Coding House - CLOSED

These documents capture real reviews of Coding House, courtesy of the

BUREAU FOR PRIVATE POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Fined $50k for operating illegally. http://www.bppe.ca.gov/enforcement/actions/cit_1617026.pdf

Pending administrative... Read More hearing:

http://www.bppe.ca.gov/enforcement/actions/cit-1000841_110416.pdf

Fingers crossed this place is shutdown for good.

My name is Sam Robertson, I’m a full stack developer at Revolution Messaging. Ever heard of Bernie Sanders? That was the company that helped drive the donation platform and I get to be a part of its’ future. I graduated from PennState in PA in 2015 with... Read More a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and decided that I wanted to do something different. I love my degree, a hard science will always help you along the way, but I chose to go to Coding House to get the knowledge and experience I needed to get the kind of job I wanted. Fun fact, I have a D in MATLAB programming from my junior year of college. Turns out you need the right push and right interest to move you along. I now work from home for my company and could not be happier with my decision.

Coding House is 90% your effort, 10% on them. Not saying the staff isn’t hard working, these are some of the hardest working people I’ve ever met. What I mean is that what you do at Coding House and how you end up at the end of the program are your responsibility. The instructors are challenging, always ready to help and want you to be able to teach yourself by the end. They will provide stepping stones the first weeks then move you onto more difficult tasks in which you will start having to find the answers. These are people that want you to succeed, I’m proof it can be done.

The first half is intense and long, but I loved every minute of it. Stressful, tiring, on two cups of coffee by 10am is hard, but it’s more effective than any college lecture I’ve been to. Good thing you aren’t alone, everyone is struggling the same, and when you are struggling you are learning. The instructor starts out with small examples of a technology, the basics of how something should work. Then it’s up to you to try and repeat and enhance what they did. Solutions at the end of the problem session are effective, as if you didn't’ pick up what you did wrong, you can see why and not miss it next time.

The live in house was the best part of Coding House. It has a boot-camp feel without feeling to strict. Yes, you are crammed into bunk beds, yes people snore, but that person above you is counting on waking them up because you two have a project to finish before class starts. You form bonds, teams and lifetime friends. I still skype with my Coding House alum and we are great friends!

Second half is the hardest part. Self-motivation is key. While still learning it’s time to show off some skills, time to build some apps. These are your creations, whether you are in a team or solo, you own these. A app a week is the best method, pick something doable and stick with it. Polish the app, no bugs or quirks. These are for your portfolio, I’ve shown my Coding House apps off at interviews and people are impressed.

Why Coding House:
Coding House is expensive, but why chose it over a competitor? Key thing is they are all expensive. What you get with Coding House is relatively the same with other boot camps in terms of course work. There are some differences, but mainly tech stacks don’t change. My reason for Coding House was the live in factor. I wanted that immersion, I always felt in college if I had my classes 7 days a week for 1 month per class I would preform better than with a more relaxed schedule. I work well under pressure and love the challenge it provides. This isn't for everyone, but being able to wake up, jump downstairs and stay late into the night programming was perfect. Instructors sometimes stay late, and you are guaranteed to find help from your peers as they are all doing the same thing. This is what I loved.

The other best part is Coding House listens, when a change is needed Nick will take note and do anything in his power to make sure it’s fixed. He cares for the success of the students and wants them to do well. A weekly survey made sure that the feedback was taken seriously.

Fun Stuff:
Hackathons are great! If one exists take anything you know and try to get something done at a hackathon if available. Coding House was able to take my cohort to one and a team even won!
These are great to learn and make new friends.

The food, food is awesome, I still think I ate better at Coding House than I do now.

Summary:
Coding House was challenging, inspiring and a life lesson all in one. You aren’t alone, you are taken care of and your success is only limited by your effort. I left Coding House without a job offer, but within one week after the program I was offered two jobs. I also was not looking to stay in the Bay Area, I was aiming for Seattle so it’s very much possible to carry your skills anywhere. I still work for the same company that hired me from Coding House and I really do love my job! I hope you are reading this and find it helpful!

