm, contributing real value to companies who are lucky to have them.

Jobs

Here's another place where the community comes into play.  The Turing network is sprawling, and was the source of every single one of my fruitful leads.

I found a job about two months after graduation.  Never once did I feel like I was on my own during the job hunt.  I had constant support, with introductions being made, emails being sent out on my behalf, etc.

# Things I didn't like

No program is perfect, and Turing is no exception:

* Many people come to the program specifically for Jeff.  If you're expecting to have him personally take you under his wing and carry you to developer excellence, don't.  Some have expressed displeasure that they don't have as much exposure to Jeff as they would like.  He will be a big part of your Turing experience, but he's just one individual.  It's good to be realistic about what he can accomplish in his position as director.
* It wasn't communicated to our cohort that one staff member wouldn't be a part of the program.  In the end, it wouldn't have affected my decision and by now it's water under the bridge.  But this one stung, and I wish it was communicated to me up front.

In closing

If you've made it this far, you know that I'm biased.  I'll say this anyways: Turing is the only program of it's kind I'd ever recommend to a friend or family member, and it's the only place I'd recommend my employer hire from.  This amazing and perpetually-expanding group of people changed my life for the better in more ways than I could ever express.

I am still waiting for the day that I go into work and do not have the thought that “it really worked”. It is difficult to think of another plan I have had for my life, that went so smoothly.  My experience as a Turing student went exactly as advertised, and in many ways exceeded my expectations.  

The near seven months I spent at Turing were surely the most challenging months of my life. Never have I experienced so clearly what it means to feel uncomfortable with prolonged and intentional struggle. Without this struggle, I am not sure how I could have gained such a colossal amount of knowledge so quickly.

To do well at The Turing School requires self motivation and a stubbornness to learn. The curriculum and staff are there to guide your way, but it is up to each individual student to take advantage of offered learning opportunities. The best, and most distinctive aspect of Turing may be its collaborative and supportive community. The superb mentorship that I had the entire length of the program was crucial to my progress as a student. 

When I graduated from Turing, I felt like I was just prepared enough to get a junior developer position. Which is exactly what I had hoped for - to gain the knowledge necessary to continue learning while being employed as a developer. I ended up with three possibilities for employment, two of which the staff at Turing had put me in touch with, and the third, I only knew about because a Turing alumnus is a developer there.  Now, I work with an incredibly supportive team, just down the road from Turing. 

Despite the rigor of the Turing School program, I had the most fun of my life during those months. I left as a stronger, more fulfilled person. 

SOME CONTEXT

Before Turing I had no experience with building software. I had my Master's degree on hold and was looking for something that was a better fit. I looked everywhere, I eventually happened upon web development through some friends. They told me if I was serious about becoming a developer, gSchool was the way to go (Turing didn't exist yet). In the process of getting more information about gSchool, I learned about Jeff Casimir and a new program he was going to start called Turing. 

I contacted Jeff to grab coffee and talk about this new program. He generously gave me some of his time and he explained his reasoning for branching off to start Turing. I don't want to talk too much about Jeff or his character, because this review is of the quality of Turing's program. But since it's been brought up in other reviews, I'll quickly say this:

In the 30ish minutes I spent talking to him, the following became abundantly clear:

• He places enormous value on the quality of the curriculum
• His emphasis on pedagogy (teaching philosophy) permeates the entire program
• He cares very much about the quality of his students
• He is constantly experimenting and tweaking the program to make it better

I've spent a lot of time in the education world; learning, teaching, and creating curriculum. I can pretty quickly spot when something is the real deal. I was sold on Turing. That said, I wanted to be a software engineer more than anything, so I hedged my bets. I applied to both gSchool and Turing, and, in the same week, was accepted to both. It was a weird position to be in. gSchool was an established program that was churning out devs who were getting hired almost immediately, and now I was thinking jumping ship to join a program that didn't even exist yet. I didn't want anything to stand in the way of me being a software engineer.

