Haiku Academy

I recently finished this boot camp, batch #5 overall and the first batch to be hosted in Bali, Indonesia. Before attending this bootcamp, I had been learning Javascript / web development on my own by following Udemy, Youtube videos, and Treehouse courses.... Read More While those are all good resources, I couldn't believe how much my programming skills improved during the 9 weeks at Tortuga. I made more progress during those 9 weeks than I had made in 5 months of studying independently. The other students in my batch were great, and came from a wide array of backgrounds and experience levels. We did a lot of team / pair programming work that forced me out of my comfort zone at times, but was excellent preparation for the real world. The projects that we completed were very interesting and followed a smooth progression in difficulty and complexity. The lead instructor (Tony) did a great job with breaking down the more difficult concepts of programming and explaining them in a way that I could understand. There were also 2 assistant instructors that helped me out a lot when I got stuck on something. The course has a good, logical structure that teaches the right concepts in the right order so that it all starts to come together and make sense eventually. I found the course portal that contains all of the lesson notes and learning materials to be very helpful and still refer back to it frequently. Just like any course or program, what you get out of it will be proportional to what you put into it. If you give it your best effort I think you can learn a tremendous amount in a short period of time. I definitely feel like it was worth coming to Tortuga and had a great experience studying there. Big thanks to the Tortuga crew for the hard work and support!

in my opinion the course is well structured from the basis until the development from complex applications. In adition to that, I appreciate that the professor Tony and the mentors were always commitment during the lectures and very active by supporting... Read More the students during the projects. Obviously like in every learning process the student muss put his own effort, but if you are motivated to learn a new programming language, passionated on fullstack development this course is for you.

This is a CODING BOOTCAMP, so naturally it was a lot of information to digest in a short amount of time. That being said, I think this bootcamp was worth every single penny! We were taught how to create a full stack web application and at the end my partner... Read More and I built our own. Tony and Angela are awesome and really take care of you. Tony is super knowledgeable and I think did a great job with the curriculum. By the end of the program you can't believe what a long way you've come! I knew very little about coding before this program and now I can use terminal, gitHub, MongoDB, Robo3T, Postman, etc. In addition to general coding skills, Tony teaches you about work culture, how to interview, and how to best organize your resume.
Also, you cannot beat the location! Need a break? Go on down to the beach and take a dip in the water or just take a nice walk. I loved being in Thailand for this bootcamp. Lamai (Ko Samui) is a nice mellow location. Not too many tourists but still a lot of wonderful beaches. HIGHLY recommend!!!!!

I have already written a review as soon as I left the course, but I want to leave a new comment because, after embarking on a new career path, today I started working on my old project (with my old remote project partner) and I forgot some commands. Well,... Read More opening the shared folder of github I realized that in recent months it has been updated and organized with the addition of new summary sheets, a new order of explanations and above all new exercises to be done online, to keep what has been learned always vivid in our minds. What to say, truly commendable by the professor, who could also have left everything as it was.

Before Tortuga Coders, I did an MBA and ended up working in a sales role that was not fulfilling. I also realized that I was lacking a lot of technical skills which would help when explaining the technical product we were selling to our corporate customers.... Read More

I tried to learn programming on and off on my own for the past year with no success. At Tortuga Coders I was learning more in a day than on my own in a whole month. My most favorite part was the projects, where we got to work in a team just like in a real work environment, which is the best way to learn.

The teacher, all the staff and other students were great, there’s no wasting time with unnecessary fluff, we were coding and building real projects every day, supporting one another. I am now working in a technical management role, bridging the gap between developers and non-technical teams. I am extremely happy in my role and I could not have made a better decision.

Highly recommended.

Before joining Tortuga Coders I wasn’t sure what to expect. Now I know that it was the right decision coming to Thailand and choosing this bootcamp. The nine weeks were very intense, the curriculum was very good and the program helped me to fulfill my... Read More goal being a full stack developer. I would definitely join Tortuga Coders again.

