| | Morgan Martin | Hey, my name's Morgan, I graduated the 2016 Immersive program at Viking.
TL/DR: Attending VCS was the best choice I have made so far in my 22 years of living. It helped me jump-start my career when college couldn't, and now I enjoy going to work every day because I get to do what I love. However, it is not an easy program and it will make you work every step of the way.
Before Viking, I attended college for computer science. Unfortunately, funds ran dry and I did not want to take on student loans. I had read that it was possible, albeit difficult, to get a job in software without a degree and that web development was booming. So, I left college three semesters in and set out to teach myself web development.
I did a lot of research to try to find some of the best free resources online. I found out about The Odin Project which is a sister project to VCS, though I didn't know it at the time. I quickly put all my energy toward progressing through TOP. As it turns out though, learning to program is HARD and teaching yourself to do it is even harder. And on top of that, I was working various full time jobs throughout these months/years and was always too busy or tired to sit down and program when I got off work.
Eventually, I got a lucky break and was able to put back enough money to look into attending a code school. It was about that time that I received a promotional email from The Odin Project informing me of VCS, so I studied my butt off for a couple weeks and I was in!
There were a couple of nervous months where I continued to teach myself and did the prep work I was assigned, and then finally the program began in July.
I was very impressed with the lesson material and content, as it was exhaustive as well as exhausting :) It's been said that code schools are akin to drinking from a firehose and VCS was no exception. But despite how tired I felt on weekends, it was well worth it. I think the lessons/projects hit the sweet spot of teaching us just enough to make us feel confident, but didn't waste too much time elaborating on minutiae either. Of course, I can say that in retrospect, but while I was in it, I felt like I was only retaining 10% of the knowledge being thrown at me.
Also, I should note that the instructors were phenomenal. Infinitely patient and they had a deep understanding of the material. I asked those guys question after question for four months and very rarely did I get an "I'm not sure." Even if they didn't know they would either try to find out or point me in the right direction.
Okay, story time. So at the end of the program we had our final, two week long projects. We split up into groups, and as fate would have it, I ended up on in the small group of four vs the other team's intimidating 10 (or so.) We took a couple of days to plan out our projects according to the SCRUM methodology as best we could and got to work. Unfortunately, after about a week my team and I realized we had very little to show despite our best efforts. Communication was not where it should have been and the project suffered as a result. So, we got our butts in gear, essentially re-built our project from the ground up(!) and by the time presentations rolled around at the end of the week, we had a reasonably well working application that we felt fairly proud of. The reason I mention it, is because after that quite stressful week, my team members and I unanimously decided we had learned some valuable lessons about persevering through a project and seeing things to the end. I use some of the lessons I learned during that week every day at my new job and I am grateful that Viking's structure gave me the opportunity to learn them.
After final projects, the program was technically "over." I use quotes because it wasn't really. We were still expected to spend the majority of our time applying to jobs, going to code meetups and whatever else we could think of to try to get an interview. Erik gave us plenty of ideas to implement in our job search process but it was still a nail-biting month and a half for me while I hunted for my first dev home. But in the end, I got two offers and chose the lesser one because the company was closer to home. And I got a 5k bump in salary thanks to Erik's great negotiation advice.
So to wrap it up, I would definitely recommend Viking to anyone interested in beginning a career in web development. It is not an easy program, but you will learn a ton, and if you work really (and I mean *really*) hard you WILL get a job at the end of it all. If I could do it without a college degree, anyone can!
P.S. If anyone reads this review and would like to reach out to me to ask questions about the program, feel free. Like some of the other Vikings that have commented here, I had some trouble sourcing information about the program when I first started researching it and it ended up feeling like I was taking a very big leap. It all turned out good in the end, but if I can help someone in the same shoes as myself assuage some of that anxiety, I would be more than happy. My email is `morganm5201@gmail.com`. Cheers! |
