We Got Coders

I came to WeGotCoders after nearly a year of unemployment, trying to break into the tech world. I had just finished university (a degree in Politics, hilariously enough) and was feeling incredibly disheartened. 

I found WeGotCoders while searching for opportunities in and around London and it was the perfect place for me to get going. After contacting Carrie (Recruitment) and discussing what I wanted out of the course and moving forward, I was invited to try and complete the coding challenge; A great way to dip your toes and see what you're made of. We organised an interview and I was away.

I had a really good conversation with both Dan and Carrie and then had the opportunity to sit with Dan and discuss what I had done for the challenge, how I found it and where I struggled. Before I knew it I was signing on the dotted line and I was getting ready to start at the beautiful house just outside of London.

WeGotCoders is structured really well as the first half of the course (about a month and a half) are geared to giving you all the tools you need to get stuck into web development. I felt that it was delivered at such a pace that you really needed to be on your toes, which kept the whole experience really exciting. The vast amounts of information you take in, make the middle week so perfect as you have time to relax into a project and really start putting your skills to good use. You then present and compare this when you go back. Presenting is a skill that Dan and Carrie really help you nail down. Being able to explain your code concisely and effectively is so important in a fast moving team.

The second half of the course is focussed more on you using those skills and using them in "real world" examples. I.E. Here's a brief...here's how I want it to look...here's what I want it to do, now off you go. Constant feedback throughout this process means you're never more than a question away from the answer. Dan's never far away. 

The final project was another really good experience. Presenting your 2-week project in front of prospective employers (one of whom went on to take me and a fellow student on). It gives you a chance to show the passion you feel for what you've created.  

Dan was great at giving a really informative lecture in the morning and giving you the freedom to fail in the afternoon when we were set challenges. One of the highlights for me was in the later stages of the course when my cohort had to work as a team to deliver a product in a week. Now working in a commercial environment the skills I learned during those afternoon sessions were invaluable. Communication and planning are key. 

Lorin, the database guy, was an absolute delight and seeing him around the house during the following weeks and months was lovely. Always happy to have a conversation about code, life and the universe (Honestly. Catch him in the right mood. He's off...)

Zoe was an amazing cook and her treats (particularly the cookies) are second to none. Great to have her around to chat to in the breaks. 

It's a great course and experience that I'd really recommend to anyone whos been struggling to crack into this industry or even someone who wants to try something totally different; Everyone I met on the course (my cohort and others) had come at it from totally different walks of life (and ages). The course quite literally takes you from Zero to Hero in 3 months. You'll be totally amazed at how much you take in and how much you can start using, instantly. Even though I did a politics degree, technology and creating things has always been my passion. WeGotCoders has given me that oppertunity. To do something I love as my job.

I joined WGC with the aim of getting into a career I am passionate about, growing my skills from amateur to a professional level. Now that I have completed the course, I can happily say that they delivered, as not only we covered an incredible amount of knowledge but I got hired pretty much on the spot, at the end of my final presentation.   There was of course challenging aspects to the training, you will be coding everyday from 9am until late in the evening and feel like doing some more work during the weekends. You need to be prepared to work long hours, go beyond your comfort zone and being pushed to your limits at times, but the end result is worth every effort.   The mid term group project was a great way to get experience with working as part of an agile team, from doing morning stand ups, working in pair for debugging if necessary and perfecting your knowledge of git. The final project was also excellent, it really felt like consolidating all the key learnings from the course and gave the opportunity to lose yourself in a project you are passionate about.   Dan is a talented coder with strong business acumen, this help both understand the value of the work you are trying to do and secure a job after your training. His teaching always promote best practices and this is incredibly valuable.   Zoe’s cooking was simply delicious, I definitely miss her dishes and desserts. She is also a really nice person to chat to.   If you have the option I would highly recommend you live onsite as well, this will give you the opportunity to focus fully on getting the most of your learning experience and make it all nice and stress free. Well worth it.   Last but not least,  I met a really nice group of people while doing the course and made really good friends. Everybody was really supportive and looking after each other. A great learning environment.   A challenging but really rewarding experience. If you are serious about becoming a web developer, don’t hesitate and join in.

