The Firehose Project

The course material of The Firehose Project has a good flow that it holds your hands in the beginning and slowly make you do stuff on your own. Then enforces it with repetition with the creation of full-fledged applications.

The support team reaches out often. Code reviews, feedbacks in an instant. You get it in 15 - 30 minutes in the forum aside from having a 1-on-1 mentor access.

The overall learning process in The Firehose Project is great!! =)

I can give more feedback here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clarkngo/

At least, if you've got one near you.

Thankfully, I attended the Firehose Project back when it didn't cost $6.5k (it was $4k then), but I still sorely wish I could get my money back on something that gave no discernible ROI. While I was not expecting a job guarantee, their job assistance program was poor at best in 2015-2016. I put in my own work, applying to web development jobs and going through at least a handful of interviews never to get my foot in the door after completing the program.

I currently work in retail instead.

Marco and Ken were personable enough, and the initial code reviews were thoughtful and you felt like they were truly cheering you on (I remember Matt was the main person getting back to me on my code for Fizzbuzz, etc.). Looking back, the coursework wasn't in the best format -- it felt more like following along in an online workbook, instead of actively learning and building your own web pages and applications (until the chess app, but my group never even finished ours, and that was apparently okay with the people at Firehose -- but how does that look on interviews?? I couldn't adequately talk about an app that was never completed).

The depth of the work wasn't good enough to warrant the price of the program, and while I had a pretty good mentor (albeit we typically had some technical issues connecting for sessions), the only real job assistance was a quick look-over of my résumé and giving a few tips as to how to polish it up a bit. And overall, the group project they hyped up was a waste.

For all it's worth, enrolling in the FHP was definitely not one of my best decisions, and if I could go back, I wouldn't enroll in the program. I would urge prospective students to thoroughly consider what they're looking to get out of a coding bootcamp, and if it's actually worth the money. I'd definitely suggest doing everything you can for free first (I'm sure by now there are even more free resources out there than two+ years ago), or at least under one hundred dollars.

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to drop in and leave a quick review about my experience with the Firehose Project. 

Honestly, I'm typically a skeptic, as there are a TON of "online experts" out there with a lot of promises. This was not the first online course that I had gone through, although it was certainly the most costly and the most in-depth.

Short Version: IT DELIVERS.

I joined Firehose with a single goal in mind - I had started a business that was build on third party software and I wanted to bring it in-house. I wasn't here to learn how to make "pretty code" or to "try something new" - I was laser focused on making my business succeed.

Before I joined, I spoke with Marco (Firehose CEO) about my goals, and he was able to give me very specific guidance as to what the course would and would not cover, along with how he thought it would help.

If you don't put yourself out there, you'll never grow...so I slapped down a credit card and went for it.

At first, you'll feel like you're just "going through the motions" without a ton of context, but you need to trust the process. After the first few lessons, it'll all fall into place.

Long story short, not only did my time going through FHP allow me to complete the goal that I set out to do, I brought one of my classmates into the business as a co-owner and we're crushing it. We even flew to SF and met Marco, Ken, and the rest of the team - super great people.

If you want to lear RoR, just get on board. Work hard, learn the material, and see where life takes you. If I was able to learn it on my own, I would have done it already. FHP made it happen, and I'm super grateful to these guys for putting together such a killer program.

They have my highest recommendation.

I am working through week #10 of 42 in the Firehose program and am happy to report that it's going very well and that it is overall a great experience. The lessons are now becoming less "hand-holdy" and require more thought to work out, but there is still plenty of guidance to help you through the material. The material is set up and written in a very understandable and user-friendly fashion and the projects that you build are not only useful, but entertaining as well. The challenges are indeed challenging and are highly rewarding to struggle through and complete. The community is great and the resources to help learn are abundant. The mentor sessions are absolutley critical and one of the most helpful aspects of Firehose. Working with a live real person and talking out problems and concepts that you haven't quite grasped with an experienced pro is incredibly valuable and will often make the "light go off". You'll receive encouraging emails and phone calls from staff to ask about your progress and if there is anything that can be done to make your experience better. You'll soon realize that everything that is being taught all ties in and works together to form a good foundation for developing. I truly believe and feel that everyone at Firehose, mentors included, are really focused on my success and really do care about my future during and after the program. Super stoked to keep going and can't wait for the Agile Team Project!

