Kickstart Coding

I came into this bootcamp knowing very little about coding, I left confident and energized. I tried to teach myself JavaScript through an online course and attended a bootcamp starter course for Ruby. Both of these attempts eventually fizzled with no... Read More positive results. A friend of mine told me about Kickstart Coding and after meeting the instructors in person I decided to give it a try.

What a great decision!

As a person new to coding, I appreciated how the instructors gave background computer science concepts before teaching a skill. Each week had a challenging assignment that built upon the last. I felt both frustration and accomplishment (which is coding in a nutshell). They went very quickly through the material but at the end I felt prepared for the career into which I expected to transition. Before this course I was daunted by this field, after, I have the tools I need to solve any computer science problem in front of me. I highly recommend this course for people transitioning into this field, you will succeed.

I come from a zero-tech background. I wanted to build an app. Michael said he could teach me that, so I signed up.

I’m not going to lie. This bootcamp was hard. For a tech newbie with a full-time job and family, the time commitment is intense. I was often... Read More frustrated. I cried, a lot. I secretly thought that I shouldn’t have been admitted to the course.

But I came out the other end as a web developer – with a new job. That hadn’t even been my goal, and you couldn’t find anybody more surprised than me!

I couldn’t have afforded the time or money to take a traditional bootcamp. I never would have tried. Kickstart Coding made it possible for me to learn these skills, and it’s no exaggeration to say that it changed the trajectory of my career, and possibly my life. Michael is an excellent and engaging teacher, as are TA’s Maddy and Mark, and I owe them a debt of gratitude.

5 stars for Kickstart – well worth your money.

My husband and I decided to take this bootcamp course together. He has been a web developer, mostly learned on his own over several years, currently has a freelance business; I, on the other hand, am changing careers--TOTAL newbie, never coded before.... Read More What ended up happening at Kickstart was a beautiful thing: our instructors performed a high-wire act in which they were able to address the brand-new folks' learning, while keeping the more experienced students sufficiently engaged with more advanced challenges. I'd say our cohort had about more than half brand-spanking-new coders and less than half with some-familiarity-to-experienced coders. As one would imagine, the challenge for a new coder like myself going from zero to 100 in four months of learning so many new and dizzying Computer Science concepts, then immediately having to apply these ideas in order to CREATE apps I was previously only familiar with "doing" was both at times emotionally painful and frustrating, BUT once past the hurdle -- what a magical, empowering experience -- to be able to say, "Wow, I actually know how to make that now. What else can I make?" Kickstart carefully picks its curriculum to teach what is most currently in demand, and we were all carefully scaffolded through lectures which were captured on videos, readings, activities, condensed cheatsheets, a fellow student-student/student-instructor chat messaging system (and moral support system), one-on-one individualized help if we needed (in person or on direct chat - the resources are there, one would just need to make use of all them and not be shy), feedback on our work, etc. From the very beginning, whether we realized it or not, we were carefully being taught "how to fish" as we made our first git commit; as we created our first website (thus starting our online presence); as we learned the industry standard best practices; as we learned in our project teams how it feels to go through a scrum sprint to get our MVP ready prior to presentation; to mock interviews and algorithms. Now, although, my husband supposedly only came along for my moral support, I believe he learned exponentially more than I did, because he knew which deep questions to even ask to get the most value out of picking our instructors' brains. As I would still be in the midst of fathoming a brand new concept and having a life-altering mind-blow of seeing how efficiently my world would be by creating a function for all my daily tasks, HE would be on a different trip, saying stuff like, "I can't WAIT for the next class! I LOVE Python! What a great language!" or "This technique is so much faster than the way I used to do it, where has this been all my life!" or "Michael's starting REACT tomorrow -- that's the really the GOOD stuff!!!" or "Let's go to class early, I want to pick Michael's brain." I'm sure if it were up to him, he'd clone Michael just so he could always ask him all kinds of questions. ...Well, you know why he was so excited, it's because he oftentimes was able to immediately apply concepts we JUST learned to his business, even WHILE we were in bootcamp! With our newfound knowledge, Kickstart just broadened our horizon of possibilities of what we can do or what we can create! Michael is animated and fun; generous with his knowledge -- he's so approachable and supportive -- no matter how simple or complex the question; enthusiastic and passionate about teaching Computer Science, and his energy is obviously infectious and translates well to BOTH newbies and experienced coders, alike! I commend and recommend the Kickstart staff for being so supportive, knowledgeable and fun. And although Kickstart does not have their own job support, Kickstart now has a connection with WorkWell (a life coaching program that has helped coach 500+ people to successfully land jobs at many big-name high tech companies; in addition, many other industries, as well) and cohort graduates are encouraged and funneled to optionally subsequently attend their 2-week bootcamp in order to be completely set up for success so we can put our ultimate best foot forward! With that combo, here's to a bright future!

Kickstart Coding could not have been more aptly named and the schedule/format of the class could not have fit my needs better.
With my full-time, non-tech job demanding a minimum of 50-60 hrs per week, I still looked forward to every class (2 weekday... Read More evenings and Saturday afternoon, each week).
Michael is hands down the best teacher I've ever had. He is an expert at what he does, with an impressively VAST knowledege base and still managed to consistently make you feel comfortable in your learning. Being introduced to so much new information and new ways of thinking, he was always able to answer our questions thoroughly, even though at times, we didn't even know how to ask them.
I have never met a teacher that so clearly enjoys what he does, is fully and exceptionally competent, and shares his love and knowledge of coding with such empathy, compassion, respect, and patience.
The demos, activities, quizzes, and homework we received were all very well put together and consistently challenging. So much good material is provided and I've already revisited many of the activities since then.
You're really provided with a variety of tools and new skills to continue learning to code and feeling accomplished and successful.
Kickstart Coding is definitely a huge time commitment, and I personally found balancing full-time (and completely unrelated) work with classes along with homework overwhelming at times, but this was not a surprise as Michael made this very clear even in the interview process. But it is possible and once the course ends, the learning and the support doesn't.
The price for Kickstart Coding is extremely fair and it's truly meant to allow more people access to learning.

I had a really great experience with Kickstart Coding, I can't recommend it highly enough. Kickstart Coding is the brainchild of Michael Bethencourt who came from a career in software engineering to pursue his passion for teaching. He clearly loves what... Read More he does and is a naturally talented instructor. The bootcamp is four months long and the curriculum is split between front end and back end engineering. The individual classes throughout each week were typically about 3.5 hours long and highly focused on a particular aspect of a larger theme or language. The class structure was pretty typical: a short lecture followed by exercises to test out your understanding; another short lecture followed by corresponding exercises; etc etc. What made the experience so enjoyable was that Michael was a very charismatic, well-versed, and empathetic teacher. It was clearly important to him that the class be very inclusive and cohesive, and he was very prompt to respond to questions or problems that we inevitably ran into along the way. Overall a great experience, I don't see how you could do better.