Coding House - CLOSED

The Coding House provided me with a great environment to simply focus on learning computer programming without the extra stress of other daily issues. The immersive live-in opportunity eliminated additional daily commute time and transportation cost which... Read More allowed me to dedicate more time to learning. Our instructor was not only intelligent and extremely good at what he does, but he is also personable and funny. The TAs were accessible at anytime and were helpful in assisting me whenever I was stuck or confused. Also, our head chef, Sarah, provided us with daily home-cooked meals that were absolutely delicious.

In the end, the people at the Coding House became somewhat of like a second family to me and I cherish all the relationships that was formed there. After my experience with Coding House was over, I was really happy when Nick generously told me that I was welcome back if I needed a place to do work or get assistance on projects, or just to hang out. I still stop by every now and then :]

Coding House is a development boot camp with a curriculum tailored to propel any student’s career into web development. Mileage, however, will vary depending on the individual's mindset and passion for landing their dream job. With only 8 weeks, there... Read More is a limited amount of time allotted to each topic. One must - and I stress this because it is highly important - learn how to be comfortable with not knowing everything about a particular technology. It is unreasonable to expect to be able to cram an extensive amount of material into such a short time period.

The learning doesn’t stop after leaving Coding House (or really any bootcamp). As a matter of fact, development itself is a career that requires constant learning, since technologies fade out and are replaced every few years.

During my time at Coding House, I was exposed to a curriculum designed to sample a web developer's toolbox. It was comprised of basic industry standards such as Javascript, jQuery, CSS, HTML, along with the basics of design principles (mockups, UI/UX), Bootstrap, Node, Angular.js, and Ruby-on-Rails.

It was tough and I constantly felt like I was drowning in the material. Eventually, though, I was able to focus on the material that interested and challenged me as an individual. Time management was crucial with 6 hours dedicated to workshops each day, leaving only 6-8 hours to divvy up. I usually just expanded on whatever piqued my interested during the workshop. I spent several hours diving deep into blog posts, videos on Pluralsight and other online tutorials, and redoing the entire day’s lesson.

Aside from the awesome/flexible curriculum, the staff at Coding House were an amazing group of people. Not only were they highly devoted and motivated, they were genuinely interested in seeing me succeed, both during and after the program. They were always looking for feedback and open to suggestions.

I learned a lot of things, but I think the most valuable thing that I learned is how to act and think like a web developer. I am no longer phased when I get stuck or get massive floods of error text streaming down my screen. Sure, I became frustrated, but I am now armed with the knowledge to resolve the situation. I learned how to help myself get unstuck as well as challenging myself so that I am not stagnant During cohort, I got to build a few things such as my restaurant app, my own language translator using Google’s API, a Twitter bot that uses Twitter’s API in order to get current weather data using another API by openweathermap. In a team, I participated in developing a mobile app using APIs from BetterDoctor and Uber.

In addition, I developed an app aimed at alleviating the pain of hosting a hack-a-thon. This also was an amazing experience as we were able to use all of our previous knowledge and combine it with Ruby on Rails, Twilio’s API, Eventbrite’s API, and Passport.

Coding House showed me the ropes on how to use modern technologies and implementing them just as a working professional would in the industry. There are, without a doubt, gaps in my current knowledge-base, but I am much more confident in my ability to read and write code than I was two months ago and am hungry to learn more.

Overall, I would say that I enjoyed my experience and got my money’s worth. There were times during the cohort where I took it easy and was not diligent, but that’s part of the grind. It is demanding and rigorous, you have to pace yourself otherwise you will burn yourself out. Now, I am taking it slow for the next few months to recollect myself, build a few apps, and learn more about web development before joining the workforce sometime next year.

Last minute tips:

Coding House does accept students with little programming experience, but I will say this: If you aren't planning or putting more than at least a week’s worth of effort into the pre-course work, please reconsider. While the curriculum does give you a jump start, you aren't going to come out with an enjoyable experience in just two months without sufficient preparation. Whether your interest in development may be because of curiosity or the money, just make sure you don’t falter. Recognize that failure is not an option. You don’t want to waste those two months. Work hard and relentlessly. Success only comes to those who persist to the end.