I went with Turing because I believed Jeff and his team had my best interest at heart. And I believed they would make me the best developer I could be in 7 months.

I started with the first class in in June 2014. There was no furniture. There was nothing hanging on the walls. We built Turing from scratch. I worked harder than I ever have in my life, and I absolutely loved it. I had an offer from LivingSocial a week after I finished the program, and I started the following month. My team has been impressed with my performance from my very first day, and I absolutely love my job.

THE PROGRAM

I don't like the term 'bootcamp'. Maybe it's because it's overused. I prefer calling the program an 'intensive', because I think it gets at the heart of what Turing is. Imagine taking several years of computer science knowledge and condensing it down to 24 weeks (27 including intermission weeks). That's Turing. It's a very high-octane environment. Everything you learn, you will use in the field. There's no time for fluff. There's no room for spoon-feeding. With that in mind, it's important to know that Turing is not for everyone, and there's no judgment in that.

The program has greatly improved since I went through it, but the same core principles are still in place. Here's what you should expect:

Turing is extremely practice-oriented.

There will be lectures and walk-throughs to help explain concepts, but the bulk of your time will be spent doing actual programming. Some people complain about this approach by saying there is little support and oversight from instructors, or "I might as well have taught myself." While I understand the frustration behind this sentiment, my personal experience as a student and as a mentor of students in the program, has been that this is very rarely the case.

Instead, I find it more common to see students who don't effectively utilize the support they have available (mentors, instructors, other students, etc.) Improvements can certainly be made in this area, but it won't alleviate the struggle from the process, nor should it. One of the most valuable lessons/skills I learned at Turing was increasing my mental endurance. Learning to struggle through a problem and enduring the pain of being stuck for a long time (or flat-out failure) is one of the most important skills you can have as a developer (as is learning how and when to ask for help). And it is incredibly frustrating, especially in the beginning. I don't want to make light of that. But that skill is what has enabled me to continually grow as a developer.

The core philosophy that drives this practice-oriented approach is that the #1 thing that makes you a better programmer is programming a lot. The lectures and walk-throughs are there to make sure you don't have any potholes and don't run off the reservation. But the time spent actually programming is what makes you a better developer.

Turing is thorough.

This isn't a 9 week bootcamp. You be typing `rails new` for quite a while. You'll start with lessons designed to teach you how machines store, organize, and retrieve information. You'll spend a lot of time working in Ruby, but really you're learning how to solve computer science problems. Ruby is simply the context for solutions. The program is geared toward developing things for the web. But you'll dive down to see how a relational database works (by building one), set up and deploy to a VPS, and fully utilize the browser.

A lot of programs call themselves 'full-stack', and in some sense that's true. But there is so much more you can learn in an extended program such as Turing.

Turing is social-justice oriented.

This is a natural part of the Turing ethos. Turing, by its nature, exists to make becoming a software developer more accessible to more people. In addition to this, the program is intentional about actively supporting and promoting diversity in their programs. There are many reasons for this stance, both moral and business, but at Turing you should know that social-justice comes baked in. You'll see it in (and hear it from) the instructors, staff, and a large portion of the students, alumni, and supporters. If diversity and social-justice isn't something you care about, or at least in favor of, Turing might not be the best choice for you.

INSTRUCTORS

I have a tremendous amount of respect for all the instructors at Turing. They are constantly critiquing and improving their lessons and are incredibly generous with their time for students. One of the stand-out qualities I appreciated while in the program was that they were not only good developers, but also skilled teachers.

THE JOB HUNT

I've already mentioned my personal experience with the job hunt, but I'd like to talk about it a bit more, because it can often be a confusing and frustrating bit for students. The hunt is not easy. You are still a junior developer looking for your first job in a new field where you likely have no relevant experience, and a vast number of companies will say they are only looking for seniors. That's the norm. Keep that in mind. There is no job lined up and waiting for you at the end. It's a hunt. And there is a lot of noise from people who finished a few online tutorials and apply for everything. But Turing gives you three tools for your job hunt when you finish (and it's important to consider them in this order).

