Codesmith

I was very nervous about starting Codesmith. I enrolled in the CS Prep program and despite the fact that I enjoyed that, I was apprehensive about dedicating 12 weeks of my life, 6 days a week to this program. I would do it all again. I started the program... Read More insecure about my ability to be a software engineer, but now I have the tools to succeed in this industry. What makes the Codesmith curriculum so powerful and different from other programs? First: the people. Seriously. The instructors, the fellows, the staff, the people they select for the cohorts. Everyone is so supportive. In your moments of deepest doubt, they are there to support you and lift you up. I never once felt ashamed about asking for more help. It's really a special place. Second: the production project. Forget the Snake game. Forget the Chrome extension. That is done in week two. Codesmith does something special and the second half of the program is focused on diving deep into a technology and creating a developer tool around this technology. My team and I dove in deep on Chaos Engineering; something I had not even heard of before Codesmith. This project gave me so much confidence going out in to the job market and has given me a plethora of topics and technologies to talk about in interviews. If you're even questioning Codesmith versus another program STOP QUESTIONING. You won't find a better place than Codesmith. Seriously. Do it. You'll thank yourself.

I just finished the JSB prep course and can't recommend it, or Codesmith, enough. I started looking into bootcamps as my next step in a career change out of social services. JSB was perfect for a beginner like myself; succinct but robust enough to provide... Read More a great jumping-off point for a future engineer. As a female and LGBTQIA+ person, it was important to me to choose a program that not only acknowledges marginalized communities in tech but actively works to reduce barriers and support their success. Codesmith does both. Their scholarship opportunities and proven course outcomes made my decision a no-brainer. I plan to continue my journey with CS Prep and later the immersive. While I'm in the very early stages of my coding journey, I'm so happy to have Codesmith on my side already!

I’m a total newbie and I want to be a software engineer. I want to be prepared as much as I can before I dive deep into coding bootcamp. After intensive research (ranking more than 15 schools), I concluded that Codesmith was the one for me. I enrolled... Read More in their JavaScript for Beginners and was excited to take that first step in my coding journey.
I know that there’s a lot of free materials out there, but here are the reasons why I paid for the course (and why it’s worth it for me):
1) the tuition fees from Javascript Beginners get deducted when you take Codesmith’s next course (CSPrep or the 12 week immersive). Since I’m going all the way to immersive, then I’m basically getting a free Basics course.
2) The experience of doing pair programming which you can’t get by studying alone. Pair programming brings a lot of benefits:
A) it helps you get unstuck if you encounter a problem that you can’t seem to solve. As they say, 2 heads are better than one.
B) it helps you develop those soft skills (communication) that are in high demand in software engineering jobs. In fact, on day 1 our instructor (Jinsung, she’s awesome) insisted on these soft skills and helped us develop them. Now, I automatically think not only on how to create code, but how to communicate it effectively to others.
3) The camaraderie you develop with your cohort. Codesmith’s values are about helping each other and forming a community. And all my cohorts were very supportive and helpful. One group built a fantastic project using codes that were new to me. So I asked if I could study what they did and they immediately sent me the code for my reference. We all have our group in slack and everyone is willing to help quickly.
4) Time. Yes, I got to study the basics and build an adventure game in just 2 Saturdays. If I studied on my own, then I wouldn’t have been able to achieve so much in such a short span of time.
5) Bonus: our instructor (Jinsung) and the intangibles she taught us in class. She’s a great teacher. She taught us how to create code (not just learn how to code), to think like an engineer, and communicate our codes well. I learned diagramming and technical communication. Things that are hard to learn from self study.
So, there you have it. My 5 reasons as to why Codesmith’s JavaScript for Beginners is a great way to start your coding journey.

Being an independent learner, I'd always wondered if pair programming was as important as it was made out to be. Being a JS4B student proved to me just how beneficial it is for both sides of the party. Being able to write code based on another engineer's... Read More instructions and vice versa is an amazing learning tool.

The course was really interactive and kept you on your toes – you never knew when it'd be your turn for Jinsung to call you out and ask you to walk through a block of code line by line.

There were plenty of coding challenges to get your teeth into and the end-of-course collaborative assignment was my first real experience of building software with others.

The icing on the cake for me was Jinsung arranging a Zoom meeting to talk me through a couple of challenges that I'd struggled with. Amazing!

