Codesmith

Background: absolutely no software engineering or coding background 

pros: My resume says it all. I did not have any experience in software engineering but now I have so many products on my resume. The products are not simple CRUD apps (not saying that they are bad, but it is nice to solve more developer problems), but developer tools that other developer uses. For example, our team created 1. a dedicated React IDE in VS Code, 2. Automated Containerization CLI Tool (Docker), 3. D3 Chart generator, and 4. CSS to Styled components converter. Due to the solid understanding of JavaScript that I gained through Codesmith, I easily picked up other languages along the way, such as TypeScript. 

cons: The hours might be a bit tough if you are not prepared. Mandatory hours are from 9 am to 8 pm, but no one leaves at 8 pm, by choice. That being said, if I decided to invest my time and resources to learn software engineering, I would rather be surrounded by hardworking software engineers that are willing to learn.

I was initially hesitant on applying to the course due the online aspect of it - after all, why spend the money when there are so many free learning tools online? However, after hearing that the tuition fee can be applied towards the immersive program fee (thus, potentially being free), I decided to take the plunge. It's been about two weeks since the course ended, and I am extremely thankful that I had decided to take this course.

On the first day of instruction, what stood out to me was Ryan's approach to teaching. He started the class emphasizing the high expectations he will place on us, which I thought help set a positive growing mentality for our class.  Whenever we would hit a road block, rather than immediately providing an answer, Ryan would focus on assisting us so that we could figure it out on our own.

Throughout the course, Ryan modeled good coding practices/approaches to students, and when we did pair programming, students were given opportunities to practice what Ryan had modeled. Everyone in my class came with different coding backgrounds and ability, but the diversity of skill levels made each pair programming a unique learning experience (whether learning how to better communicate ideas or learning something new from a fellow classmate).  

When I applied to CS Prep, I went in with two goals in mind: 1) to further solidify my foundational knowledge of JS and 2) to improve on my technical communications skill. This course did above and beyond in helping me better work towards those goals and well enough for me to get into the immersive program. I would highly recommend this program to anyone who is seriously considering coding.

You don't have to take this approach, but for those that are decided on taking CS Prep, I would recommend exposing yourself to the topics covered on CSX/going to the Hard Parts workshops - that way, you'll be able to ask for help/clarity on areas that come only after longer exposures to concepts like object oriented programming, recursion, closure, and etc. Also, if Ryan suggests sharing a technical commutations video on a coding problem, just do it. Do it early on in the course so that when you get feedback from Ryan (and classmates - if you choose to share with them as well), you can see what you need to improve on from the start and work on it throughout the course.

I just finished week 1 for the first 9-to-5 job I've ever had. It has been the scariest, most exhilarating week of my life ... besides my first week at Codesmith. 

My target salary after graduating was around Codesmith's median at the time, $100k.  I was unbelievably fortunate to be offered a senior frontend role for a $150k base salary within two weeks of graduation.  Is it too good to be true?  Well, I don't have time to verify this -- I'm too busy cramming my new company's codebase, so that I can hopefully avoid getting fired in week 2 ;)

One amazing thing about Codesmith is that even if I get let go from this, my first role, I now have enough confidence in myself as a programmer to get my second incredibly quickly.  Codesmith trained me to be a blazingly-fast learner (since frameworks/libraries change at the drop of a hat), but also to be a surgically precise job interviewee (meaning I prep with a high level of efficiency and present myself in the best way possible to maximize my chance of landing roles).  I'm not a 'ninja coder' by any means -- but what I gained from Codesmith is a much, much deeper fundamental understanding of javascript, and perhaps most importantly, extremely strong technical communication, perhaps the most important tool in my new developers toolbelt. 

Codesmith is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT, and I pulled all-nighters galore. Please DO NOT think just because you write a check for ~$18,000 you'll receive some magic elixir for getting a high-paying job. 