I've taken 20 lessons so far in the Intro to Software Engineering course, which is a prep course for deciding on whether or not a bootcamp is the direction you'd want to go in. So far, the videos have been very high quality, easy to follow along with and descriptive. Some of the definitions have been a little lacking in my honest opinion because they tend to be less metaphor based (don't always have the novice in mind) but overall it's very high quality. This is not really an issue because you can google a term and another website like ruby for beginners at Ruby Monstas gave me some really in-depth and clear explanations for terms that weren't quite clicking with me the first time I read them on Firehose. Very good program structure overall. 

The Firehose Project is a fantastic course - I could not recommend it more.

The style of learning (written and video lessons backed up by mentor sessions) is a great fit for the aim of the curriculum: turning you into a self-sufficient developer. If you want to be able to build webapps, whether that be for yourself or for a company, this is the course for you.

When I was deciding between the vast array of options for coding bootcamps, I consulted the reviews on this board extensively, so I feel it only fair that I give a detailed and honest appraisal of my experience, split into a 'what you learn' and 'how you learn it'.

For avoidance of doubt: I am not affiliated with the Firehose Project in any way, and have nothing to gain from bigging it up.

 

Curriculum

You're building apps from day 1. You're still building apps in week 22. The whole time, you're building apps and this, for me, works. It's a 'learn by doing' approach. If you're determined to absorb as much as possible, it's a really effective method.

A warning: it would be possible to go through the course without taking much in. The code is all there for you on the page, and you could build the apps without really understanding anything. If you have an inclination to coast or free-ride, you need to be conscious of this.

In other reviews, I've seen people make a big deal about algorithms. I have to say, I'm yet to find a use for these skills, but I suppose there's no harm in having done them.

The language, Ruby on Rails, is brilliant. You'll learn to love it, but this shouldn't be a factor in choosing your course. Ruby is often intuitive and easy to read, but it's more about learning the principles of a coding language (methods, arrays, loops, properties etc.) than the actual language itself. Any would do, really.

Solo project vs. group project. I, foolishly, did both. I built my own app (which was the reason I took the course) with the help of my mentor. It went really well, and now has 1000+ users. However, I also signed up for the group project, and this ended up taking up too much of my time. DO NOT DO BOTH, no matter how well you think you're progressing.

Speaking of time, the course takes 30-40 hours a week. It is full-time, as promised.

What's missing? Front-end (making things pretty and intuitive for the user) is light touch throughout. There's nothing on UX design, and nothing more than basic Bootstrap usage and CSS. It's enough to get things to look alright, but you soon realise that there's plenty more that could have been covered.

Structure of learning

My mentor was simply excellent. He's an experienced Rails developer, who's worked for some of the big names in tech as well as being on a founding team of a successful company. As far as I can tell, he was mentoring because he enjoyed teaching people.

You have a 1 hour session each week, and you'd be amazed what you can fit into it. Send an email in advance of your session, detailing what you want to cover, and you'll get through it. The rate at which you can solidify or accelerate your learning during these sessions is impressive.

On top of this, there's a forum for each lesson on the website. If you have any questions, a moderator will get back to you typically within an hour. This ensures that you don't spend forever wondering what you've done wrong when you've got a colon instead of a semi-colon. Code is unforgiving sometimes, and having someone permanently present to help you out is necessary.

What's missing? I would have hoped for more videos and fewer written lessons. Watching seasoned developers code is a great way to improve - I think you can take more in about the thought process when watching and listening than when reading. 

I also would have hoped for more of a 'hackers' vibe about it. It does seem angled towards those aiming to get dev jobs, rather than build an MVP.

Outcome

I skyped Marco (one of the co-founders) before I signed up, and ran him through the app that I wanted to build. "Would I be able to build it by the end of the course", I asked. He gave a fair appraisal and said that it should be possible. I was unconvinced - he would say that, right?

In my first mentor session, I did the same. "Yes, absolutely, we'll build that", said my mentor. More convincing. By week 5, I'd started building Seed Music - you'd be amazed how simple some seemingly complex things can be with Rails - and by mid-way through, I had the fully functioning app.

It's now got 1000+ users, having just graduated, and I'm hoping to grow it further by rolling it out across unis in the UK. You can check it out at www.seedmusic.co.uk.

