Lighthouse Labs

When I first decided to attend LHL, I was excited, but also full of fear. That disappeared quickly when I realized that I would gain out of the program what I put into it, and that as long as I was committed to succeeding, the instructors and TA's would... Read More come in early and stay late! Super supportive bunch, and probably the best group of people I've ever met.

TL:DR
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=> Like hands-on learning? Enroll in Lighthouse.
=> Want a job where you can apply what you’ve learned? Enroll in Lighthouse.
=> Struggling with self-directed learning, or hit a limit to what you can do... Read More for free? Enroll in Lighthouse.
=> Looking for an explanation of binary, computer languages, and making your own artificial intelligence and/or programming language? Do a CPSC degree.
=> And absolutely the most important point, are you capable of self-directed learning? If you aren’t, bootcamp is not going to work for you.

The Long Form
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Just this past September I found myself enrolled in a two-year Computer Science degree which, I hoped, would get me into an industry I longed to join. I dropped out on the first day. University is great for a lot of things, but practical application is not one of them. I knew almost immediately that I was going to yet again find myself with a degree that didn’t qualify me to do what I wanted to do most, work! Enter boot camp. I enrolled in the Lighthouse Labs program in Vancouver. An 8-week intensive, hands-on program with coding in the best form: 2 hours of lecture and 8+ hours of code code code code code. For those that learn by doing, you really can’t go wrong with a program that solely focuses on making you a programmer by getting your hands dirty.

I learned an almost impossible list of technologies in an exceptionally short period of time. To give you an idea, I can now give reasonably confident answers on my experience with the following: Python, Ruby, JavaScript 2015, Ruby on Rails, Django, Flask, Sinatra, Node.js, API Integration, Git, Ubuntu Server, Grunt, Bower, NPM, Gem, Pip, CSS, HTML, jQuery, threeJS, Vagrant, RSpec, bundler, SQL, Backbone.js, RESTful architecture, OOP, AJAX, JSON, SASS, ORMS, and everything in between. That’s a lot of stuff to learn in 8 weeks. The trick to that whole mess of technologies is that many of them build off of each other. Lighthouse Labs helped structure that learning and progression which, if I had been learning alone, wouldn't have been as successful.

I enrolled in Lighthouse Labs because I found myself at an interesting crossroad. I loved coding, wanted a job in the industry, had some experience, and needed some direction. Learning through online resources got me part of the way to being a better programmer, but it’s often difficult to focus those efforts into something that is productive. I had played around with new technologies and frameworks for years, but didn’t know enough to really understand the principles behind good web design; Codecademy will only get you so far, and you really need to apply that knowledge to be useful with it. The biggest reason I decided on a boot camp approach to learning is that it is quick. If you can devote the upfront cost of time and money to it, you’ll be able to do a lot in a short period. For me, that’s a huge plus.

The end result? An amazing experience I would happily repeat.

Lighthouse Labs was pretty great. The instructors, TAs/mentors are actually so so so passionate about what they do, you can tell they truly enjoy helping students and answering questions. They don't simply give you the solution to a question, they'll... Read More get you to talk through your thought process, your debugging process, and ask questions to help you come to solutions on your own with their hints.
The curriculum is pretty good, but I've heard they're going to be adding more javascript focus as they rethink the program (for web development). They have good guided tutorials that get more challenging as they encourage you to add 'bonus' features to the applications you're building.

I get that some people have been happy with their decision to go to lighthouse, but i’m pretty shocked that lighthouse has close to 5 stars. Who is writing all these perfect reviews? I’m sure a lot of people are happy with their decision to take this... Read More course, but I know plenty of others who are not. And it’s not because they didn’t work hard enough because believe me, pretty much everyone in my cohort worked their *** off. The reality is that two months of coding just can't make you anywhere close to a competent coder….and not everyone has months to spend afterwards trying to learn everything else they need to know.

I’m not trying to ruin the reputation of lighthouse or anything because the people who work there are really nice people. I just really want people to know the truth before dishing out so much money. Wish more people would leave reviews about their experience, because if I had read them I probably wouldn’t have gone to lighthouse and I probably would have been better off.

***Make sure you read that outcomes report VERY CAREFULLY. It only covers students who were at lighthouse BEFORE sept 25, 2015.