Speaking from experience, this is a solid choice for those who are serious about becoming a full time developer. This course is not for the faint of heart, or for those on the fence about becoming a programmer. You will be coding practically all day, every day for 3-4 months. It is hard, and you will struggle. If you persevere however, you will end up being significantly better at programming.

Thanks to this course, I landed a job only a week after presenting my final project. I'm looking forward to developing my skills even further.

For me, the most valuable aspect of the course was the guidance I received with my learning, which I would not have had if I continued on my self-learning coding journey. The curriculum was very good, covering many essential aspects of Ruby web development, often going beyond a Junior developer level towards the end of the course. Dan sometimes strayed from the original curriculum,  which I saw as a positive thing, as we were able to ride waves of inspiration or stay focused on any weaker areas of knowledge. The other students were also extremely supportive - sharing tips, solutions and encourangement. The experiences of pair coding will undoubtfully prove to be very useful.

The course was hard, but enjoyable all in all. I have found it to be great training for my first Ruby on Rails role. This course has significantly accelerated my progress as a developer.

I looked at starting trying to change career in early 2017, having decided I wanted to move into web development I started doing online tutorials on codecademy and really enjoying it. However, I needed something to help bridge the gap between an amateur with no experience and becoming a professional web developer. I decided I would go through a boot camp to try and do this as quick as possible.

I found We Got Coders through some quick googles and the premise sounded great. After a conversation with their recruiter Carrie I decided this was what I wanted to do. I was accepted and started in August 2017. I was warned before the course started that it would be intense and a great deal of work but I still wasn't prepared for how tricky it was. The course was very intensive with most days lasting from 9AM-9PM if not later and many of us working on the weekend as well. However, the work was always interesting and the days tended to fly by.

Dan was a good teacher with a great knowledge for the content as well as the industry we were all trying to get into. Industry best practices were always prioritised to make sure we were always attractive to potential employers. He could occasionally be a bit disorganised especially towards the end of the course when 2 cohorts were happening at once. However, I still left feeling I got my money's worth in terms of teaching.

The final 2 week project was a great experience with a feeling of consolidating our knowledge of the past 12 weeks and producing a product we could be proud of. This was presented to various CTOs and developers looking to hire on the final day and me and others on the cohort were offered interviews on the spot. The jobs ended up being a bit far for me too consider but Dan found me another option within a week much closer to home which I quickly took. I would say finding a job within 2 weeks of graduating was well worth the money and time I invested.

The house itself was great and my cohort was equally great. Thursday night trips to the pubs and a bit of snooker became regularly occurances and I feel I've left with a group of friends I'll keep forever. Zoey the chef was also amazing. She cooked sensational food and even better deserts. She always catered to various dietry requirements, just let her know. She is also a lovely person to chat to as well.

We Got Coders (WGC) came highly recommended to me by a prior graduate who rated Dan Garland’s teaching very highly. At this stage my knowledge of web development and web infrastructure was quite limited, but it was not completely new to me. I’d done several Codecademy courses, and went on the CityLit Introduction to Programming course (in Python) before deciding programming was the one for me. Practically I’d only ever built a couple of Wordpress sites and written a few very basic programs in Ruby on my Linux machine. I undertook the coding challenge set by Dan, the owner of WGC, succeeded in building something to my (and Dan’s) liking, and was accepted onto the course.

I went in with the attitude of really wanting to understand how to communicate with a computer (with no preferred language) and understand the web’s ecosystem. Ruby is a great place to start in the coding world. I spent the next 5 months prior to arriving at the course teaching myself Ruby and getting used to navigating a Linux machine through the terminal in the evenings after work. Project Euler came recommended by Dan and I can’t recommend it highly enough if you are planning on taking this course. Keep up doing groundwork off your own back, you’ll learn a lot faster when you arrive. There’s a huge amount of learning to be had from the teachers Lorin and Dan at WeGotCoders. The volume of information you’ll be able to absorb is directly related to the amount of work you put in both prior to and at the course itself. I This course isn’t for the faint hearted. Making the most of it requires determination, which, considering the necessary financial investment required to get onto the course (unless you’re going for the Graduate Scholarship), is evident from the outset!