Generally, programmers who attend are beyond motivated and if they aren't willing to give the program their body/mind/soul for three months, they won't find a job, codesmith or not.  You truly get out what you put in.  And while my salary is atypical, a ridiculously strong work ethic + positive attitude + codesmith = engineering success. No question. 

I graduated from Codesmith and got a job as a senior software engineer 3 months later - my journey began when I attended a few "Javascript the Hard Parts" sessions and was introduced to the community. I did my research about the curriculum and personally agree  with their philosophy that beyond technical skill, there are additional traits that make for a successful engineer - namely passion for and the ability to learn new concepts and technologies, empathy, grit, and communication. These are all traits that I rely on daily at my current job, and they've been well received and recognized by my colleagues. Some of my coworkers graduated from other coding bootcamps, and I'm leading them and coordinating the team to build features.

I left a full time job that was technical (though not as engineering-focused as I wanted it to be) to attend Codesmith and I can confidently say it was one of the best decisions of my life and one of the best investments I have ever made. Not in terms of just the financial payoff (I more than doubled my salary), but also the investment I made in myself and my potential. It's truly powerful to be put in an environment that not only forces you to step up and prove yourself (to yourself) but also gives you room to develop your leadership and collaboration skills via the pair programming exercises and group projects.

And, of course, I accelerated my growth as an engineer - in terms of the technologies that are taught, I was exposed to many that I had limited prior experience in - Node, React, Redux, Webpack, etc. I had experience with HTML, CSS, SQL, and database design, which was certainly advantageous, and in those cases I was able to hone my abilities by helping fellow residents and sharing my knowledge - all skills that come in handy in a real-world engineering environment. Plus, I now have a network of engineers that I am sure will remain lifelong friends and contacts - people I would be honored to work with in the future, and who feel the same about me. That level of trust and respect cannot be taken for granted.

All in all, I highly recommend Codesmith!

This review has been preempted as apparently Codesmith (Eric) called ME thinking that one of the unsatisfactory reviews were written as it "sounded like you" and reassuring me that their job statistic placements will be verified soon which left me in a HUGE confusion until I realized they still have not verified that since I inquired about it since October 2017. If it takes more than a year to verify statistics where your early LA cohorts have already been published before, it just means that they areWAITING on people to get hired to boost their statistics up more. A third party verification is easy to do, you give them your data and it does not take that long as they do not have many students EMPLOYED. Apparently that is why some people cannot even leave honest feedback as Codesmith keeps calling them to change their minds. 

Which leaves me to my next point that most of these 5 star reviews are done by Fellows who are "employed" by Codesmith as esentially teaching assistants, to help answer "help desk" requests when student submits a ticket. However, most of these tickets do get ignored as these TAs are not meant to help students but rebuild the website for Codesmith. All in all a huge marketing and low laboring scam setup here.

This is a going to be a LONG, well in depth REVIEW with some personal anecdotes and feedback I was given personally, and experienced through these 3 months at Codesmith. While I appreciate the staff for being nice, the overrall value into going Codesmith was absolutely wasted and there was not even WiFi working well during my April/May-July 2018 time and I have tracked it back to NY Cohort #2's time as well. There are a lot of excuses for things they need to address and NOTHING IS PERFECT, but they sure act as if they are and are not open to suggestions and shut down anyone who does not follow their "Codesmith ways" which just inherently means being a sheep in thoughts and actions. 

Background

I am a NON-cs student who just started coding early of 2018 and was pushed too much to join Codesmith despite my lack of foundation of even Javascript. Which I was assured repeatedly they will help me in. I am also typing this as I am recovering from LASIK as I feel infuriated that they are hounding other people for their HONEST reviews and accusing people that are busy with their lives. 