As someone with very little coding experience going into this bootcamp, I don't think I got as much out of it as others. Most of the people who did well either had engineering backgrounds or spent quite a bit of time coding before starting the bootcamp.... Read More I'm not saying it's impossible to do well without that background, but it will probably be a bit of an uphill battle. Plus, there is A LOT to learn after bootcamp to get yourself ready for technical interviews. I don't understand why lighthouse can't just make the program a bit longer but actually teach us most of the stuff we need to know to get a decent job...

If you're not a fast learner and you have had very little exposure to coding, please rethink taking this bootcamp (or maybe any bootcamp). Get some more experience coding first. If you don't fit into the lighthouse educational model, you will be quickly left behind. Lighthouse actually makes you roll over into the next cohort if you don't pass the first two tests. And they don't tell you ahead of time that rolling over is a possibility or that there are tests. I found out for the first time on the first day of classes, and of course you never think that you will be one of those people.

You can get a lot out of Lighthouse if you have the right background. If all you've done to date is some codecademy courses, you need to rethink your decision to enroll. I learned a lot of awesome stuff and the TAs were great, but I probably wouldn't do it again to be honest. It's just not worth the time and money.

This course may be marketed to the general public but in reality the way in which Lighthouse operated requires a person to already have experience, not just familiarity, with either design or programming.

A backend developer can practise at being a full-stack,... Read More as can a front-end dev. or designer, by supplementing their existing skills in one area with the other.

If a person has no experience or only familiarity in either area then it is too difficult. It is, afterall, a bootcamp, so there is no gradual process. Often, there wasn't even a process.

It was a bit like being visually shown a parachute then being thrown out of a plane. A person has only so much time to learn to find the lever and learn to use it.

This review is for the PART-TIME Web Development course. They have recently implemented a new curriculum. I already had some basic HTML/CSS knowledge prior to taking the course and found the first 4 classes very slow. Classes did not take the full 3 hours... Read More scheduled because it was teaching the very basics. I took this course to gain an introductory level overview of what the full-time web development course might be like and to get a better feeling of how I would like web development as a career. It has shown me that I do not want to pursue it as a full time career and I am glad I did not dive straight into the FT course.

Pros
- open to feedback and continual improvement of the course content
- knowledgeable teaching assistants and teacher to assist students during the hands on/coding portion of class (really enjoyed how helpful they were!)
- small class size of 20 (the class size shrinks the further along you go)
- lectures are recorded and shared after each class

Cons
- set of instructions / lecture material has not been perfected/error free
- they use an in-house made web app to provide class materials, which is a work in progress and could be more refined
- workshop learning consists of following step by step instructions, which was not very challenging (However, for some classes they did implement additional challenges to test your knowledge and that was great!)

LHL revived my love of learning following a few years of university. If you dislike the traditional hours of lectures and lack of hands-on activities then this is the program for you. Expect to be challenged constantly and maybe a little sleep-deprived... Read More for eight weeks.

As far as the instructors go, they're both knowledgeable and hilarious. You'll also be exposed to a ton of super helpful TAs with very diverse backgrounds.

11/10 would do it all over again if I could.

I attended Lighthouse Labs to jumpstart a career change from chemical engineering to iOS development. Pros: The class size is small, there is plenty of one-on-one time with instructors and mentors, I learned two languages and many other tools and frameworks,... Read More employers are begging to interview me. Cons: Lighthouse Labs is a young company, so there are some minor inconveniences and oversights, for example, they scheduled our demo day for a week later than normal this cohort and forgot to tell us until week 4.

The program focuses on improving a student's ability to learn the answer to their problem rather than have it given to you. It also puts emphasis on learning different technologies and languages. Overall very useful skills when considering that web technology... Read More moves and changes at a fast pace.

Instructors show that they themselves are also learners with even one instructor being very knowledgeable about web development but learning ruby while teaching. While this may seem as a red light to some, it is actually a green light as he shows the process of how a pro figures out what he needs to know.

One improvement that could be made would be giving Nodejs the same level of attention as Ruby/Sinatra/Rails. Learning Javascript seemed to be a hurdle to more than a few of my fellow cohorts.