• Your skills are a cut above the crowd. When you make it to the technical interview, the proof is in the pudding. You'll be ready. And instead of being 1 candidate out of 300 applicants, you're probably one out of three.
• The endurance you built during the program. The same hustle that got you through Turing is what will make your job hunt successful. You will probably have to apply to a lot of companies, follow up with a few, and decide on one.
• Career services and people to vouch for you at the end. The hunt is yours to own, but Turing (and the supporting community) can help you present yourself in the best light, prep you for technical interviews, and vouch for you as a person and developer when appropriate.

Turing has more specific data on job hunt numbers and statistics, so I'll let them speak for themselves on that. Personally, almost everyone I've known with reasonable expectations about finding a job and actually hustled throughout their job hunt has found work in under 90 days.

THE RESULTS

I mentioned earlier that my team has been impressed with my ability as a developer throughout my time at LivingSocial. I would also like to add that I felt well-prepared to work there as well. I submitted my first significant pull request within 2 weeks (the first week was largely up and running). While the scale of the applications I work on now is 50x what I was building at Turing, I was able to dive in almost right away and make significant contributions to our codebase.

Prior to Turing, I had absolutely no technical experience of any kind. I knew that if I was going to pursue a career in Software, I needed a school that was longer than 3 months(the standard length of most coding bootcamps). Since I lived in Denver prior to Turing, I pretty much narrowed down my choices to gSchool and Turing, both of which ran programs twice as long as most bootcamps. After reading many reviews, I decided to come to Turing. The reputation of Jeff Casimir(Turing founder) throughout the Ruby Commmunity was really the deciding factor for me. After graduating three weeks ago, I am 110% sure that coming to Turing was the best decision I could have made. I am currently interviewing with two different companies, and I honestly haven't even really started my job search yet. 

Before I came to Turing, I was a Technical Recruiter for a company in Denver, and I was primiarily recruiting web developers. After evaluating hundreds of entry level candidates with my former company, I can honestly say that after 7 months at Turing you will be exponentially more prepared than an entry level candidate with a  CS degree for a role in Software Development. Turing covers advanced computer science concepts such as linked lists, binary search trees, sorting alogorithms, etc, during the first 6 weeks of the program. The remaining 75% of the program is spent learning web technologies that employers generally expect mid-senior level candidates to know, but rarely do these employers expect an entry-level candidate to have worked with so many of these technologies in the capacity that you will at Turing. All in all, Turing students are able to bring much more the table than your standard entry level candidate in the field of Web Development.

The program itself is extremely hard. LIKE REALLY HARD. This is a program that will push you well past your breaking point at times, but they will absolutely be there to support you when this happens. I have a Bachelor's degree in Sports Management, and I can honestly say that my easiest week at Turing was still much harder than my hardest week during my Undergrad. If you decide to come to Turing, be sure that you are 150% committed to Turing for 7 months and nothing else. You really won't have much of a life outside of Turing, at least that was my experience.

This is an outstanding program, with smart, driven individuals who will challenge you to do your best every single day, and I could not be happier with my decision to come to Turing.

I recommend Turing to strangers, to friends, family, and to acquaintances, because I believe the program is one of the best shots you'll give yourself at becoming a hirable developer. If you are motivated and have some inkling of hope that you can be taught to program, you have the makings of success.

My other recommendation would be to grab on and hold tight as soon as you are enrolled. It's going to be a bruising ride, but also the most thrilling of your life. You'll learn things about yourself, other people...and programming, of course...that you will not be exposed to anywhere else. A mixture of good and bad. You might emerge with some PTSD, but you'll also be so well equipped to handle anything that comes after it that recovery will be a pleasure.

My time at Turing ended almost a year ago, and I am glad I never have to go back. While I never question my decision to enroll, it was an intense environment I hope I never have to subject myself to again.

