| | Fletcher LaRue | I attended CodeFellows from October 2018 thru March 2019 (5 months), and then spent the following 5 months building my portfolio website, learning in the areas I felt weak in, and looking for a job. In reality I wanted to have a portfolio I was somewhat happy with before applying so I wasn't really applying for the whole 5 months.
At CodeFellows there are 3 levels, which is nice, because they only bill you at the start of each level (as opposed to the whole lump sum up front), the first 2 levels (201 and 301) are 100% focused on Javascript (no other languages). The 3rd and final level (401) lets you pick which language you want to specialize in (when I attended in 2018/19 the options were: JavaScript, Java, Python, and C#). The last course is the longest and most expensive. I did the JavaScript course, which I would fully recommend. The first two levels (201 and 301) are in Javascript, so switching to a new language part way thru will only prevent you from getting to more complex coding ideas (my personal opinion). Essentially you don't get put back to square 1 in the middle of your learning. I (personal opinion here) think also that JavaScript and the JavaScript curriculum is the most relevant for finding a job for a junior developer. I didn't take the other courses and I don't hire developers so I can't say for sure.
In the JavaScript track you learn a ton of good stuff. And in my job I have used much of it extensively and repeatedly, and often. It was actually kind-of surprising to me how similar to the "project weeks" the actual job was (Code Fellows project weeks are intense 4-day team projects, where you often have to learn and apply stuff you've never done). My formal job duties are as a front-end software developer, which is why I feel the React portion of the course is most applicable and marketable. It is probably the thing that made me most qualified for the job I have now. React might be the single best thing CodeFellows teaches :). In addition, due to the nature of the JavaScript full stack curriculum, I also feel empowered to tackle backend problems. There is a lot of time spent covering things like APIs (when I was there we made Express servers in Node.js), and in my job I've run across both C# and Java APIs and feel right at home because they look similar to the JavaScript APIs we made in class.
We also covered:
- React (the most popular front-end framework out there now)
- React Native using Expo (i.e. use React code to make apps on your phone), some people even published apps on the app store
- Web-sockets (i.e. chat-rooms)
- Authentication (i.e. users can login/logout, and do special things if they're logged in)
- Databases (our class used MongoDB and PostgreSQL) (i.e. users can store and share data that is saved in the cloud. this is data that lasts through a page refresh)
- A ton of other stuff. Call them or find the curriculum for the most up to date info - I know they keep evolving as industry trends change.
I do feel the curriculum was really relevant. This is something that my brother (a pro dev of ~10 years) helped me look at when deciding whether to do a bootcamp, and which bootcamp to do. As part of the vetting process I also met the people, who at CodeFellows are all very nice and supportive --- they do meet-and-greets for prospective students where you can meet current students, alumni, and staff to get a better idea of whether you want to attend and get recommendations -- pretty useful.
If you DO decide to go thru the program, and I would recommend it, since it has changed my life for the better, there are a few things that can really help you succeed in the class, and if at all possible leading up to the program try to situate yourself so that succeeding is as likely as possible.
- prior experience coding (however small)
- "over-achieve" on the prework (khan academy Javascript in particular), try to make challenging goals for yourself once you complete the basic requirements. Try to strive to make something you want to show people! This can make it less of a chore and more of a fun activity. Start this as soon as possible... from this you're pretty much guaranteed to do great at the start of the course.
- mentorship (even 1-2 hours every month), or someone to call and ask questions to or complain to. Find someone, if you can, who knows programming that you can talk to, even if briefly about random stuff. Ideally they can do code reviews.
- short commute. The less time your commute is the longer you'll have to sleep, eat, and code. Ideally you will only be doing those 3 things for the whole program!!
It's not all roses. Going through CodeFellows is not guaranteed to land you a job - your hard work and persistence is what you will need to rely on for that. The program is pretty hard... no single concept is really difficult if enough time is spent on it, but there are new concepts introduced almost every day, and I didn't feel like I had time to master every concept. Do this for 5 months straight and it does take some mental fortitude to get through it. One of the frustrating parts of the course was the grading system. When I went there, it didn't feel like there were enough TAs, so the grading for assignments was often delayed. So I would lose points on some assignment, and then only learned about it later, when my mind is on something else, and/or the grades are getting locked in. When I attended it was a required 90% to pass, but the actual grading was relatively flexible - you could re-submit work that you lost points on to get additional credit (there was a time cut-off for this though, I forget how long, 2 weeks?), and the late-assignment penalty simply reduced the maximum you could get on the assignment, again, I forget how much (80%?), but it wasn't too bad. Often, it felt to me like playing the grade-game was a big distraction from the main objectives of the class - we had ~4 or 5 assignments a day - some were quite trivial like a daily warmup, but others weren't so trivial, like the daily whiteboard problem which takes ~1hr. In the end, I found that (at least for me) the best route was to play the grade-game (i.e, submit assignments even if not-done, play catchup when you can) ONLY as much as needed to get the minimum grade, and not focus on getting 100% .... instead I tried to focus on learning the material. I realized that there was no special award for getting a really good grade, it's just pass fail.
The daily routine can be difficult. But you get out of it what you put in. And its worth it in the end. I spent a lot of time on this stuff... probably ~12 hours a day (including meals). Class started at 9am and with lecture, lab, other homework, the daily whiteboarding problem, catchup work, etc it is easy to go until 9pm. For me, it helped to keep my meals simple, I had a short commute, and I reduced my social life to as minimal as possible. I would also recommend using a Mac laptop instead of a Windows laptop (disclaimer: I am not a Mac evangelist, I had used Microsoft PCs my entire life) the differences are only slight, and people will tell you that you can program on either, but overall, and if you can spare the extra dough, I think the developer experience is better on a Mac, things just seem to work better and smoother. Also, if you finance a Mac with a Barklays card you can get 18 months w/o any payments, at which time you hopefully have a job - this deal might have changed tho. Also I would recommend dropping ~150-200 bucks and buying a 2nd monitor - compared to the price you're paying for the course per day, a monitor to give you some extra screen real-estate is almost a no-brainer - I didn't get one until part way thru the course and when I did my productivity went way up.
One thing that I think had some room for improvement was the job support. The people who were there and helped me did a great job, but as an institution, the process could have, I think, been a little better. It could be different now.... when I had just finished the program there had been some staff changes in the job support program. I'm also not sure what they could have done differently though - I just know it could have been better - possibly better integration with local businesses? i.e. more "practice" (but not really practice) interviews with local companies (I did get to do a mock interview with Microsoft). Maybe setting up informational interviews? tours? On-site job fairs? |