Some aspects of the build were fairly complex (multi-tenancy, worker servers etc.), and are not included in the course. That's fine, because FHP teaches you to be self-sufficient. You get to the stage where you can explain the problem or task to the internet (google), and Stack Overflow or an equivalent will have the answer. Becuase of the way FHP is taught, you'll understand the answer and be able to solve the problem. To butcher an analogy, it teaches you to code a fishing-rod rather than a fish.

This really is the one thing I'd stress. You become self-sufficient, and with that you can achieve a hell of a lot.

Overall, it's a great course, and the founders seem intent on continuing to improve it. It's not cheap, but it is worth it.

The program was great because I got to build several apps that all got increasingly complex over time. I also liked how i can ask any questions to the instrcutors or mentors or even students in the program if i get stuck on a code and they would be as helpful as they can.

The group project is awesome because it allows you to apply all of what you learned and beyond as well as working in a team of 4-5 students to build it which gives sense on how web developers work in their daily lives. The office hours were fun to attend and learn about things that are outside the material as well as getting to speak and ask the instructors any questions on your mind, even if you don't understand most of what happen in those hours you still get something out of it.

I would recommend this program to other people who want to not only learn how to code, but how to be a web developer.

Firehose was an easy choice after reviewing the schedule and curriculum with Brita and completing the pre requisite materials. It was clear to see this program could be completed working full time. Other bootcamps I looked into made me question my ability to focus on them with a less structured or more demanding lesson plan. I completed a few other structured study programs for other bootcamps before selecting The Firehose Project.

I really enjoyed how the lessons progressed and how the material you learned continued to evolve through each project. It was also great to have the material lead you into an error before revealing how to resolve said error. it really helped grasp and understanding on how it all worked. Resist trying to copy and paste material from the lesson plan into your editor, you will find yourself just trying to check off the lesson and not focusing on immersing yourself in the material.

The mentors are an incredible contribution to this program, that are not just students recruited to mentor after completing the course. I saw this in a lot of other bootcamps. They are actually working professionals that bring tremendous insight into your journey to becoming a developer. My mentor in particular assigned homework and those lessons really help enforce the bootcamp material. I still have some I work on to this day. It was great to speak to a seasoned developer about how the snippet or project you were working on would apply in the “real world”, that perspective was much appreciated.

The group project should you chose to do it was a great challenge and really does emulate an agile development environment. Those challenges with Git and pair programming will really be valuable once you are introduced into a production environment.

Could not recommend The Firehose Project enough and look forward to continuing to grow with the materials they have available after the initial program is completed. The job prep material is very thoughout and I still am working through it, but did not feel comfortable leaving a rating for it as I have not completed it. 

If you're looking for a boot camp that will help you on your journey to becoming a web developer, look no further. Firehose project has given me the initial push to enter into this new world. The team is very personable and have gone above and beyond to answer any questions I had while going through the lessons. They don't give you the answers to the homework that's assigned, but they give you pointers that will lead you to solving the problem.

The assignments aren't difficult but it takes quite a lot of thinking of how you would want to approach the solution. The forums that they provide on slack and in the lessons are very helpful as you can submit questions and either the firehose team will respond or another student will respond. Everyone is helpful and will have no problem giving you a response. 

This course is like an introduction into web development, you'll learn how to integrate ruby, html, css, javascript and postgresql to create an application that you can put into your portfolio. Pay attention to the lessons, attend the office hour sessions, ask questions on the forums, dig your mentor's brain during your sessions and research online. All these tips will help you during this course and push you to become a better developer.

Before I joined firehose project, I was unhappy in my career choice. I've found this bootcamp to be very helpful in my pursue of web development. Marco and Ken are great guides and mentors, they are very easy to reach and approach. They have no problem with answering questions but the way they respond is completely different from each other. They provide tips and hints but enough to get you to where you need to go.

Each lesson is different and as you progress through the curriculum you'll soon realize how they all tie in together. From the first application that you create to the agile team project, you'll soon realize how all the lessons, videos, quizzes and projects combine your knowledge of what you learned and create the final project. 

I seriously had a great time with Firehose project and after graduation, I still have access to the slack channel and can work on the applications that I created during this course. You'll enjoy this bootcamp and the cost of this is priced fairly compared to a lot others that are out there. So, thanks for reading this review and sign up to be a Firehose project student. Can't wait to meet you in the slack channel.