For my cohort, Lorin was the primary teacher. Dan was spending much of his time mentoring his in-work graduates, though he is available to help when asked. I’ve never met anyone as enthusiastic about what they do as Lorin, who is kind hearted, always willing to help, isn’t showy or egoistic and just loves to code. He’s incredibly experienced as a developer and invests all his time and energy in helping you solve problems and better your own abilities. He also provides praise you when you deserve it, which is important! But he won’t solve problems for you! Remember, it’s your journey. The epitome of a great teacher.

Lorin also knows when coding ends and it’s time to let your hair down. Beers in on the Friday after a long week working, Lorin’s home built karaoke machine gets cracked out and everyone lets loose on the mike or playing on the full sized snooker table. The garden is beautiful with a slack-line tied between two oak trees makes for a perfect lunchtime head clearer. Take a bicycle! You can cycle around the Lee Valley reservoirs in the evening, it’s a great opportunity to see the local wildlife: herons, cormorants, fungi and more.

If you want to make the most of the course, it is often a 12-14 hour day, with class starting at 9, finishing at 5 and homework into the night, often not finishing until 10pm, sometimes even later. You’ll find yourself dreaming in code (which, is pretty nuts!) and waking up with the solution to problems you were stuck on the day before.

Cohort dynamics, as in any class, are important. There is a fair amount of pair programming and group programming, which is good to get used to and helps you learn about different approaches towards problem solving. So having a bunch of people you get on with and work well together with makes a big difference.

Zoe, the chef, is a hoot, great fun to chat to in between classes, and cooks up delicious food, with homebaked cookies on offer at mid-morning tea. She’s also happy to cater for vegetarians and vegans, all you have to do is ask!

The only minor issue on the course was related to Lorin and his partner expecting a baby during our course. Lorin was away for only a week (despite having a new child!) and was run down / ill for a couple more. I negotiated with Dan for a free of charge 2 week extension of the course for our cohort, to which he obliged, but the rent was not. As a result, I left the house early and commuted for a week before beginning the final project. However Dan did not press for the rent and I payed it back in instalments after being hired in the new year. Dan is a bit disorganised in terms of personal admin, but no more than most coders!

I’m very grateful to Dan for giving me the opportunity to present my final project to potential employers almost immediately after the course. Myself and one other graduate were hired off the back of this into a stable full-time permanent position as an Application Developer with a great starting salary working on a Rails legacy application. The learning doesn’t stop either, I still find aspects of the course that I didn’t fully comprehend at the time are still sinking in.

I’d recommend We Got Coders very highly if you are determined and want to learn to code. It’s a great gateway into the tech industry. We Got Coders are also making a concerted effort to counter male dominance in the tech industry by advocating for and training more women, which is definitely a positive.

6 months later I know Ruby and Rails development like the back of my hand, am learning new languages and working on several projects in my spare time in addition to my full-time position in some pretty inspiring areas in the tech industry. 

I discovered WeGotCoders by chance while browsing the internet and the course really peaked my interest. I was super fortunate that it was located only about a 20 minute drive from my house so when they announced they were doing an open day for potential new students I jumped at the chance to go meet the people at WGC and see what it was all about.

I was super impressed by not only the location and the house but also by Dan (the owner and lead instructor at WGC). I did a code challenge and was offered a place on the course.

I did the course with 5 other awesome people and had an amazing time. It was also one of the toughest 3 months of my life as you are basically learning and coding from 9am to 9pm (if not later each night), and is something I am really proud that I accomplished. 

You don't just learn how to code, you learn how to think as a developer, how to discuss and explain your code to others and also how to present your code properly to other developers. This is nerve racking at first, but after 2-3 days you settle in fine and this becomes the norm.

A typical day at WGC looks like this:

9am-10am - 1-2 people will present their code from the previous day, explaining what they did, why the did it and then the group discuss any other approached they could have taken and any code improvements they could make.

10am-3pm - Dan or one of the other instructors will teach the days lesson which will teach you any new concepts, technologies etc. This is generally mixed up between lectures and code alongs.

