| | Eric Her | Coder Vox has given me the confidence and skill to approach women. I used to be filled with such anxiety before approaching the opposite sex, but now I'm all like, "I can't decide what area I'm more into - your front-end or back-end application," before launching into a detailed explanation of my relational database structure and my algorithm using Big O notation analysis. 60% of the time, it works all the time.
In all seriousness though, since starting the bootcamp, I've gone from a 0 to 100 real quick. I came in, having dabbled in HTML and CSS and left being able to integrate JavaScript/jQuery, architect relational databases, leverage APIs, and use MVC frameworks. It's a HUGE amount of information concentrated into a 12-week period. Just one week in and of itself could technically be spread over 12 weeks. Coming from very minimal experience, at times it felt overwhelming and insurmountable, but you're kind of forced to sink or swim. While the staff is there for support, they don't necessarily hold your hand through the material. But the way I see it, when you get your first job, they aren't going to hold your hand either: you'll get a new framework thrown at you and you're going to have to deploy all the resources at your disposal to solve the problem. Software and web development is by its nature a mercurial, fickle creature. The ability to adapt and learn new concepts independently is an important skill to develop early. If you need an accelerated kickstart to your web development career, I can't recommend Coder Vox enough. It's really one of those situations what you get out of it is what you put in. I found it necessary, eight weeks in, to constantly go back and reinforce my understanding of older concepts from week two while still trying to process new ones. Expect your life to be consumed these twelve weeks. Expect your dreams to be rendered in code.
I was part of the very first full-time class and in that sense I found the class very flexible and receptive to input from the students. I'm glad I got to be part of this experience and I feel like I now have the tools to land a job in this field. |
| | Celine Suarez | When I first started looking for bootcamps, I was deciding between CoderVox and another camp. I'm really glad I went with these guys though, the instructor was super helpful and I always felt ok to ask questions. Every Friday the instructor would also ask for feedback and ask what worked and what didn't in regards to the teaching style, languages, and homework assignments. The course felt really dynamic and well suited to my needs as a student.
The greatest skill I learned was how to think when encountered with a programming problem. When I first started the camp I would get overwhelmed since we learned a language in a week or less. The instructor always inquired on where I needed help and it eliminated that feeling of being overwhelmed. With time everything become easier, and the language we learned the previous week became a lot easier to implement as well.
I become really comfortable in PHP since we learned pure PHP first, then frameworks later. In learning the basics of PHP first, we were able to really understand the benefits of frameworks and how to adapt our coding to multiple databases. We learned frameworks like Laravel and CodeIgniter for PHP. It's bizarre to think that we started off with HTML, CSS, and Javascript on week 1, since now I'm comfortable with writing data to databases using PHP with or without Laravel. We also learned Javascript, JQuery, and a little bit of AngularJS. Learning what was trending helped, but the instructor made sure we had down the basics first. We even learned Git (which is super helpful in the real world).
Every now and then a career expert would come in and tutor us on networking skills and how to also beef up our resumes and portfolios. I found it really helpful that the instructor had real world experience and shared what technical interviews would be like. You get a chance to do mock interviews and also learn what questions interviewers asked the most.
I seriously gained a lot of confidence after attending this bootcamp and will definitely come back for part time courses. The full time is definitely intensive, so if you're thinking of applying make sure you're secure financially and make sure you have a Mac. They have some there of course but its easier to take your coding with you. This camp is great for backend developers, but front end languages fall a little by the wayside. However, once you learn a language it's like you've learned them all since they're all so alike. I would definitely recommend this bootcamp for anyone who's ready to change their career. Seriously, ditch technical support jobs and take the risk, it's worth it. |