I attended CodeSmith this year and it changed my life! What I wrote in the title is not an exaggeration. I want to give a big shout out to Will, Shanda, Schno & Eric (and everyone else that was apart of my learning experience).
The program takes you through... Read More every aspect of the development process from fundamentals in JS & Algos, to core framework & tooling, to system design & devOps. You get everything you need to succeed and most importantly they help you through the job search process and show you each step -- applying for jobs was a grind, but I rigorously followed the CodeSmith guidelines and I had continual check-ins with the staff: practice interviews, resume reviews, and more.
I reached out to Eric on a Saturday and he responded right away then gave me detailed coaching on how to negotiate my offer and successfully increased my salary by 5k & got me a nice relocation bonus. I would have had no idea how to even begin approaching that without his help.

In conclusion: Codesmith is the real deal from start to finish. My suggestions: 1. Come in with an attitude ready to learn. 2. Clear out your schedule because you will be living and breathing code for the entirety of the program. 3. Try to learn as much as you can before the program because the more you come in with, the more you exit with (its a multiplier). 4. The job search process can be harder than the program if you don't have a technical background like me, so keep in touch with the staff and communicate what you are feeling so they can provide you assistance. Finally: nothing is guaranteed but they do everything they can to help you, truly one of those situations where they show you the door and pry it open, but you have to do that leg work to walk through.

Super cool place. 10/10
I only had minor experience with Python (and no JS experience) before starting CS prep Dec 2018. Spent ~2 months after that studying alone (with the occasional JS – The Hard Parts lecture visits) and then started at Codesmith NY... Read More in Feb 2019. ~5 months later had software engineer job offers from Microsoft and Google, 100% thanks to my Codesmith experience.

CS prep is good, but I'll write about the Immersive program here. Ultimately, I think Codesmith works well because it's very careful during its admissions process to find people that are a fun combination of prepared, curious, and comfortable with not knowing things.

Some thoughts for prospective students:
-Not a program where you "learn to code" from zero. You definitely DON'T need to be an expert, but to pass the entrance interview you'll need to be pretty familiar with JavaScript (closure and how to use it, recursion, array methods, call stack. Do CSX exercises for a good idea of what to expect).
-More important than knowing a bit of JS is being a reasonable person that is okay with the discomfort of "not knowing" or being wrong. I was asked to come back for a second interview to see how I would react when given a problem I didn't know how to even begin solving (was asked to write a function that, given a string, outputs an array of all unique permutations of the characters in that string. Way beyond what I was comfortable with at that time, did not get a working solution but had a fun conversation with the interviewer about different parts of the problem). What’s great about this is that you can be confident your fellow students are going to be the type of people that are happy to work through lots of difficult problems together.
-The curriculum includes the fairly standard array of webdev technologies(JS/HTML → React/Node → Mongo/Redis/SQL), but it covers them in only ~4 weeks while also including sections on testing, and deployment (with AWS and Docker). I had never used anything past JS/HTML before starting, keep in mind.
-That said, the program is about projects, not lectures. If you want to build things and are looking for people to work with or ideas to get started, this is a great place. You’ll spend many weeks building things (mostly developer tools) that you’ll be initially convinced you’re not capable of building.
-Besides the crazy ambitious projects and the cool people, the hiring portion (including interview prep) is the other great thing about CS. Non-obvious (and apparently super effective) strategies on how to prepare for all aspects of the job hunt from resumes to phone screens to onsites and salary negotiations.

Summary:
If you’re looking to become a solid software engineer as quickly as possible, Codesmith is probably the best way to do it. If you're not sure, go to a JS - Hard Parts meetup and talk to the people there. Good luck!

Before committing to Codesmith, I’ve researched and considered a lot of different programs. I had realized that there were some reputable programs, while there were some questionable programs. I was accepted to two reputable programs, but I knew that... Read More I wanted the most challenging experience and knew Codesmith was the right program for me.

First, the outcome speaks for itself. If you need objective evidence, review the CIRR report.

Second, the production projects really stand apart from other programs. The residents tackle and solve real problems faced by software engineers. You develop a deep knowledge in one area of the technology (not working on projects like Facebook, Yelp or Airbnb clones which seems pretty popular at other programs). This part really made a big difference in my decision.

Third, the admission process was rigorous so I knew that the standards of the cohort would be high. I wanted to be around smart, high potential people.

Fourth, I didn’t know much at the time, but the hiring support has been amazing. I can’t speak about other programs, but Codesmith been great so far in this aspect. In fact, I think that the outcome of this program is the result of its hiring program. Every program teaches open source technologies like React, so what differentiates Codesmith from the rest is its hiring program.

If you want to take you skills from zero to 60, consider other programs. But if you want to take your skills from 20 to 120, this is the program for you.

Yes way! And it is all because of the curriculum, the hiring portion and the people.

