| | Jenn Ahuna | Hello review seeker, I just finished DevLeague a couple weeks ago… be prepared for a long but genuine review of Hawaii’s only coding bootcamp. Let me also preface this review by stating that other than knowing a bit of HTML / CSS, I have absolutely no coding knowledge or experience.
Before enrolling myself in their immersive full-time program, like you and many others… I did my research and tried to find any review or resource I could get my hands on about this school. When I stumbled upon CourseReport and saw all their 5 star reviews, the cynic in me couldn’t believe this boot camp (let alone one all the way in Hawaii) could achieve so many positive reviews, so naturally I assumed most were fake. It wasn’t until I personally met (or saw around school) a lot of these “rando” names that were being used on CourseReport, did in fact belong to actual people and these are genuine reviews from REAL DevLeague alumni.
Taking the plunge with DevLeague as my sidekick was a huge risk for me as I was working full-time in a non-tech job but one of the major deciding factors in choosing this coding bootcamp was the fact that I WOULD be able to make this big career switch in just a few short months and I didn’t have to step foot out of Hawaii.
Being the premature baby dev that I was with no coding background, I enrolled in their JavaScript prep course so I could gain enough knowledge to submit my coding challenge entry. Vic was our main instructor during the 4-week prep course and he was (and still remains) one of my favorite people I’ve met through DevLeague. It’s hard to say *favorite* because honestly, pretty much everyone at DevLeague was awesome and I’m really glad to be a part of this community.
I remember when I first started attending prep class, I was really shocked (but impressed) with the sense of support and community from everyone at DL. Previous graduates would come back to help out or various alumni popped in to give some advice, even students from other classes would stop by to see how we were doing. Needless to say, I really felt the support system there and it’s obvious it trickled down from the top.
I wouldn’t be sitting here today, a DL graduate, if it weren’t for the help and support from Russel and Jason. I can’t count how many emails were passed between Russel and I before I started DevLeague. He was incredibly responsive and resourceful especially when I was going through the process to apply for scholarship, which I was generously awarded. I’m truly grateful for the opportunity they’ve given me.
It’s clearly impossible for me to write a shorter review, especially on something that has had such a big impact, but I’ll try to summarize my experience of the actual bootcamp program:
If you’re looking at the full-time program of 11 hour days, 6 days a week… it seems long, yes, but honestly it passes by pretty quickly especially since you’re jamming on code 70% of the time. My other classmates have the same view as me in this regard.
It’s extremely challenging. I felt so overloaded with information at times that I barely felt like I actually retained anything. That led to me asking myself “Did I make the right decision going through this program?” or “Maybe I’m not meant to be a developer?”
In the beginning, I felt like nothing made sense and it wasn’t until towards the tail end of bootcamp that the pieces started coming together to form a whole picture.
The curriculum is well thought out, projects on point for the topic and I enjoyed the humor in the slideshows. The readme docs are at times confusing (probably getting us used to reading real docs, lol) and some needed updates.
In the end, I wholeheartedly join in and agree with the others in saying “It was the best decision I made” career-wise and if you’re on fence about taking the course or want to ask me for more details about my experience, I’ll be more than happy to answer them for you… shoot me an email jennahscriptAToutlookDOTcom |