3pm-Late - You are then given your daily coding challenge and you then split off into pairs or small groups to work on the challenge, which will you will then present the next day in the morning.

Once you finish your course you have 2 weeks to make your final project which you will then present to CEO's, CTO's, startup founders etc who come along to see what all the fuss is about. As it happened there was a CEO at my presentation who I would eventually go and work for. While this does not always lead to a job, there have been members of WGC who were literally hired the same day as doing their presentation.

Once I had finished the course I went for 4 interviews which were arranged by Dan. I was offered 3 out of the 4 jobs and after much deliberation accepted a job working for an awesome security startup. I worked for that company for 9 months until they unfortunately ran into some funding issues and I had to move on.

As it happened Dan was looking for developers for a new project that was starting, and the CEO who I had presented to only 9 months earlier hired me to help build his Pharma startup.

I was really pleased that Dan found me so many interviews for some really cool jobs almost immediately after the course. Dan will do his very best for you and try to get you interviews and a job after you graduate, but this does depends on if there are any opportunities available at the time, otherwise his hands will be tied and you may have to find something yourself.

So would I recommend this course to anyone who wants to become a developer? Absolutely! You cannot go wrong with the course as long as your willing to put in the hard work that is required.

The course will give you all the skills you will need to become a junior/mid level developer with skills that employers love. I don't know a single person who graduated from the course who didn't get a job as a developer, which in its self pretty much tells you as much as you need to know.

This course could have been absolutely fantastic, and I really wish it had been. However, I'll list the positives before getting into how it let me and some others down.

Positives

• Lorin, the main instructor, is incredible. He will answer any question he can, or he'll go away and figure out the answer if he can't, then go through it with you. A natural teacher - friendly, hilariously quirky and uncompromisingly dedicated to the success of his students. He was there for all of us whenever we needed help, even late into the evening, and always found a way to bring out our potential.
• The chef, Zoe, is also amazing at what she does. I'm fairly health conscious, and pretty much all her meals were nutritionally balanced and tasty. The cookies and cakes weren't so healthy, but they were too good to pass up!
• The curriculum covers a wide range of principles and code libraries, enabling to you to put together a decent project in a short space of time by the end of the course.
• I expressly chose a residential course for the study-focused environment and sense of community, and we certainly had that. We all coded throughout the evening and would often work together on each other's problems, which both provided support in terms of studying and also in understanding that we were all having the same sorts of problems. You're not tackling it on your own!
• The house is spacious and well situated for getting both to the shops and gym in town and also the nearby train station.

I wish I could end my review here, but it wasn't all as good as hoped for. The negative points almost all centre on Dan, who runs the course and also (when he feels like it) provides some of the tuition. As such, if Lorin is no longer an instructor on the course when you’re reading this, I’m not sure that I can recommend the tuition. In any case, I will try to be brief, as I don't intend this to be a personal crusade.