I had read both the good and bad reviews online but I still wanted to come out here over various other bootcamps I had thoroughly researched because of its unique all-inclusive, all-immersive package deal of room and board and instruction right downstairs,... Read More and also because of its scholarship opportunities for women. My review below is solely based off my personal experience as a student of the February cohort this year.

Pros:

1. The live-in, full-immersion aspect seals the deal. You can roll out of bed and walk downstairs for class if you wanted to, or you can get up earlier and have that much more time to finish up homework before the day instead of wasting it away commuting.

2. It's hard to say exactly what Coding House will be like for prospective students, because with each cohort, they're constantly making slight tweaks to the curriculum based off the previous one(s). My cohort developed heavily with the MEAN stack. Cade, our instructor, definitely knows the stack well and also taught it well. So far, I am developing with Angular at my job. Perfect; it’s just what I learned from Coding House.

3. It's ultimately up to you how much you're willing to work for what you want. When I needed the extra support, they were there to help me. Cade was a great instructor who was always willing to help. Patrick was the main guy for our second half of the program. He was super supportive taking the time out to sit down with me and work through problems I had with my final project, as was AJ. My own peers were supportive of each other, too.

Improvements to be made:

1. CS fundamentals could definitely be better worked into the core of the curriculum. We did code challenges every morning the first seven weeks, but by the second half, the instruction got a little too lax on that front; we were mostly left to our own devices and to work on our projects. I found myself working on these fundamentals usually during the weekends, even during the first half. Use your own judgment as to how much of your free time you want devote to studying up these things. You won’t always be in an environment where everyone is literally living with you and can help each other out, and this crazy bootcamp-like schedule isn’t going to last forever, so bite the bullet for 14 weeks if you have to.

2. Communication, or the hassle of dealing with logistics during the onboarding stages prior to having begun the bootcamp is another thing that could be worked on. My advice is they definitely need to implement a more structured approach when it comes to logistics especially in the initial stages of the entire onboarding process, and including sending more coherent emails throughout the cohort. I think Coding House just hasn’t hashed out a more systematic approach to dealing with everything more professionally, which can definitely throw people off guard.

Nevertheless, I know I could not have made it as far as I have, let alone in only 14 weeks, without having attended Coding House. If you're willing to put in the extra hours and you're not afraid to seek out the help when you need it, you're going to make it through and learn so much in this condensed amount of time all the same. Was I stressed and challenged there, and do I have a lot more to learn? Of course. But I definitely enjoyed my time there, and perhaps more importantly, I got out of it a job offer that far surpassed my own expectations and a skill set that won't be forgotten any time soon.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW:

The first half of the program is ~7 weeks of intense study and work. When I say intense, I mean REALLY intense. Frameworks are piled on to you one after another, and there is no way to fully understand everything you are being shown.... Read More Class is from 9-6, six days a week, with nightly projects that lasted me until 1am. Usually I’d spend at least half of Sunday reviewing concepts. There is one main instructor and guest lectures. There are usually 3-4 mentors each day from 9am-midnight who you can go to for help. These mentors are students who are in the second half of the program.

The second half is ~7 weeks you work on large group projects. Most of your day is dedicated to building portfolio pieces. This is where the intense cramming from the first 7 weeks coalesces into useful ability. There’s little code instruction during this half, but there are guest workshops things like React and on polishing your online presence, preparing for interviews, and applying to jobs. You also learn a lot from your classmates during this period as well. Also, you will mentor students who are in the first half of the program 1 day a week, which is actually a nice break from work and a well needed ego boost.

MY EXPERIENCE:

What makes Coding House stand out to me is that it’s very small and flexible. It also has a lower cost than most other bootcamps in the Bay Area, which is one of the main reasons I went with it. Full disclosure, I had a very good outcome and I landed a 100k++ job here in the bay after about 5 weeks of dedicated searching and interviewing.

Here are some key differences from what I believe other bootcamps are like.

1) You live and work in the same building, and all tasks of daily living are handled for you (food, cleaning), so you can spend a lot more time focusing on code. This is a huge benefit!