Having the right mind set is another important factor in getting the most out of this program. You will be introduced to many new concepts and technologies and you are going to have to absorb the key concepts and apply them. The learning happens in two phases: ping-ponging and coding. What I mean by ping-ponging is that you can’t always be stuck focusing on the basic stuff, you will have to jump back and forth between the advanced and basic topics. Reading and reviewing code, blogs, books are highly important and it should consume a good amount of your time, but don't forget to try the code for yourself! Retype the code, change the code, come up with new problems, and play with it. I like to bookmark good reading material after a read through and trying it out for another read later in the future. It just helps reinforce what I’ve learned. It is also imperative that you step out of your comfort zone as that is the only way you will truly learn the material. Besides, if you don’t get all giddy about implementing something you’ve struggled with or don’t have the curiosity to see if it works or not, you are ...

My experiences at Coding House have been nothing short of life changing. Learning the MEAN Stack is a daunting task and learning it in 60 days is something I considered to be impossible before coming to coming to Coding House. Coding House not only provides... Read More the superior instruction but also the unique environment required to complete this task. Disconnecting yourself from distractions and living inside a bubble of knowledge is essential for growing and learning at an outstanding rate; I would challenge anyone to find a place that does that better than Coding House. Living with your classmates and TAs as well as having a instructor on site from sunup to sundown creates a constant and uninterrupted flow of knowledge. I have never learned faster than while at Coding House.

There are also several additional benefits that I received from Coding House that I never expected. The first being a phenomenal web presence. Having a good web presence is great for a lot of reasons but I think the best part about it is that employers find you. Almost everyday a new employer reaches out to me to see if I am interested in working there. Before Coding House I was impossible to find, now if you google me everything on the first page is about me. The other benefit of Coding House that I did not expect was the friendships. At Coding House I met some amazing people who I consider to be my very close friends. Not only have they helped me feel no so alone in a new city but also have already provided me with phenomenal job opportunities and are constantly sending me great resources whenever they find them.

If you are serious about becoming a developer and are ready to change your life then I highly recommend Coding House.

Pro's
Instructor lives will us and is available when we are awake at 2 am to debug code
Learned how to build an app from concept to deployment with the MEAN stack
No cooking required. Sarah is an awesome cook
Visting other companies to see how they operate... Read More was an interesting experience
A new perspective on how to learn and solve problems

Con's
My cohort was mostly immature
The AC was broken for a bit in the summer time
Not having my car to get away from the house wasn't easy
Drama between two students was distracting

I attended the second cohort of Coding House from June 16 to August 16th. My cohort was 6 students and 1 instructor. From the beginning I knew the style of teaching would be project based and not lecture based. This was the main reason I choose Coding House oner other bootcamps. The other was I wanted to learn the latest and greatest technology like Mongodb, Angular, and Node. Coding House provided that as well. If you ask for it Nick provides real feedback on how to improve anything you are working on. He truly cares about helping the students and will make introductions to people that otherwise you would probably never meet.

Overall my experience with Coding House was great and would recommend it to those looking for a bootcamp that handles all of life's distractions like commuting to work cooking and trying to find a place to live in the Bay Area. All you have to do is crawl down the stairs and be ready to learn. In the end I interviewed for a job 2 weeks before my class ended and started as soon as my class ended. I now work full time as a full stack developer for a medical startup

I am a student at the current cohort(Aug. 2014) , and I have to say its Amazing, I did a lot of search on bootcamps and this one is the only real immersive one there is. Coding house have 2 instructors and 2 TA's available for your questions anytime of... Read More the day or night. Since I started here last month I spent a night in the woods , I did Yoga and workout everyday and I consumed API's like I never before. I feel I learned JavaScript properly , understood the node.js with Express framework. I believe I have a thorough understanding of git , Mocha.js , Chai.js , Handlebars.js etc. I have a portfolio of projects that I can actually show to potential employees. Job support starts from the first day here. The only thing you have to know, is Coding House is like any other immersive experience you only get out as much as you put in. Prepare for it and never give up!