There were precoursework that were given and not really reviewed in depth. Pair programming was a huge pain in NYC's Cohort 4 as Codesmith has internal politics that HUGELY affects their students' even though that is what they should be focusing on and not other aspects to promote an invalid hostile environment. Their COO Victoria left which gave a huge amount of work to the staffs apparently, and no one boetherd to check up in our cohort if ANY of us were even pair programmed efficiently. My seniors did not face this problem as they had Victoria's presence and apparently she didn't "leave to attend Business School" as Will Sentenace's own explanation was for her departure, but she was FIRED for being young in a COO position for Codesmith due to "lack of experience" even though she did a lot of work behind the scenes apparently at Codesmith.(she was also the one passive aggresively ensuring everyone was coding well with one another). Her absence made the staff ignore a lot of risk factors in our cohort which made MOST OF US MISERABLE.I do not think any one of us actually enjoyed the time at Codesmith except knowing one another.

The funny part is for a bootcamp to advertise learning of "deep diving" by facing "engineering blocks" through "pair programming" of units, I TOLD them myself in a feedback at Week 2 that they conducted to their outreach coordinator Jenny, that pair programming is not being efficiently done. She told me herself, "Well! We cannot enforce pair programming." ??????? WHAT DID I HEAR. Yes, I relayed this to Will himself and his own magical PR words of his marketing schematic self was, "she is not a representative of Codesmith's staff so what she said did not represent Codesmith at all. We even had an extra 30 minute PP of effective pair programming for your cohort and I even pulled people aside personally to let them know about it." 

Here is Lie #1 I caught Will in. I spoke to EVERYONE in my cohort if they have EVER been approached by Will about this and they have said no. Only one person in my cohort said Ryan (who was the LTM - Lead Technical Meentor? - at that time) has approached him, but not Will himself. Will could not even be bothered to attend his own Javascript workshop on a Saturday morning that was attended by 100+? or more people since he was late by an hour to his OWN MEETUP. Plus if this was true this would have been fixed from Week 2 onwards but I can see people still not pairing well even on the last month for projects at Codesmith lol.

Another Fellow mentioned that she has tried to get the women's nnegotiation/ hiring workshop in before but Will has not even responded to her about it. I pushed for it to happen for my cohort and my juniors as there were a lot of people who needed to know. I slacked him a lot, did not see a date as it was nearing the end of my curriculum. I had to ask a FEMALE staff of Codesmith just so I can relay how infuriating and frustrating it is to try to get something done when they claim to be "FORWARD THINKING AND RESPECTIVE TO EVERYONE".

Half of my cohort has failed their weekly "checkings" which are assessments of that week's topics/units. The funny part is that the React portion in Codesmith is similar to React's OWN documentation tutorial so while I am not saying that Codesmith got lazy in TEACHING React but they just had a similar guide to React's own starting process tutorial guide ....

1:1 tutoring was not available in our cohort and instead we had a group review done as it was more "time efficient" but still "time wasted" as it was not individualized, and not personalized. They just reviewed code semantics without really explaining what was going on between components, which I learned well AFTER the program ended. 

I am the bottom knowledge % wise in my cohort and I did not mind since I just started out and it was fine. But the lack of support of materials and just being thrown in haphazardly because this is "how engineers learn" as Will personally told me himself, just means I never got proper foundations to even make projects work. My whole cohort still did not even know how to use React well despite having ALL of our projects in React which is funny. Our resumes are well spoken and FAKE which makes it seem legit, which they're not. 

I was also one of the people who got tutoting by Stephen and even some of the tutorings from him and Fellows have mentioned that Codesmith has taught their units in such an unnecesary way of learning that no one grasps it until wayyyyy later or until they learn it a more effiecient way to understand it. I was told I was also not a hard working  because my brain quits after a while since you are there Monday-Fri from 9:-8pm and Sat 9am-4pm. It's not a matter of how long it takes to learn but how efficiently can you get it, that's how you can work smarter not harder. Which is the oppoiste of Codesmith's values apparently.There are multiple ways of learning (and teaching it as I was told) it but if its more complicated than it should be, that in itself is against programming itself. 