I attended batch #3 of Tortuga Coders. This was one of the best experiences of my life. I find that the course being located in Thailand (and now Bali) is a huge advantage. It really forces you to focus, yet outside of the classroom there are ample opportunities... Read More for adventure. Like anything in life, you get in what you put in. Learning to code is not easy. There is a learning curve. But through persistence eventually things will start to click. I can honesetly say that I left Tortuga with a lot more skills than I came in with. I can now build an application from scratch, program both the logic and user interface, and finally deploy that app via web or mobile. I love that the course teaches JavaScript. JavaScript is only growing in popularity and power. JavaScript allows you to develop both web and mobile applications (both taught in the course), explore blockchain, and even machine learning. It is one of the best languages to learn in my opinion. With all of this said, you have to keep coding! However, after attending Tortuga, this is easy. You leave the bootcamp with access to all of the course material, and projects that you've built that you can refer to. You also now have friends who are coders and a connection with the instructor who I'm sure would be willing to offer his assitance if need be. In regards to others speaking about 'drama', I don't know much about it because I didn't concern myself with it. Again, you get in what you put in. I chose to focus on learning. I was there to take my skills to the next level and that's exactly what I did. Overall, Tortuga Coders was worth it for me. Persist, persevere, and keep coding! Check out my video and feel free to reach out to me via any of the channels below: https://youtu.be/ICbHBagj8E8 Instagram@ joshua.jones.dev LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-jones-6589a2b9/

Tortuga Coders definitely took my skills to the next level. When I started at Tortuga Coders, I had already been studying JavaScript on my own but I knew that there was a lot that I was still missing. The most important thing I learned while in the program... Read More is how to create an app from start to finish. This experience taught me a lot and brought everything together for me. Although I knew a lot before going through the Tortuga Coders program, I learned a lot more and came out with a full understanding of how to put all the pieces together to create a complete app.

The curriculum was well planned to start from the basics and build towards more advanced topics. Each week built on the previous week which allowed for us to learn and continue practicing what we learned throughout the program. This was really helpful to not only be introduced to each concept, but also use those skills repeatedly so that we could remember it.

By starting with a good foundation in the beginning and constantly building on it, each student reached the end of the program knowing how to build their own app from front to back. I was surprised by the quality and thoughtfulness of every app when we presented on the last day of class. Some of the students had almost no knowledge of coding when they started the program and in only 9 weeks were creating complete apps.

Aside from the class itself, it was great to learn all of this while staying in an island paradise. After all the hard work in class, it was a huge plus to be able to take a relaxing swim at the beach during the lunch break or after class. The class involves a lot of learning and thinking, but there are plenty of options to relax once the work is done. This is a great aspect of the program because it is important to not get burnt out. Doing the classwork in a vacation atmosphere is a perfect balance to optimize your learning and get the most out of your time there.

If you are considering studying with Tortuga Coders, I highly recommend it. You will get a great program for a great price. From the perspective of a return on investment, you won't find a better option.

Course with quality curriculum, located on the beach in one of the most beautiful islands of Thailand, what to say, fantastic.
If you are looking for a bootcamp that allows you to implement your coding knowledge this is the place for you, because not only... Read More will you learn all the basics to be able to build your app or webApp from scratch, but you'll start to love coding . The teacher, Tony, in addition to following a well-defined course of studies that guides the learner through the various essential phases of teaching, has the great ability to transmit his passion to the students, continually presenting examples of life lived or cases known to allow to everyone to understand, at every stage of the teaching ,what is being done and why. There will be plenty of time to have fun during the hot Thai weekends with excursions to the neighboring islands and trips to the island of Koh Samui.Big Up for this Bootcamp that I I would advise anyone willing to commit to learning how to create an App or WebApp. Work Hard Play Harder

This review is somewhat lengthy due to a lot unfolding during my time at the Tortuga Coders bootcamp on Koh Samui. Below follows my best recollection of events as truthfully and objectively as I can muster. Suffice to say there is a lot more negative... Read More than positive so I will begin with the good parts.

I was part of the 3rd batch of students to attend this bootcamp, starting on August 13th 2019.
My partner accompanied me during my attendance staying in the provided accommodation (we opted for a private bungalow). The accommodations were basic but sufficient and I have no complaints about them.

Course material and tuition started off on a good note with general quality being high but fell off after moving beyond the basics. Advanced concepts were not as well explained and tution/attention lulled during the middle of the course. After feedback from several of the students the teacher/founder corrected course and started putting in more effort and the course quality subsequently improved. Overall content of the course was good, covering the full range of technologies and skills to develop a modern web application and if none of the following drama had occurred would warrant a reasonable review. I would go as far to say that the course is good value for money. It isn’t the best by any means but it’s substantially cheaper than other options and that alone made it worthwhile for me in addition to not needing a visa as a Thai national.