2) It’s a small institution that is constantly evolving, so it’s hard to reliably say exactly what the curriculum will be like, what the food will be like, what your classmates will be like, etc.

3) Being so small and flexible can work out in your favor. Nick, the founder, can make arrangements for you to help you land an awesome job.

4) They could do a better job screening students. A few people in my cohort should not have be left in, so some of your classmates will drop. Maybe *you* will drop. This is really improving over time, since Coding House is getting a better applicant pool.

5) There are some holes in the program (in particular they don’t teach CS concepts, and there’s no dedicated recruiter) so it’s up to you to take care of these things yourself.

The more you bring coming here, the better off you’ll be. If you have a degree in a technical field, or CS experience, you’ll probably do very well. If you haven’t prepared or you’re not a confident coder, then you’re going to have a hard time.

Coding House is fit for you if you are self-motivated and proactive about doing what you need to do to become a programmer. You have to accept that your fate is in your own hands.

It worked for me!

I just read one persons review (I was in the same cohort) and yes they had some problems but I learned more in a shorter period of time then I have ever learned before. I now have a great job making really great money in SF. There is... Read More still a lot for me to learn when it comes to coding but now I know how to learn it.

I worked my butt off during the program and it was hard. The instructor in the first half of the program was great. He was very enthusiastic and was good at breaking down problems into chunks so we could get it. If you're not a hard worker or are not sure if coding is your thing, then this is definitely the wrong place for you.

If you like living in crowded houses with carbon monoxide alarms going off constantly, classes being unplanned, dinner served up to two hours late, and witnessing fights between the founder and his employees and wife, then Coding House is for you. I spent... Read More months here because after asking for my money back so I could leave early and teach myself, I was told no. A lot of people stay here because they come from other countries and states. They have the option to stay here, try to get a job and get out, or face going back home where there just aren't developers or a Silicon Valley experience. You can learn at Coding House but I encourage you to save your money, teach yourself and stay away from this toxic camp.

“Coding House” is not a deceptive title, Coding House is a house. An actual house. Actually it’s two houses. The first half of the program takes place in “CH1”, which reminds me of the house from the Brady Bunch, but with a different staircase. Besides... Read More the stairs, the other noticeable difference between the Brady’s house and CH1 is the “classroom” where the living room should be. I’m using quotes because the classroom is not a lecture hall or a computer lab. It’s a living room. There is a stage-like platform at one end and a dozen rows of monitor-laden tables that face the stage. I can honestly say though, I gained more useful knowledge in that living room in four months than I did in four years inside the classrooms at my college (but I got a degree in Environmental Studies… from a liberal arts college so…).

The instructor, Cade, is as vivacious and hilarious as he is knowledgeable. I loved his teaching style… It was improvisational lecturing. Cade does not have structured lessons, but rather he tailors each class to the cohort he is teaching.

You will spend most of your time in the ‘classroom’, but there is also a ‘dining room’ and kitchen downstairs and there are bedrooms upstairs. When I first saw the bedrooms, jam-packed with bunk beds, my immediate reaction was “This is going to suck!”, but surprisingly it didn’t… By the second night, I was too exhausted to care where I was sleeping… the only thing that does suck about the living situation is that there aren’t enough bathrooms at CH1, but if you learn to love showering on your lunch break or at night, you’ll be fine.

Besides the learning the other great thing about Coding House is the community that develops there. The intensity of the program and close quarters, create an environment where people just seem to naturally want to help and bond with one another. Everyone was more than willing to take the time to look at my code and see if they could help anytime I was stuck— and I was always excited to return the favor for anyone else whenever I could… There is just a good vibe in that house.

CH2, where the second part of the program takes place is a more modern house. There is a little more space in the bedrooms and there are more bathrooms. Instead of having a central classroom there are two rooms with work stations. The second half of the program focuses on large scale group projects. You will work just as hard during the second half of the program, but you will get a lot more freedom on what you are working on. You will also be a code mentor to the new cohort that is in CH1. It may sound like this is just part of Nick’s brilliant business, plan —paying him to work for him… and it is a genius business plan, but mentoring is also very helpful to the education process. When you leave coding house, you’ll need to be able to articulate what you’ve learned during job interviews etc, so explaining things to the new Cohort is a great way to solidify and articulate what you’ve learned. Plus, you can also request to mentor on days when there is a lecture that you may not have fully gotten the first time through.