Lie #2 - Will told me himself he was paying tutors out of pocket at $200/hr and as a FAVOR for me and others to get extra tutoring at 10 hours a week for 4 weeks. He personally told me himself, "Anonymous, even YOU cannot contest these rates I am paying here." I was offered a refund of around $4k or tutoring which at the end of the day I am more interelsted in LEARNING, which I had to fight for a lot. I can contest these rates because Will wasn't even paying that much to begin with, he even said "THESE TUTORS ARE TOP OF THE INDUSTRY SO THEY ARE WORTH $200/HR I AM PAYING OUT OF MY OWN." He didn't yell this, but was very affirmative hence the CAPS. Turns out the tutor was just one of my Seniors in the previous cohort so thanks! Thank you Will for such TOP OF THE INDUSTRY TUTORS@!@! I do appreiate Stephen's tutoring -- just being lied continously again face to face by Will Sentance, Codesmith's own CEO is infuriating and frustrating. 

I have also failed my finals assessment and I was told I had to retake it. I asked why since I did the backend pretty well and I was told I can do it in any format I want but the test itself restricted you not to use React since it had a longer setup and their testing for the assessments were not setup for React but specific file locations and such. I was told I could have asked to restructure the file formats myself even though the test ittself said not to and I even asked a Fellow for help and they told me to stick with the testing environment. If I had the flexibility to do so but have no actual instructions and flexibility given initially, why tell me after? Absolutely ridiculus. I also asked them why do they need  me to retake it and they said, "oh well its for us to know where you are and how to benchmark you to get the help you need." I mean I already know what I am struggling with which was basically almost everything so I did not have the optio2n to repeat the course just "extra help". Basically their motto is letting YOU know where YOU are behind, so YOU can learn yourself and catch up yourself. Absolutely no support as promised. 

Lies #3 - was given Will's and Eric's own number for after graduation but it seems that Will is ghosting a lot of my messages plust other people in my cohort. Yet when I was interested in joining, I had a 4am e-mail and constant text messages and phone calls about joining.  He said emails were best to reach him but I wasn't even given his email.

I did manage to get a senior software position but I completely ignored all of Codesmith's guidelines. I applied to over 200 job applications and only got 2 onsites out of those. Apparently I am supposed to get 1-2 onsite interviews out of every 20 applications but that is another lie. Most are outright rejections and I only got placed luckily through a very kind and pushy recruiter (which I am always kind to even recruiters even though Codesmith says not to pay them much value). If anyone is jobless still after 6 months and applied to every position, be warned that you may be blacklisted as recruiters tend to notice why you are till job searching after some time "your startup which is a project has disintegrated over a few months ago."

I completely started over after the program ended since it was disappointing, frustrating and tiresome to have to "fight" for a way that I can learn best since I could not even take a single project to break it down much simpler for me to understand and piece together. Instead you are jumbled up all through each different projects to use the frameworks and knowledge you have supposedly obtained which is 10% for a semblance of something that works. 

The completely ridiculous thing at the end I was asked on how I can improve  learning/teaching for their future cohorts at the END of my cohort despite my numerous complaints of the lack of Fellows helping and (1) hour PP slides that are not even great starting course materials to learn off. If I repeatedly have told them during learning that we are not learning the right way we won't ever "cement" our knowledge during projects as that is the known "Codesmith's way" which is all convoluted shenanigans. I paid to learn, not to be your consultant on fixing your problems even though Codesmith at this time had 20+ classes already and 3 for NYC. So again that means their curriculum still needs to be changed and improved as most of Codesmith's graduates STILL  have to learn the curriculum after their time spent of 3 months. 

This review may make me sound like a bitter person but no I was more determined to get a job on my own despite knowing nothing at the end of the bootcamp. I have spoken to several friends who have done Fullstack academy and App Academy and they have not had buyer's remorse as I have had. I recommend Fullstack Academy more as App Academy is more stressful than needed. If you have any questions you can reach out to me at teamgingko@gmail.com.I would love to leave a verified review but like many others, have to mask our actual profiles to not damage our own reputation and jobs / potential jobs. I recommend Udemy for courses as low as $10 to each a particular language/ framework. 