After completing Codesmith, I understand why the students are able to achieve the results Codesmith speak of. I had the chance to attend another competing coding program... Read More free of charge, but I decided to pay $18k for Codesmith and I do not regret it at all.

The process to get into Codesmith is very unique, but it is not extremely difficult if you work hard, attend the meetups, and come with the right attitude. The reason I say it's unique is because for some crazy reason, Codesmith never fails to bring in the right candidates that are smart, hard working, supportive, and fun.

During the core curriculum, we are always pair programming. This meant that we quickly learned to digest difficult technical concepts together and communicate these concepts to our peers. Being able to pair program everyday has allowed me to honed my technical communication, which is important for interviews and on-the-job. The Codesmith team is always making the curriculum better or adding new units to the curriculum because they want to do whatever they can to prepare the residents for the current market.

During our project phase, we were always working in teams (other than the solo project). We would have meetings and daily standup and the projects are always collaborative, which is great because it is very unlikely that you would be working alone in the professional setting. We also have a project where we have to iterate over another group’s codebase, which is something that you would be doing when you join an engineering team. So it is just great that Codesmith prepares us for that.

Our final project is like no other - we have to build an open source developer tool. Currently, Codesmith residents have created tools that has 10k+ stars on Github. If you’re like me a few months ago, you might actually be intimidated by this final project. The truth is Codesmith does an excellent job preparing us during the junior portion that we are all able to build a tool that we are proud of. It is definitely challenging, but it is totally rewarding at the end.

Another thing that brings Codesmith to the next level is the hiring portion. We learned to build a robust resume that really makes us stand out and we were taught interviewing techniques that would not be taught at any other programs. I can honestly say that it has made me a more confident interviewer and the things we were taught has made me grow as a person. My fear before graduating Codesmith is that I will take an offer because I want a job and not because I like the company and the role, but the things that I learned through Codesmith has given me the confident and skill that I can pick and choose.

If you’re like me, I wanted to join a program with great people that I can form lifelong bonds with and that is what drew me to Codesmith. Codesmith has a great sense of community and the culture is great - come to any of the meetups and you can see for yourself. The team and residents are super supportive and it is always a great time. Codesmith is like family and if you are ready to work hard, play hard and take yourself to the next level, this place is for you.

Yes way! And it is all because of the curriculum, the hiring portion and the people. After completing Codesmith, I understand why the students are able to achieve the results Codesmith speak of. I had the chance to attend another competing coding program... Read More free of charge, but I decided to pay $18k for Codesmith and I do not regret it at all. The process to get into Codesmith is very unique, but it is not extremely difficult if you work hard, attend the meetups, and come with the right attitude. The reason I say it's unique is because for some crazy reason, Codesmith never fails to bring in the right candidates that are smart, hard working, supportive, and fun. During the core curriculum, we are always pair programming. This meant that we quickly learned to digest difficult technical concepts together and communicate these concepts to our peers. Being able to pair program everyday has allowed me to honed my technical communication, which is important for interviews and on-the-job. The Codesmith team is always making the curriculum better or adding new units to the curriculum because they want to do whatever they can to prepare the residents for the current market. During our project phase, we were always working in teams (other than the solo project). We would have meetings and daily standup and the projects are always collaborative, which is great because it is very unlikely that you would be working alone in the professional setting. We also have a project where we have to iterate over another group’s codebase, which is something that you would be doing when you join an engineering team. So it is just great that Codesmith prepares us for that. Our final project is like no other - we have to build an open source developer tool. Currently, Codesmith residents have created tools that has 10k+ stars on Github. If you’re like me a few months ago, you might actually be intimidated by this final project. The truth is Codesmith does an excellent job preparing us during the junior portion that we are all able to build a tool that we are proud of. It is definitely challenging, but it is totally rewarding at the end. Another thing that brings Codesmith to the next level is the hiring portion. We learned to build a robust resume that really makes us stand out and we were taught interviewing techniques that would not be taught at any other programs. I can honestly say that it has made me a more confident interviewer and the things we were taught has made me grow as a person. My fear before graduating Codesmith is that I will take an offer because I want a job and not because I like the company and the role, but the things that I learned through Codesmith has given me the confident and skill that I can pick and choose. If you’re like me, I wanted to join a program with great people that I can form lifelong bonds with and that is what drew me to Codesmith. Codesmith has a great sense of community and the culture is great - come to any of the meetups and you can see for yourself. The team and residents are super supportive and it is always a great time. Codesmith is like family and if you are ready to work hard, play hard and take yourself to the next level, this place is for you.