Suncoast Developers Guild Academy

Unlike most of the other students at the Suncoast Developers Guild Academy, I had some exposure to programming concepts and the IT industry in general. Having secured a BS in programming did little to prepare me to secure a position as a programmer in the industry. Looking to improve my employment chances, I had the good fortune to stumbled upon the SDG Academy. 

Although I had some reservations due to the cost and time commitment, I jumped all in, and never regretted it. The Instructor (Mark), I had was extremely knowledgeable, patient and understanding. I'm sure that our questions were the same ones he has heard for the umpteenth time, but he never hesitated to answer them in a calm professional manner. The curriculum path I took included the most current and sought-after technologies, React, Vue, Javascript, HTML 5, CSS3, C#. Patiently he taught us Padawans the way of the programmer. Which is be self-sufficient, research, try and ask questions intelligently.

But the Suncoast Developer Guild Academy goes beyond just teaching you how to program. They also help to introduce you to the local programming community. The field trips to the various companies start to give you a sense of a programmer’s life. They host various Meetups, which further helps you connect with other developers in the area. Their Career Services helps you understand what employers are looking for and how to make your presence known to them.

As many have noted, there is a great time commitment requirement. My day started at the school at 07:30 AM and ended at about 10:30 PM, M-F. On the weekend I would put in an additional 10 hours. It was a heavy schedule but rewarding one. Others put in more time. I’m not trying to scare anyone off, but you do get what you put into it.

Because of the high pace of the program, I would recommend the following before attending the class:

• Learn the basic programming concepts:
  • Variables
  • Classes
  • Loops / Iterations
  • Methods / Functions
  • Objects
  • Inheritance
  • Encapsulations
  • Abstractions
  • Parameters
  • Arrays
  • List
  • Operators (Relational, logical, Conditional)
  • IDE
  • SQL

You don’t need an in depth understanding, just enough that it doesn’t slow you down.

• Take an entry level online course. This will give you a taste of some of the concepts, as well as prepare you for programming
• Use OneNote (or any note take app) in class to help you understand and organize the volume of technical information you will be exposed to

The Suncoast Developer’s Guild Academy is not the end, but the beginning of your next phase of life, it was for me.  I secured a position as a application support staff member. I have my hands in Oracle, system support, Powershell, SQL, C#, and anything else that they can throw my way.

On behalf of the other SDG cohort graduates and myself, best of luck on your programming journey…. Never stop programming

I just graduated from SDG last weekend. I am so grateful to have been part of the program. I decided to make a career change into web development coming from a completely non-technical background. I got on Codecademy and FreeCodeCamp and began teaching myself to code. It was great, but the progress was slow-going and I knew it'd be hard to get a foot in the door somewhere without a strong portfolio of work. I stumbled across SDG online. I wasn't familiar with coding bootcamps, and it seemed too good to be true, so I attended meetups in St. Pete and met alumni of the program who are now happily employed as web developers. I highly encourage you to do this due diligence if you're interested in the program. Go visit the campus. Go meet the staff. Go talk to alumni of the program. Once I saw how dedicated the staff are to the success of the students and how successful (and happy) alumni were post-graduation, I knew that SDG was for real.

Have realistic expectations going into the program. You will have to drop *everything* for three months while you are a student there. You will be putting in between 80 and 100 hours of work each week. But if you make the sacrifices necessary, you can really suceed through the program.

SDG is there for you. Not only do you have amazingly talented instructors, but you also receive a ton of career support. The career support really sets SDG apart from other coding bootcamps. We had mock interviews with a local company. We toured a local company and met developers on their team. We were strongly encouraged to attend local meetups in order to truly become part of the larger Tampa Bay tech community. SDG molds you into a web development professional. 

I genuinely feel lucky that I was able to participate in the program. I cannot speak directly to employment prospects post-graduation since I finished just days ago, but I can say that I feel very confident that I'll be able to land a good job within a month or two. I can't imagine going through this career change without SDG.

When I learned about Suncoast Developer's Guild I was a bit skeptical. They seemed like an unknown quantity without a lot of reviews. After attending their first demo day I learned about their high placement rates and had the opportunity to talk to students and the staff. I brought my wife and we were both very impressed. 40% of the class was already placed on demo day and the students had glowing reviews on what they had learned and were optimistic about their future. I decided to give them a shot and I'm very glad that I did not go with another code school here in Florida. One of the big advantages at SDG is that they teach C# .NET and Ruby on Rails which are both in serious demand here in Tampa.

The staff genuinely cares about your well-being and they teach work life balance. They encourage you to push yourself and it is a very rigorous education (I spend about 70 hours a week coding, some do more some do less) but they don't have hard deadlines so as long as you get the work done you are free to take some time away which is very important for your mental state. The instructors all have an immense amount of experience coding (between the three instructors they are getting close to 100 years combined) and they have tons of experience teaching at the Iron Yard (the staff is made up from former Iron Yard instructors who ran the most successful branch of that school). I am confident that I have a bright future in coding and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here (although it can be very stressful at times). I encourage anyone with a passion for coding to check out SDG, it is the best investment in my future that I have ever made.

The team, the timing, the product, the experience--everything at the Suncoast Developer's Guild was spot on. 

Toni, Jason, Gavin, Mark, Katherine, Lauren, Kento, and the team are undoubtedly the most creative, passionate, and agile team I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Simply walking into the Suncoast Developer's Guild gives the urgency to stay forever, and learn as much as you can from all of the other talented individuals that step into that building. 

There is no better timing for a not-for-profit code school, the only one in Florida may I add, than now. The greater Tampa bay area has been in need of this type of program for a long time, and it has finally come to fruition. 

I attended the academy in July-October and found it to be the most pivotal experience in my life. I am currently working at an amazing company, doing what I love everyday--building software. I would do it over again, and I recommend any one that is thinking about doing the program--do it, you won't regret it.

Overall I had a really good experience at SDG. The instructors and staff were all very caring and supportive and my cohort became like a family. It was a great environment to learn with a welcoming and positive atmosphere.

If considering enrolling at SDG I HIGHLY recommend doing the prework! Be prepared to dedicate the majority of your time to the program and be 100% committed. You will learn at an extremely fast pace. Having a good support system in place is also very important, as it can get emotionally draining at times. It isn’t easy, but very rewarding!