It's really hard to work with anyone especially a CEO (Will Sentance) who lies to students' faces and has the guts to tell me I cannot contest his claims. I sure am and can, and will because most of them are FALSE. A lot of other reviews have also labeled him as "markety" Will, which is true. A business who keeps contesting every "negative" review left so often and does not even address the main focal points but skirts around points made to again self promote their "program" that "dives deep under the hood" while trying to foster a "community" but lies to their students is truly atrocious. I wouldn't mind if their program did not work out for me, but to be belittled every step of the way to ensure I had proper guidance is definitely something one should not experience. 

I would rather take out all 4 of mmy wisdom teeth again on the same day, without any painkillers if I can go back in time to prevent myself from even entering this bootcamp. Oh and Codesmith does take credit for students' long work after they completed the program. Most of them didn't even understand the subjects taught and instead learned them well afterwards. Ask to speak to their graduates if possible, the ones with NO technical experience at all. If you do the math if there are about 10-15 people and LA had about 20 cohorts and each cohort had 2-3 fellows... which ammounts to about the same 5 star reviews left behind, which reviews are actually real? Again, please feel free to email me at teamgingko@gmail.com for any questions.

Coming from a Computer Science grad from Cal Poly, I would've never thought that I could learn so much about programming in a 3 month period. I can honestly say that I've learned so much more in this 3 month program than I did with taking Computer Science courses during college. Not only do you apply the fundamentals, but you learn all these programming languages, frameworks, and library in so much depth with how it works under the hood. I was also surprised about the fact that everyone in the program was able to pick up a lot of complex data structures, algorithms, and concecptual material in Computer Science, they manage to pick it up faster than the students in a Computer Science program in cellege. In addition, you get to innvoate an actual production level project for seasoned developers, this is something that you cannot get out of other schools, especially in a Computer Science program in college. 

Just another heads up, although the program is only 3 months, it's VERY intensive. This opinion is coming from a person that has a Computer Science degree. The amount of work they give you is ludricous, the hours are suppose to be from 9am - 8pm, but expect to leave around 11PM or even 12PM. So be prepared to put in the work, it'll be worth it at the end, I can promise you that you'll learn so much.

Now, aside from the academic side, the community is just astounding, no words can describe it. You would be surrounded by so many amazing and intelligent people in this program. These people go from the staff, instructors, and of course your cohort. This experience that you get from being at CodeSmith, you definitely cannot experience else where. The bonds that you form with your cohort and staff, is just incredible, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

All in all, I highly recommend coming to CodeSmith, the experience and learning experience you get from here, you won't be able to find anywhere else

When I was choosing which bootcamp to sign up for, the first thing I did was to come here and read people's reviews about Codesmith. Visiting this site again after having graduated, I feel like maybe I'd been seriously duped…

I just realized that most, if not all, of the reviews that are written by people from my cohort and the one before mine are posted by Fellows. For those of you who don't know, Fellows are paid student instructors who decided to stay and work for Codesmith after completing the program. Codesmith hires about 4~5 fellows from each cohort. It did with mine and the one prior. Considering that there are now over 20+ cohorts and if this pattern were practiced consistently, it means that there are at least 100 such reviews written by Fellows on behalf of their employer.

I am not suggesting that they couldn’t all have had positive experiences at Codesmith, but it’s one thing to do it voluntarily; it’s quite another when you’re asked by your employer during your employment to do so on their behalf, fully knowing that the business relies heavily on them and that any negative review might invite a rebuke. Just like how Codesmith would tell its students to star each other's senior project on gitHub to make them look more popular or legit, same thing is happening here. I won't name names but heck I am seeing A LOT of them here!

