WBS Coding School

My overall experience at WBS was great and I would recommend this course to other aspiring web developers out there. I entered this course as a complete beginner, not even knowing what a terminal was or what the difference between backend and frontend... Read More development is. In retrospect I feel that this was not the best thing as it made my first month very stressful and I even cried after the first week. I was lucky enough to be working in a great group at that time and they helped me through it and reminded me that the start is scary for everyone but if you persevere and get over the initial bump, coding will start to make sense. My instructor during the course was great and I really liked his explanation of the course material. I also really liked the fact that the lectures were recorded so I could always go over them at a later time. This was great for me as, since I was such a beginner, I needed to watch some of the lectures again to fully process what what going on. The only problem with my time there was that the group I was in was really big which I don’t think works for this type of learning. However, once we complained, WBS listened to us and got another part-time instructor on board. This was such a relief for a beginner like me because I really needed the extra help and attention and the instructor that helped was also great at explaining and very supportive. The career counselling was also a nice touch as it helped me adapt my CV to meet German standards and improve my presence on LinkedIn. I would also recommend that people new to coding should do their final project in a group. I did my final project with one other person and I feel that this made the quality of the project and the whole experience of doing it much better. My time in Berlin was also great as it was nice to meet the people I had been working with for the past months in person and I now feel that I have a small group of people to lean on when times get tough. Having connections in this industry is so important and I think that meeting up with everyone and getting to know them in person was a great added touch to this course. Having this support made the job hunt so much better and less lonely and my group now has their own channel on Discord where we share resources and meet up once in a while. I was very fortunate to have found a job as a frontend developer two months after the course and I feel that the course material prepared me for the role I will be doing.

Review of the 15-week Full Stack Web and App Development course at the WBS Coding School. It has been a good experience doing this course. I started with almost 0 previous experience in coding and I learned A LOT in Front- and Backend Development. The... Read More course went through a good amount of topics, the most important ones were included according to me. Also, the instructors are very professional and always ready to help when difficulties show up (which occurs at some point). The proposed group projects were the best part of the course according to me as it allows to put the theoretical knowledge into practice. Notice: next to the theoretical part of the course, it is also important to be able to look for solutions on the web (on YouTube etc) on its own and look for further documentation.

Coming from Print / Digital Design background, deep inside I knew that one day I will end up as a Frontend developer and finally, I am here. Thanks to a friend mine who was already enrolled at the school I had first hand information regarding the quality... Read More of the lectures and the whole education process. The curriculum is very nicely structured so people with different backgrounds can follow classes without having the feeling of being behind. For the short amount of 15 weeks we went through years of "normal university" education and we were able to produce some serious and complex projects both in Frontend ( Html, Css, Js, React ) and in the Backend ( NodeJS, Express + DB). Currently, being a graduate and Alumni of WBS Coding School I can easily say that it was the right decision and I would always recommend this particular program to anyone that wants to get into Web Development.

I highly recommend this course since it teaches you everything you need to land your first job as a web developer. It teaches tools and technologies that are relevant today and is very practice-oriented. From the beginning, we worked on one or two-week... Read More group projects that we could already use to build up our portfolio. Besides teaching the technical content, our experienced trainer gave us very valuable insights into the actual work as a developer. Paired with the provided career service, I felt very well prepared for job applications and interviews. Having previous (basic) knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript or any other programming language certainly helps to keep up with the fast learning speed and to maybe take even more out of this course. But don’t worry if you take this course with zero previous knowledge - it starts by teaching you all the basics and builds up on them as the course goes further.

I am not a tech guy and I probably won't turn into one. Nonetheless I was highly interested in learning to code for several years. Last year I decided to turn that wish into reality by taking the Full-Stack Web & App Developer course of WBS CODING SCHOOL.... Read More The course was highly demanding - as expected. It is called Coding Bootcamp for a reason. While you are learning it is hard to recognize what improvements you are actually making. But seeing my final project and compare that to my zero skills from the beginning ... I made a giant leap within these four month thanks to the awesome mentor and the whole team of the WBS CODING SCHOOL.