Turing is ever-evolving. The pros of this are that the school is continually striving to improve, and that the net sum should be a better experience for the student. I rank this pro extremely highly, and wish more educational institutions considered taking risk at all. The cons are that not all gambles end well, and you might get caught in the wake. You might be so caught in the wake that you see no effort to improve conditions until the next group of students comes around, or you might get caught in a process you disagree with entirely. You'll feel like a guinea pig, and you are, but one with a loud voice. Turing encourages you to be vocal about anything you are unhappy with, and I really feel they listen to everyone’s concerns and consider them deeply. I saw that time and time again.

No matter what the path, the end result is the same as long as you remember what you are there for: to learn how to program. That is always happening at Turing, and it's done well.

My last words are for the parents out there, especially mothers. You will have enough time to devote to this program if you prepare beforehand. Have some heart-to-hearts with your partner and get them 157% behind you. Call in all the favors your family and friends owe you. Make some freezer meals. Nix the word "housecleaning" from your vocabulary, and even sometimes "bath" and "bedtime story." You're going to miss a few things, but not really a lot, because you'll also discover you have a capacity far beyond what you already thought you had. Because that's what we mothers do...we make it work.

I wanted to quickly write a fact-based review of the Turing School. I will later state some opinions. But first, I wanted to quickly say that I think a difficult responsibility of review sites is maintaining objectivity that is useful for the reader who often is trying to make a difficult education/life decision. It seems like there's always this kind of unhelpful, subjective, and unfortunate (it's never great to see unhappy people) back and forth between people that kind of muddles the facts and it quickly becomes difficult to determine the relative weight of anything. For example, the character/personality evaluations of Jeff seem oddly out of place.... I don't think software engineers can/should be making clinical evaluations of people. But, even worse, one review of that type quickly casts a shadow over the program's objective value even though the review sounds more like a subjective evaluation of Jeff. So, I'd like to quickly just try to state some facts about the program, followed by my opinons, and the program's affect on my own life and career.

First some observations and facts:

- Everyone who graduated from my cohort currently has a job in software (I recently checked Linkedin and even the students who struggled in a module or two now have jobs). My cohort started with 15-17 people and only 2 people did not finish the program. One of those 2 people re-enrolled in another program and seemed to harbor no ill-feeling towards the staff or community. Another, a friend of mine, seemed to have some personal problems during the program and was unable to succeed. Of the remaining members, everyone currently has a job in software as a software engineer. I think two members took longer than average to find jobs (over 4 months), but they also had strong preferences for living location (they had significant others in specific cities). 

- Turing's pedagogical approach is a mix of project-based learning, self-teaching, lectures, and one-on-one Q & A. It seems to be an effective variety of techniques. It is lighter on theoretical computer science material and textbooks, but for the purposes of the program (job hiring and foundational knowledge), I don't think this is a problem. Turing enables you to teach yourself this information aftewards. Java, which lends well to computer science principles, is easy to learn after Ruby.

- There is a mentorship network that is extremely accessible and helpful. My main mentor at the program was a Thoughtbot developer named Elliot Winkler who is the most generous, helpful, and patient person I've ever met. He somehow is able to divide his time between multiple students and is incredible in breaking down more complicated topics (API design, the event loop, Javascript promises, metaprogramming, dynamic programming, and Javascript sorting/filtering) into smaller, more understandable chunks. The relationship that Turing has with developers at companies in Denver (Thoughtbot, CaptainU, Quickleft to name a few) and Bonobos in NYC allows Turing to access mentors who are experienced and generous with their time.

- Turing set up multiple job fairs during my 7-month time there. One was an in-house hiring job fair where students met with potential local employers. Another was setup by Brad Feld (principle VC at Foundry). Another was an in-house visitation and hiring from the Bonobos engineering team.