Negatives

• It's a testament to how unbelievable Lorin is that I gave four stars for the instructors, because I'd only give Dan two. On the days he actually taught us he would frequently come back up to 20 minutes late after lunch or a coffee break (which was only meant to be 15-20 minutes in the first place). On a few occasions he even announced a "doing day" or "self-study" at about 11:00 and disappeared, leaving us to figure out the rest of the day ourselves. This was most notable in the JavaScript week, which was only three days of JS after Dan spent the first two going back over something else in Ruby, and his absence and total lack of interest in our learning had repercussions right through to the end of the course, as most of the others in the class hadn't had previous experience with JS or jQuery and struggled to get it up to a level where they were comfortable with it.
• Where Lorin never made anybody feel stupid and welcomed class input, Dan was too busy trying to make himself look clever and would treat the rest of us patronisingly or make someone who gave a wrong answer feel stupid, which actually discouraged class participation and discussion.
• When in a bad mood he will take it out on his students. He once interrupted our class with Lorin to accuse us of stealing cables, talking to us like badly behaved children rather than clients who were paying a lot of money to be there. On other occasions he complained that he couldn't hear any work going on, as if we should be pounding our keyboards to kingdom come or else we couldn't possibly be doing anything productive. All because he was in a bad mood. And you have to live with him.
• During the weeks we were away, some of us left things at the house (toothpaste, shower gel, etc.) only to find they had gone missing when we went back. This despite Dan's charging us rent when we were away to keep our rooms available, so there shouldn't have been anybody in our rooms when we weren't there. But he did have people there, and when the missing items were brought to his attention he was uncaring and unhelpful, as if what amounts to the theft of his students' belongings is of no importance to him. Which, I suppose, it isn't, because he already has your money.
• The bedroom fiasco. Not all bedrooms are as advertised. Mine, for instance, was a loft space converted into the housekeeper's living room. It was sparsely furnished with (I'm assuming) a cheap Ikea bed, with a wardrobe and chest of drawers to match, had a threadbare carpet, as well as wires and screws coming out of the walls, which were themselves faded and peeling away in places. And it was cold. Then, when one of the nicer bedrooms became available, Dan at first refused to let me transfer (because he prioritised letting it out on Airbnb over his student, which never actually worked out) and once he did offer it to me, he wanted me to pay £533 a week (almost double the already steep £280 a week I had agreed to pay when I signed up and thought I'd be getting a decent bedroom). The takeaway? Dan is just after your money, however he can get his hands on it.
• Dan also has very strong opinions on, well... everything actually. But in relation to religion and politics, you'd better agree with him. He referred on more than one occasion to my faith as a "cult" and was generally derisive of it, so I'd think very carefully if you have any strong political or religious convictions of your own before applying.
• The job situation. Dan said on the day we presented our final projects (which presentation exactly zero employers attended) that he had a couple of jobs in mind for me, one remote and one with a company local to my home in Oxford, both potentially at around £30k salary. A couple of weeks went by and I heard nothing, so I contacted him to find out that he hadn't even arranged anything with one of the companies. Another couple of weeks went by and he rang me to give me notice less than 24 hours in advance of an interview for a job down in Poole offering £23k. Poole, for anybody not local, is nowhere near Oxford. In fact, it's over two hours away, and he had at no point checked whether I would consider a job there. When I turned it down, he threw a tantrum, tried to bully me and use emotional blackmail to make me take the position, then deleted me from the course communications and informed me that he could offer me no further help finding a job. He had already deleted one of the other guys in my cohort who had managed to get a job on his own through a developer friend, so this came as no surprise. Dan was consistently disappointing in how he treated us.

I apologise for writing such a long and negative review, but I would feel bad if I didn't warn you of what you will have to deal with. At the end of the day, I have a job as a web developer now, but that was from my own effort, so I'd strongly advise you to weigh up your options before applying and, if you do get on the course, to go in with your eyes open and expectations low.

I graduated We Got Coders in February 2018 and after less than 2 weeks I got a job.

I decided to go to We Got Coders after a careful research, being the only boot camp that provides residential accommodation, out of the busy London, and most importantly covering a great area of Full Stack Web Development skills, it was my number one and only choice.

I would like to make it clear that you will have to work really hard, the pace of the course is very fast, it covers computer science material in only 3 months.

The usual work hours are 9AM-9/11 PM plus extra reading/studying/individual practice plus weekends (if you want of course but i would advise you to take advantage of the weekends and revise on whatever you did not fully understand or finish during the week days).

I would also recommend you to go through some of the Treehouse or Udemy courses on Introduction to Ruby and also some Rails and some JavaScript and React and maybe be a bit familiar with Test Driven Development as well.

Even if you will have to pass the groundwork and the interviews to be admitted, the above recommendations will help you a lot to have a better understanding of what you will actually do at this course, and when you will study them they will sink in easier if you will be a bit familiar with some of their general concepts in advance.

The syllabus of the course completely covers the job market’s requirements so it definitely prepares you technically and psychologically for the real-world work.

You will also be taught how to think logically, how to work in a team, you will always pair program with someone, you will be taught how to work under deadlines and most importantly how to think and understand the concepts and not expect someone to just give you the solutions all the time.

Zoe the chef is a lovely lady who I can easily call a friend, she is a very nice, smart and kind person and her food is just incredible.

She maintains a balance between healthy and delicious at the same time, not to mention her deserts are beyond wow.