After attending a few of the Javascript the Hard Parts lectures and leveling up my core, basic coding knowledge, I decided I was finally ready to apply to Codesmith.  The interviews went great (although the tech interview was hardly a breeze), and I got in (!!!). I was so nervous on day one - my background was primarily outside of tech, and even though I prepped a lot before applying, I still felt like I was way out of my league once I got there. The other students were all unbelievably smart, but what really blew me away was how NICE everyone was. And supportive. And fun. And interesting.  (I could go on and on...).  Once this became apparent, my nervousness melted away, and I learned what it really meant to be a software engineer. I had incredible help available to me at any time I needed it - from the full-time instructors or the Codesmith fellows or the senior students. Yes, we learned React, Redux and everything else a full stack JS programmer needs to know, but most importantly, we learned how to solve problems and REALLY get how the software does what it does. We did hackathons, we did endless pair-programming (which I loved), there were lectures, family dinners, days on the beach, expert speakers, alumni panels, etc, etc.  In short- it's an absolutely amazing program, and from what I can tell it's pretty much the best one out there. Codesmith changed my life, and now I'm doing my dream job near the beach at a salary that's just over their avg starting salary in LA (105,000). I'm beyond excited. (oh - did I mention that they even guide you on interviewing and networking? Well they do that too and it was so, so helpful).
The last thing I'll call out is the team that runs Codesmith - they're all so incredibly knowledgeable and kind and patient and somehow ALWAYS in a good mood. They're the absolute best, so all I can say is - if you can get into Codesmith, then you absolutely should attend Codesmith. You'll thank yourself every day.

My experience at codesmith was much better than I had expected it to be. The curriculum was thought out very well. The main technologies taught are Javascript, React/Redux, Node, SQL, NoSQL. There is also a hint of machine learning, but not too much. Although these are the main technologies, By the end of the program you will be able to pick up any technology you would like to learn. The fact that you are able to collaborate with others and create open source projects is also invaluable and has taught me a lot. 

I ended up doing a lot of things that really challenged me and helped me improve as a software engineer. Their pedagogy is all about teaching you how to learn and you're not told to do things tutorial style. You're able to become immersed into an environment of software engineering. You will learn a lot when you start building a tool that other developers will use and it shows a sense of maturity that recruiters like to see.

Job Assistance is the greatest part of the program especially after the program, where you still have access to all their resources. The advice you get on job searching and interviewing is incredibly useful.

As a graduate of Codesmith, I can tell you with 100% confidence that if I were to do it all over again, I would not pick Codesmith. I think Codesmith makes money way too easily from the students for the level and quality of services that they provide (or rather, don’t). Codesmith and its CEO would love to tell you that their instructions are purposefully bad because they’re meant to be cursory in order to promote “autonomous learning” and “independence”. To me that just sounds like a poor excuse for not having quality lesson plans and not employing high-quality, well-compensated, non-student instructors like some competing bootcamps do.

I take bigger issue with how Codesmith promotes and markets itself. Codesmith wants you to think that it’s for their short 4 weeks of superficial instructions and 8 weeks of scattered group projects that the graduates are getting the jobs that they claim. Did you know that you can’t even tell your interviewers that you graduated from Codesmith because of the negative stereotypes associated with it? Codesmith and its CEO swear that their program works because of their often anecdotal and unsubstantiated claims about student outcomes that are sourced from some “internally gathered data”. The thing is they even take credit for students’ job placements that happen well after their graduation when, more so, it was actually the students’ own hard work, struggle, and months and sometimes years of self-studying that got them the jobs in the end. I ultimately landed a job that I’m fairy happy with for now, but I spent considerably more time outside of Codesmith before and after, studying and preparing myself in order to successfully transition into the industry. I find it less than genuine that Codesmith would unabashedly try to take all the credit for student outcomes and make it sound like their 3-month program is all that’s needed to achieve a  successful outcome just so it can continue to promote itself and make more money from unsuspecting and often, desperate students.

$17K for 3 months.

I know some prospective students justify paying or taking out a loan for the high tuition by telling themselves that if the program can help you get the kind of jobs that Codesmith is claiming, then it’s worth it. I did too. But that’s assuming that it does and there’s no better use of your hard-earned money. What if it doesn’t? What if it’s not?
 

-A.H.