- The cost of the program is cheaper on a per-day basis than the competitors out there. If you get held back multiple times (this does not happen to the majority of students), that's the only time when your costs increase past the point of competitors. Again, this does not happen to the majority of students. To suggest anything else is disingenuous. The program is also longer than the other programs which I think is necessary for a skill as complex as programming. Turing does not cover living expenses like food and housing with the tuition cost... but I don't think that should be an expected duty of a programming school.

Some subjective observations:

- Communities of people are hard to manage. In my personal opinion, it's almost impossible to have a large community of people without having some small, base level of disagreement. It happens everywhere: homes, universities, companies, and friends. It's unfortunate, but we are so different and emotion-driven that disagreements and conflicts eventually come up. On top of that problem, lay on top some extremely rigorous learning material, job-hunting stresses, project deadlines, and self-improvement struggles and there's now some real (and unfortunate) potential for personal disagreement. So, the fact that some negative reviews of Turing exist shouldn't be surprising. It's almost expected. I would expect that at every school, company, or bootcamp, there is almost always some disagrement and conflict. But it shouldn't detract from the fact that Turing provides a long-term, relatively-cheap, and effective program for programming education with a strong and supportive community.

-With that said, Turing was one of the best learning and community experiences I've had since college. I learned a ton, had fun, made several friends, and was inspired by the students and staff around me. I think I finally found my people and my industry.

The personal impact Turing had on my life and career situation:

- Prior to Turing, I graduated from Amherst College, worked in HFT and finance, and had product experience at startups. Even with this decent headstart, I couldn't break into software and product roles at more successful and established companies because I lacked the technical expertise and experience. I was at a career standstill. After enrolling and finishing Turing, I was able to land a job at a company called Andela, a well-funded Spark Capital portfolio company, where I worked as a software engineer and programming teacher. The company teaches Nigerians how to code in order to eventually have them work as full-time software consultants. Even though I was living in Lagos, I was paid an American salary and worked under Obie Fernandez, author of the Rails Way. It was the adventure that I signed up for and the friends I made and the experience I had was eye-opening. After my contract expired (I signed a short-term 5 month contract with Andela since I knew I wanted to eventually return home to my friends and family in NYC), I obtained a job at Blue Apron as a software engineer in NYC. It's my best job to date. None of this would have been possible without Turing; they enabled me to solely focus on programming, rediscover my work ethic, and successfully pivot away from finance.

In regards to my review and other reviews on the site (both positive and negative)... I think the negative reviewer actually put it best: "The 'truth' is subjective...", so read and believe at your own risk. I prefer listening to the facts.

Turing is a fast paced, grueling, software development school. I enjoyed learning a new skill set and discovering how to solve interesting problems with code. The experience was not all butterflies and rainbows. There were moments when I was elated because I solved difficult problems. Those were usually followed by moments when I was pretty sure the sky was falling. It is tough if you have no background in programming, but it is very do-able.

Turing provides a solid teaching staff, challenging curriculum and life-saving mentors. When I interviewed for jobs, I felt confident in my abilities. Turing prepared me well for my role as a junior developer. 

As I was going through Turing I always remember thinking that it was a great program because I was being challenged and being put in a position in which I had to work hard. I also remember thinking that my perception would probably change after the program ended and I started writing software professionally. This did happen but not in the way I expected. I was thinking I would be hit with a slap in the face of sorts, the same one a lot of people experience after a traditional 4 year degree, and have to face the fact that I still didn't know anything about writing software. After all, how much can you learn in 7 months?! Well, you learn enough to join a software development team and contribute right off the bat, along team members that have been writing software for decades. Some of them might even have cs master's and/or phd degrees from some of the best universities in the world! This can be intimidating but eventually you start to realize that a Turing education is at the same level of some of the top universities in the world and in some ways it's even better. I'm not saying a 4 year degree or master's program at a top university is similar to going to Turing. It's two completely different things. Do your homework before making a final decision. Ask Turing what the differences are if you would like to know; I'm sure they would be happy to answert tha question for you. When I was researching schools I remember choosing to go to Turing because it seemed like the best program of it's kind. I packed my things and moved all the way across the country to attend. Today, after chatting with people of many similar programs at NYC, SF and Miami, coding with them at meetups, and having worked as a professional software developer for a few months after I finished Turing, I'm glad to say my opinion hasn't changed. I still think Turing is the best program of it's kind. I'm obviously biased as I attended the program, but if my brother wanted to get into tech, I would tell them to go to Turing. There are things they teach that you don't even realize you are learning until you start writing software professionally. What I love the most  about the group of people running Turing is their determination to always improve. They never stop asking students for feedback, brainstorming on how they can increase the quality of the program for the benefit of the students and trying everything they can think of to make a better all around person out of you.