I have also made some amazing friends, colleagues of my cohort and i can say i have been lucky to have met them because we have been a very united team, we helped, supported and encouraged each other so much.

The house is beautiful I was fortunate enough to have one of the nicest rooms, the conditions were very good, quiet area, beautiful back garden with a lake and a nice country road to take walks.

The house is 10 minutes walking distance from the city center of Hoddesdon where you can find various supermarkets, restaurants, take aways, pubs and stores.

Dan has an extensive experience in the industry, he will lead you, challenge and encourage you to get out of your comfort zone and explore all the sides of the technical skills you need to acquire in order for you to be sufficiently prepared to get a job at the end of the course.

These 3 months will definitely be one of the most intense period of your life but it will pay off in the long run.

Wish you the best of luck with your life and career change, you will be amazing!

Very quickly,
positives

• extrordinary locations
  • it's litterally a mansion
  • rooms are what you would find in a luxurious 4-start hotel
• immersive experience
  • you code, sleep and eat there
  • at the time, I was free to stay even during weekends. I don't know if this still holds true but ask Dan
• instructors are always helpful
  • there for you at 11am, there for you at 11pm sometimes
  • great support and very helpful advice
• great foundations (backend)
  • you will learn lots of good programming good practises
  • you will exercise your brain by learning new design patterns which are useful
  • you will learn that reading docs is good. (I still struggle with that!)
  • Dan has a great method for teaching. You've probably seen that already if you've been at any of his free workshops. He is quite knowledgable about Ruby and Rails. He is also very patient
  • Lorin is also extremely patient and with a natural talent for teaching. Very knowledgable about databases

not so positives

• I found that interest or/and expertise as far as JavaScript goes (and frameworks) wasn't the greatest

summary

• definately a great experience
• I have learned insane amounts while being there and this experience also gave me the right (backend) foundations to learn even more and even faster later on at my job (which I started 2 days after finishing the course!)
• it's a tough course but, after taking the course, you'll be ready to start as a junior dev.
• if you like / are curious about / are interested in backend, this course will get you VERY well prepeared. If you are passionate about Ruby, even better!

Curriculum: I found the curriculum quite good. Learnt using mostly the latest of technologies out there and this was a good preparation for the ever changing world of programming. You will find that you will be under immernse pressure and that is normal. there is just so much to learn

Assessment: After your course has concluded, you will go away to a location of your choosing and work a project of your choosing for 2 weeks. The goal is put everything you will have learnt to use. The projects are done invidually (each man for themselves). When you return with a complete project, you have a unique opportunity to present in front of your future employers, instructors and colleagues. They will see for themselves what you can do. Its important to note though this isnt some type of graduation exam. Whether you get a job there and there or not is ver circumstantial. Its not a hiring fare.

Teaching Style: Classes consist of up to 8 students at any time. I found this especially useful because that meant not having to fight for the instructor attention. It also makes it easier to have this learning ecosystem going on.

Instructors: I found both instructors to be very knowledgable. It is worth noting that they have different teaching styles which is what makes it great. You get the best of both worlds. One preferes a more semantic approach while the other loves to just dig into code and run crazy with it. Alas they are both great instructors and I benefited greatly from this difference in styles

Location: We did not do typical classrooms, most of the times the classes are held in the most comfortable sitting rooms. They are desks present but one can always choose the sofa or the floor. It does not matter really. The area is generally quiet and the house has a massive garden which is great for relaxing the mind given the intensity of the course. The house is also very close to the town where there is a few shops and a nearby gym. The train station isnt too far either. Its a nice location.

Accomodation: So the house is a mansion and comes with the luxurys you would expect of a mansion. every room is en-suite and you get white towels and sheets changed every week. The whole house controlled by a system so you can air play or watch tv from anywhere in the house. Oh and there is a sauna somewhere in the mansion. It is worth mentioning though that it is not the cheapest of accomodations but well worth it.

Food: There is a proffesional chef on site who makes quite the amazing meals. You get lunch and dinner every Mon - Fri. Breakfast stuff is available and you would have to help yourself on that. And food is included in the accomodation fee along with bills and all that other stuff.

