| | Joseph R | I'm the type of person who digs through the internet for reviews. I'm one to make sure of the quality of services and products that I choose before making a purchase or a subscription. I found Codesmith after days of googling, watching vlogs of people attending bootcamps, seeing their progress, and digging into message boards. I've also tried attending the free lectures and workshops around LA. And by far, Codesmith stood out for their pursuit of excellence. They are selective for a reason. As long as you put in the time, which is a TON, and you're generally good to work with, and if you're serious about taking this path and are up for the challenge, then you should really consider this program. I was a musician prior to entering the program, have always been pretty technical and interested in computers (but never coded anything), and after a year of work (3 months self-study prep, 3 months in the program, 6 months post graduate interviewing and learning more in the process), I'm now the senior frontend engineer at one of the biggest telecommunication companies today. All this in the middle of a pandemic! |
| | Travis Frank | Everything about my Codesmith experience was exceptional- from the instructors to my peers to the technology, I found Codesmith to be worth every penny.
Some Background: I learned Python when I was younger, but I came to Codesmith with a Bachelors of Music and a year in the music industry under my belt. When COVID-19 became our new reality, I was searching for alternatives to performing, and learned JavaScript as I researched bootcamps. After completing CS Prep and passing my technical interview, I entered the NY immersive program (held online, to maintain social distancing), which I completed a month ago, and signed a six-figure offer today.
Instructors: While researching immersive programs, I was disappointed to learn that most (if not all) bootcamps are taught primarily by prior students, in the form of ‘fellows’. While your mileage may vary, in my Codesmith experience this turned out to be an unnecessary fear. The fellows were bright, eager, kind, and helpful throughout my three months in the program, and served as references during my job hunt. These folks are typically only kept on for three-month contracts after graduation, so I cannot guarantee that your experience will be identical, but Codesmith fosters a can-do attitude in the community, so I am hopeful that you will have a similar experience. (Note that some of the senior instructors are full-time employees and industry veterans, whom I also found to be great teachers)
Curriculum: The curriculum at Codesmith is primarily centered around React, Redux, Node.js, Express, and PostgreSQL. No other front-end frameworks are taught, and while MongoDB, AWS, and OAuth are touched upon throughout, the backend technologies other than Node are explored more shallowly. Codesmith’s approach to curriculum can be summed up in a phrase they’ve coined: ‘hard learning’. Enter my only gripe with my Codesmith experience- while the technologies they’ve chosen to focus on are excellent choices from a popularity-in-the-industry perspective, I do feel that Codesmith’s ‘heard learning’ approach sometimes leaves something to be desired. In particular, as projects become the focus of your days, the ‘hard learning’ approach becomes a burden more than a boon, as your energy is primarily directed towards your projects and the curriculum begins to feel frustrating rather than constructive. This is not to say that the experience is bad- rather, I simply found it to be a minor frustration that mars an otherwise enjoyable learning experience. By the end of the program I felt that I had made great progress in the core curriculum, and that can be attributed largely to ‘hard learning’.
Projects: Perhaps the greatest part of Codesmith is the project portion of your junior phase and the production project portion of your senior phase. In your junior phase, three projects punctuate the conclusion of the core curriculum, small affairs the last only a couple days each. These are the perfect on-ramp to working in a team environment on ‘real’ software (at least, something a little more substantial than a tutorial). The production project, however, is the crowning jewel of Codesmith. Students are required to work in teams to develop an open-source developer tool or similar project, in order to give back to the community and nurture a deep expertise in one technical area. By requiring these production projects to solve problems faced by developers every day, students acquire an intimate knowledge of a corner of the industry, experience that can be spoken to in job interviews with authority. In contrast to other immersive programs, where final projects are often mock-applications, Codesmith’s approach ensures exposure to real problems you will encounter in your career (and it looks great on your resume, to boot).
Job Assistance: Codesmith’s hiring program is exhaustive, and stresses the realities of applying to engineering roles. With lectures and workshops on interviewing, your ‘pitch’, negotiating, networking, resume development, and recruiters, the hiring program provides guidance on every step of your job search, and continues indefinitely post-graduation with weekly workshops for grads in the job hunt. Mock interviews with grads help to ease you into the experience of technical interviews, and the daily emphasis on algorithms and data structures throughout your three months prepares you well for mid-level interviews.
Overall: Codesmith was life-changing for me, beyond a new career and a new job. The people in my cohort were curious, intelligent, and bound by the common goal of bettering their lives. I cherish many of the friendships I made at Codesmith, and I can’t wait to give back to the Codesmith community in the years to come. |