The other students were the highlight, I made some great friends and generally enjoyed everyone's company throughout the 8 weeks I spent on Samui.

However that concludes the good things I have to say about the course.

The drama started a few weeks into the course when immigration officers entered the classroom. They demanded copies of everyone's passports and interrogated a number of the students. The course founders and their Thai speaking staff member were present. Unfortunately neither the founders nor the Thai staff member rendered any assistance to the students, opting to hide away in the corner of the classroom while 2 of the students were extorted for fines for violation of Thailand's TM30 reporting law. This law requires landlords to report the stay of aliens (foreigners) within 24 hours. This should have been handled by Tortuga Coders or the respective owners of the properties they lease on behalf of the students. I attempted to assist being a native Thai speaker but at the time I wasn’t aware of this law and as a Thai citizen I have minimal interaction with and understanding of Thai immigration law. The poor handling of this event contributed to one of the affected students choosing to depart the course early.
Clearly this should have been something the course administrators should have handled and I was quite frustrated in being the only one that tried to help at all despite being only a student myself.

Following this a subset of the students along with the course founders and Thai employee attended the Full Moon Party on Koh Tao. I chose not to attend for personal reasons instead opting to return to my home in Bangkok for the weekend and as such have minimal information on what unfolded there. Upon my return the Thai employee had been fired as a result of events that occured that weekend.

I only go into detail about these events as they were mentioned in two previous reviews of this bootcamp posted by someone else on this site that have since been deleted. The reviews contained defamatory and potentially libelous statements about the legality of the Tortuga Coders bootcamp and were rightfully removed. I don’t condone such behavior and think the correct decision was made in relation to their removal. Whether there is merit to those claims or not doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t the appropriate forum to raise those concerns.

These reviews are the culmination of the drama and the raison d'etre for authoring this review.

Upon discovering the first of these reviews the course founder brought up the review in the class after it’s deletion, clearly suspecting one of the current students as being the author and adamantly defending his business legality. Going as far to say if you don’t want to be here then leave (paraphrased to be much more polite). On it’s own this would have been unprofessional but not entirely unwarranted, one can understand his frustration. The events described above were alluded to in the review and would seem to indicate someone with first or at least second hand knowledge of this batch of students experience at the course had written it.

However no sooner as this had occurred it was replaced by another review by clearly the same person that simply restated the same content, it too was promptly removed.

I was obviously aware of this as were the rest of the students and there was quite some sleuthing going on trying to find the real author.

Come Monday morning the course founder arrived outside our accommodation and accused me of being the author of the reviews, stating that he was sure it was me and that I had 1 hour to pack my things and leave. I was upset and my partner came outside to try and reason with him but he refused to even converse with him. At no point did he offer any evidence or allow me to defend myself in any way. Figuring we had no other options we simply packed our things, settled with the landlord and filed a police report recording our side of the story before departing Koh Samui.

Now it’s understandable that he would be angry at someone with a seemingly personal vendetta against him attempting to attack his business and livelihood but that in no way excuses his behaviour here. It was deeply upsetting and humiliating to be treated this way, being falsely accused is one thing, to also need to depart without any notice was doubly awful.

Regardless of what reasons he had to suspect me there was no proof (and couldn’t have been any, I didn’t write the reviews). While he was probably within his rights to terminate our agreement (it doesn’t have any protection for students in it) it was clearly a move motivated only by anger and revenge - which seemed to have blinded him sufficiently that any target would do. Not only that but the reviews contained allegations and statements easily proved false like the location of the business registration etc which can be found online via the Thai business registry. Such mistakes I never would have made and would have conferred to him if he had bothered to converse with me before passing summary judgment and removing me from the course.

I had my fair share of constructive criticism to level at the course but harboured no ill will towards him or his business until this occured and most likely would have opted to either provide my feedback privately or in a balanced review.

So while I would have liked to write something much more neutral that offered a reasonable recount of course and it’s prospective value my hand was forced by the founders behaviour.

I can’t in good conscience recommend this bootcamp to anyone.