WBS Coding School’s 15-week hybrid bootcamp isn’t just a course. Sure, you will acquire numerous new technical skills and industry knowledge but on top of that the whole program unfolds in a fantastic community of motivated and competent instructors and... Read More staff, inspiring guest speakers and peers who might become good friends. All that makes this bootcamp both an extremely efficient way to get a solid foundation in full-stack web and app development and a great experience you don’t want to miss. Starting with a review of the basics you are expected to study in the primer course, you will first work on some smaller plain HTML, CSS and vanilla JavaScript exercises and projects and train your Git and GitHub chops in the command line. But the speed quickly ramps up when React.js is introduced around week 3-4 and then there is another considerable acceleration moment when you’ll transition into the backend side of web development with Node.js and Express. At least that is how it felt to me. Most likely, there will be times when you are going to struggle to keep up with the pace and as far as I can tell, this is the same for every bootcamp style of program. Knowing that you really want to learn these skills and being determined, will help you to overcome the hurdles some concepts or technologies might pose at first. But aside from your own motivation and persistence, being able to ask your instructor, the junior instructors, the mentors or simply the community support channel for help in such situations is of tremendous value and oftentimes you might even find yourself in the pleasant position to help your peers out with the troubles they might be facing. This contributes to the cohesion and solidarity that builds in your group over time. This is further increased by the fact that you are continuously working in small teams that are reshuffled every one or two (sometime even three) weeks to work on group projects. This can be challenging at times, but it is a realistic simulation of the conditions you will most likely find yourself in after graduation. And even such challenging moments might offer you opportunities to practice such extremely important abilities as empathy and patience and maybe even a chance to connect with your peers on a deeper level **and** become more productive as a team. Also, take advantage of the excellent career services WBS Coding School offers you in the form of regular guest speakers and Q&A sessions with people in the industry as well as personal consultations and fine tuning of your profile, strategy and application documents. As with everything in this world, there is room for improvement and to give the team due credit for it, they are working on it. One thing that might directly affect your planning in case you want to take the plunge and enroll for this program: Don’t take the estimated time for preparation too serious. I think it is (or was) tremendously understated with 20-40 hours. Give yourself enough time to learn the basics of HTML, CSS and JavaScript during the primer phase or, better even, before that (maybe go to Codecademy, FreeCodeCamp or the MDN tutorials and finish the intro-modules). And speaking about the effort and time you should expect to invest during the primer phase, be prepared to put in a lot of extra hours during the whole program. It obviously depends on your familiarity with the technologies, but if you are not pretty experienced already or just extraordinarily quick in picking up new concepts and skills, keeping up will demand a lot of work in the nights and weekends which is not an option for everyone. During my time at WBS Coding School, a typical work-week had a good 60 hours of focused work. Maybe the numbers turn out to be different for you, but I think it is important to be aware of the time and effort you need to commit for a productive outcome. You should, therefore, honestly ask yourself and your social environment whether you can maintain this kind of energy for a prolonged period of time. If you think you can do that, great! It could still be a good idea to prepare yourself in advance by slowly increasing the amount of time you study and work on code each day during the primer phase like you would prepare yourself for participating in a marathon – which actually is an analogy drawn by our instructor at the start of the course to emphasize the importance of breaks. Overall, I think the whole WBS Coding School team did a great job in creating this program. It offers you an extremely dense and organized way to learn state of the art technologies in a warm and welcoming community. So, if you are searching for a coding bootcamp that offers you all that, WBS Coding School should be at the top of your list.

A little bit fast at the beginning, especially with the introduction of new Technologies and frameworks like React, Nodejs, Express etc. But at the end, it was worth it. Because those were exactly what i needed to grow as a full-stack web Developer. it... Read More just the right place to Learn how to code.

The course was overall well rounded, clear and a lot of information to take. As someone who had almost 0 coding experience (with the exception of random try-outs in some sites over the years but nothing that can be considered knowledgeable), it was a... Read More very fulfilling experience. I learned a lot and gained so many tools to continue this journey on my own. Mind you I am still learning, which is something people should have in consideration before staring this course. As some people entered the course expecting to get all the answers before hand and be fully experts at the end of it. They can, and they will, teach you the language, but can only do so much as to provide you with tools and the support to learn it. You should know that at the end of the course there is still a lot for you to do, but you will have the know-how. Additionally, if you are a newbie like I was, you most definitely will need more than the 40hours per week of the course. Nevertheless, I loved the whole experience as it helped me to discover a love for coding I didn't know I have! My only Con- the group of 17 was too large for just one person and a part-time assistant. However, they took this advice and added more support to the courses after mine.