I signed up to attend Turing last fall with all of the same trepidation and doubt that accompany any career change but, 7 months later, could not be more happy with my decision to trust the Turing school with getting me through this transition.

The Turing program is a 7-month course which covers the basics of programming focusing on Ruby language within a Rails framework as well as and Javascript basics within a community of driven individuals and instructors working together to push their technical boundaries and skills forward.  

I researched a lot of programs before landing on Turing but what really made the difference for me were its length as well as personal recommendations that I received from people within the industry.  When making the decision to study programming I consulted the development team in my workplace and was immediately directed to Turing; several of the engineers had friends who went through the program and recommended it very highly which was a big plus. Beyond those recommendations though, the Turing program is almost double the length of most others that I had looked at meaning I would have time to study programming on a much deeper level and cover concepts that other programs just couldn't offer.  These things made a big difference to me and, since graduating and interviewing with several industry companies, I can tell that it makes a big difference to employers too.

Ultimately, if you are reading these reviews and considering a development program for yourself or a friend, there are a lot of factors that must go into your decision but, from my experience, this is the best value for your buck.  The instructors are driven and committed to your success, the students are interesting and intelligent people, and the education is brutally challenging and highly effective.  I would definitely recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone interested in going down this path!

When I first started looking into coding schools, I was focussing on bootcamps that were quicker and cheaper. I'm so glad I did not go in that direction. Even though Turing is seven months long, there was not a single day in my time there when I was not learning, pushing myself, and growing as a developer and as a person. Turing does more than just teach you how to code. They teach you how to be a developer that contributes to your team, your community and your craft. The staff and instructors are fun to work with and incredibly dedicated to student succes. As an orginization Turing is very transparent and open to change.

If you're looking to kickstart your programming skills and your career, and you're open to working harder than you probably ever have, look no further. Go to Turing and join the most impressive, thoughtful and driven network of individuals that I've ever been a part of.

First I just wanna say it’s nuts to see anyone stand up to Jeff. He has all of your money, you have to cover your own living expenses, and then the dude can bury you if he doesn’t want you getting a job in the industry. 

But buyer beware? Anonymous? Jeff knows exactly who you are - he blew you up on slack a couple days later and tried to play it off like you’re crazy or something. 

I wouldn’t have even written anything, but Jeff just had to Merriam Webster you like it’s some sort of high school English speech. “I don’t know what a sociopath means, but google describes it as… “  Are you for real Jeff? And then a bogus comparison to his staff (of mostly his own grads) ratio to K through 12!? We get it public school sucks - compare it to other bootcamps. Maybe galvanize, the other bootcamp that successfully sued Jeff after he started Turing. 

Definitely heard the guy say to a room full of people he’s a sociopath. Also heard him tell a class their tuition guarantee wan’t real. That if it came down to the wire that they could just decide not to graduate them. See when their first payout on the guarantee came - like a year into operation. Fat chance that’s a coincidence. Somebody decided to sing so they opted to payout as a CYA measure. 

IF you can keep your head down and not piss off Jeff you’re probably fine. If not and that’s probably an accurate review. Either way it’s super expensive and Jeff definitely doesn’t have a problem taking your money. No wonder everyone’s so scared of him. Non-profit. Psh.