I finished Coding house a fews week ago and I think they really did set me up with all the skills and advice I’ll need to find myself a job. I plan to continue to polish the apps I made and attend meetups and workshops, so I continue to develop my skills even further but I do feel confident that if I keep after it, I will land a job as a web developer. I think coding house was definitely worth the investment.

In the months before I got my Ph.D. I had been seriously considering enrolling in an undergraduate program in computer science once I finished. My degree is in an interdisciplinary hybrid of computer and biological sciences, Functional Genomics, but even... Read More though I created a novel algorithm for analyzing brain wave data, I had done so in a vacuum - I’d never worked with software developers, I had no experience of how software development was actually done, and I wanted to change that to be able to fully participate in exciting possibilities that we could be facing in coming years.

There is considerable evidence indicating that we are heading towards a future replete with personal biological data and web-based tools for analyzing and interpreting these data, following a 21st century version of the Socratic adage “to know thy (biological) self”. If realized, these technologies could transform, inter alia, how people learn, make discoveries, and bring novel ideas to fruition; citizen science and maker movement are incipient forms of this possible future. The path by which I could most effectively contribute to the realization of this future, I surmised, was to acquire the skills and methodological approaches of real software developers.

Then I heard about software developer boot camps, and thought, “This looks like a promising alternative to a C.S. degree.”

Being a researcher, I did my homework spending hours in my off-time hunting down all of the coding schools not only in the US but also abroad. It was difficult to see through the potentially hyped claims and criticisms to arrive at a realistic assessment of any of these programs, particularly as there was considerable overlap in their curricula. The most conspicuous distinguishing factor among all of the options, however, was housing. Coding House’s full immersion live-in plan meant that, relieved of worry about room and board, I could focus completely on the coursework.

I was nervous but took the leap, and I’m so glad that I did! In addition to all that I’ve learned about software development from front-end to back end, I’ve befriended an amazing group of people not only in my cohort, and among the excellent TA’s, staff and instructors (you all know who you are), but also the founder, Nick James, who’s one of the most gracious and fun people I’ve ever met. These will be the people, my fellow Coding House alumni, who I’ll be calling in the coming years to pitch my crazy start-up ideas of the future!

One more very, very important piece of advice: take a good, hard look at your intentions and expectations when contemplating any coding boot camp, including Coding House. It is not called a “boot camp” for marketing purposes – it will potentially be the most demanding thing that you’ve done in your life. If you’re ready for the challenge, though, Coding House is the place to be.

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... Read More 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.

My time at Coding House has been probably the single greatest investment in my career I’ve ever made. I’ve learned more relevant and functional knowledge in a nine week program and 8 weeks as a Resident than I could have learned in a year of moderately... Read More devoted self-education. This is not to say there weren’t any difficult times or seemingly insurmountable challenges during that time, quite the contrary, in fact. Daily, I was bombarded with new information at a rate, that at times, was impossible to keep up with. I came in with very minimal programming experience, and as such, my first three weeks were extremely difficult. To that end, I would say, if you choose any coding bootcamp to attend, do yourself a favor and learn as much as you possibly can before starting.

The curriculum for my program covered a modified MEAN stack, including MongoDB, Angular JS, Node JS, with Hapi JS instead of Express, also covered were jQuery and Firebase. These technologies are mostly in high demand, and because of the curriculum, my education and determination, I received two job offers within six weeks of my cohort’s completion.

The flaws of Coding House are few in number, and most of these flaws are quickly addressed by the staff or residents when they are discussed.

If you are considering attending a coding bootcamp and are even a little lazy or unmotivated, have a bad attitude, or tend to get discouraged easily when the going gets tough, I don’t know that I would recommend any coding bootcamp, let alone this one. However, if you want to be in an environment that is extremely challenging, supportive, and to have the opportunity to learn relevant technologies that will earn you a well-paying and exciting job, then Coding House is a great choice.