There are plenty of bootcamps these days, and curriculum-wise they more or less offer the same; so you might think at this point of your research: Why not go to Ironhack or LeWagon and just get it over with in 9 instead of 15 weeks, I will get the exact... Read More same thing in less time and potentially find a job sooner, right? Let me tell you why: Because you won’t. The curriculum at WBS Coding School is not only very carefully crafted to reflect industry needs and current trends, it also stimulates deep learning by giving you some time to reinforce concepts other bootcamps merely brush over, expecting you to just wing it or force you to work overtime at ridiculous hours - trust me, you need sleep & rest if you want to be able to recall that stuff not only 3 days, but ideally 3 years later. Here, you are not just quickly introduced to something once and then move on to a new area a couple of hours later, you will have multiple exercises that slowly build up on each other and let you constantly revisit and practise previously learned material. And when I say “slowly”, I still mean this in a bootcampy sense of the word, but not at the speed of light as is so common for many of the more fast food-ish contenders out there. Apart from the excellent learning material, the staff is also extraordinary. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming from the get-go, at no point does the experience feel like you’re getting piped through some soulless web dev factory - the teachers are knowledgable and engaged, the community manager and career service advisor make sure you have everything you need: They are always open towards criticism and try to cater to your needs wherever possible; and also set you up for the time after the bootcamp with many helpful resources and workshops that provide guidance for the job search. There is also a huge emphasis on community building, with regular guest speaker events vividly attended by students and alumni alike and a discord server with an active “help” channel you can use during and after the course. Regarding campus time, this will clearly be a highlight during non-pandemic times. Unfortunately I could not afford to stay during the whole time (Jobcenter does not account for the stay if you are a Berlin resident), but spent a couple of nights there and was allowed to attend the rest of the campus phase remotely as I wasn’t comfortable with commuting each day due to the Covid situation. The campus is amazing; and you’ll be sleeping in a very cute private room where you can also work comfortably whenever you feel like you need a bit more you-time during your final project. The whole vibe is very “summer campy” in the best sense of the word, as there are numerous entertainment mediums like table soccer, pool and console games available, not to mention having the Spreeufer directly on your doorstep. If you plan on defeating your instructor in Mario Kart to make up for them constantly defeating you in programming, you might want to brush up on these skills a little bit tho - unfortunately they are great at gaming too! I honestly cannot think of any downsides in regards of the actual “product” you get, but there is one thing that could still be improved in my opinion: With the tech industry still lacking diversity and at times even being a hostile space for women and non-binary people, I really think WBS Coding School should set an example and do a bit better concerning their hiring policy. As of right now, the dev team consists - apart from one really awesome female instructor - solely of male developers. It would be an important message towards students to try and actively change these numbers, giving a chance and a voice to those who have suffered from systemic oppression for so long. I for one, as a woman, would have loved getting insight and mentoring from a more experienced female engineer - never underestimate the power of visibility for inspiring and encouraging others! [On a more general note: I know all those bootcamps are advertised for beginners, and it’s also tempting to believe that with the amount of money one has to disburse, you simply will get a career handed back to you at the end. Well, yes and no. Don’t get me wrong, there ARE people that without much or even zero previous knowledge strive in these environments and just “get it” super quickly. But from my experience, those are to be considered unicorns, or at least something you don’t see every day, let’s say a very pretty horse. So please do yourself a favour and get some of the basics out of the way BEFORE you start a bootcamp: GET DECENT IN JAVASCRIPT BEFORE YOUR FIRST DAY. You obviously don’t have to be in expert going in there, but make sure you can write a for loop without looking up the syntax. Do some basic tutorials, do some research on MDN, and actually go and solidify this knowledge by doing some katas on Codewars or Eadabit. I promise you this extra-effort won’t be in vain. You will learn incredibly much either way, but going in with a solid foundation made me able to really focus on some more advanced topics and in general not being completely overwhelmed 24/7, which is not a state of mind that lets you learn and really manifest knowledge in the long run in my opinion.]

I've always been passionate about computers and wanted to learn web development and programming in general. I tried on my own when I was a teenager but at the time all the tools and support that you can find now wasn't out there, also I didn't know English... Read More which narrowed down my learning possibilities a lot. The only choice was going to university, but I didn't do that. I went abroad and started on a totally different path leaving that dream behind me. At the age of 30, exactly 15 years later, that dream was still haunting me and that's when I decided to bet everything I had and enrolled to WBS Coding School. It was the best choice I've ever made. It taught me everything I needed to know, it gave me all the skills I needed not just to get started as a Junior Developer, but also all the foundations I needed to learn anything I want on my own. It served me as a guide and helped me understand the world of programming, but the most important thing I gained after the course were people. Connections. I made it into the developer community and it's getting bigger day by day. Definitely recommend taking the course.