| | Alice | My Coding House experience has been generally positive, with a few rough spots that were all quickly fixed. I applied to Coding House on their website and got an interview invite a few days later. Since I was close by, I got invited for an in - person interview. The house seemed nice, and there was a friendly, collaborative atmosphere, and the TAs as well as students knew the material well. The one complaint I had at the time was that the whole house was a bit cramped. It was a residential house, and there were around 25 people living in it. In the new (Resident) house where you go for the second half of the program, is a bit more spacious.
After another round of interviews, which involved a live coding exercise, I was accepted into the program. The pre work covers the front end of the MEAN Stack, and is a good representation of the first 2 weeks of the on-site program. If you fully complete the pre work, you should be good for the program, given that you put in the effort.
The first few weeks of the program took some getting used to. Get ready to work harder than you ever have done before, because they will push you. Don’t fall behind, because at this rate, it is very hard to catch back up again. They have implemented catch up days on Wednesdays, which makes this process a bit less nerve wracking. The team is very receptive to feedback, and problems generally have solutions implemented on the same day. They are generally good about not letting people fall behind, and TAs are available until 2 AM or later on most nights.
Later in the program, we started visiting companies and going to hackathons, which were a fun learning experience. On weekdays, it used to be normal to stay up until 1 AM or later, although now, it is highly discouraged, because the lack of sleep will only cause you to lose the next day.
At the end of my cohort, I got interviews for positions that would be way out of reach for me just 2 months ago. I definitely think the bootcamp did its job well, and would do it again if I had to redo this year. One major improvement that occurred during my cohort was the switch from a 9 week program to a 14 week program. It is difficult to learn anything significant in just 9 weeks, and the 5 extra weeks helps a lot. I got a job 2 weeks after the bootcamp ended, working as a front end developer for a startup in the city. Compared to the 16 hour time pressured days during the bootcamp, any job seems easy. |