Culture: Parties are held at the mansion here and there. There is no discrimination of any sort. Everyone who comes here comes with one goal: to be a great coder. The instructors will always reinforce the idea that everyone is equal here and everyone should feel that way. Think of it as a family during your time there. I have met amazing people there during my time. There is also occasional trips to the local pubs (there is a few around). It is also quite normal to clock out around 5.30 on a Friday and start to have a few drinks to unwind the week (I like that part the most).

Job Assistance: WeGotCoders does not guarantee a job because that is impossible to do. You getting a job will very much depend on skill and determination. They will however do their best to get you employed as soon as possible. Sometimes it takes longer and sometimes not. I got a job with WeGotCoders about a month and half after the end of my course and that is where i work now. Most of my colleagues also found jobs around the country failry quickly. If I had to estimate, I would say... 90% of WeGotCoders students get decent jobs straight after finishing the course. 

I hope you found my review insightful and best of luck

 

 

 

This course was really fantastic.  As a female in my late 30s, I wasn't keen on a frat-house environment. And given my learning style, I respond best to small classes and personalised tuition.  I wasn't disappointed on either front.  The mansion is beautiful and quiet and our chef created delicious meals.  It meant that we were able to wholly focus on consuming the large amount of course work.  Most days I was doing 12 - 14 hours coding and loving it!

The two instructors clearly cared about our progress and were determined to show us how to be exceptional developers.  They made themselves available when I needed help, even if that meant evenings and weekends.  I valued their perspectives given they have an excess of 30 years development experience between them.  They were very different to each other and that meant that we learned alternative viewpoints and styles, all within the framework of well organised content.

I enjoyed the mix of working on my own and working in pairs / teams.  I learnt a lot from the other delegates and have formed life-long friendships with many of them.

For someone who was basically a beginner coder when I started, I found this a safe and positive learning environment. As a business owner and entrepreneur it gives me great satisfaction to know that I can now confidently create well tested, well written code and I am working on some MVP's as we speak.

Highly recommend.

I was put in a really awkward position when one of the instructors (an irresponsible, cradle-snatching, American man whose name my sister has suggested that I leave out of this review) had taken it upon himself to play matchmaker on behalf of a slow-witted misogynist who had also enrolled in the course. This instructor would use mealtimes as an opportunity to make inappropriate comments about my supposed compatibility with the misogynist in question, who was a drug-addicted trainee with the IQ of a carrot, and would encourage him to treat me like the prize at the end of a video game and not like a colleague or an equal. The drug addict would regularly talk to me in a patronising tone and on one occasion, whilst drunk, the disgusting little man put his arms around me and tried to sniff my hair whilst we were alone (an idea I honestly think he could only have gotten from the cradle-snatching American)! Rather than being reprimanded, on another night, for turning what had been a normal out-of-office-hours conversation into a full-blown argument that woke the neighbours or for practically threatening me with violence after I corrected him on a mildly offensive and inaccurate comment he'd made, he was mollycoddled by a group of guys on the course (guys who must have found my intelligence, honesty, my refusal to blindly conform to some gender stereotype and possibly even my youth as I was the youngest in the cohort at age 23, far more intimidating than I could have guessed) and the Boris Johnson look-alike who runs the bootcamp demanded that I apologise to the drug-addicted misogynist (I refused as I see no reason to apologise for correcting others when they make factual errors and even less of a reason to apologise to spoilt man-children who still believe women exist primarily to service men. I apologised to our neighbours instead). I actually suspect that the Boris Johnson clone identified with this misogynist so much that he later sought ways to sabotage my team during the group project (though I will admit that this suspicion is largely drawn from circumstantial evidence and the founder's generally rather shifty nature).

I found the Boris Johnson clone's attitude whilst he was teaching the course to be rather disappointing overall. He would frequently disappear for hours on end during class time because he had "a call to make", for instance, and would generally refuse to share the code he wrote when he actually was in class. He tended to treat his students like children, nagging us all for the most trivial reasons and setting house rules that made no sense. On top of that, he seemed to have a weird fixation on my ethnicity and some of the subtext in our later conversations in particular would suggest that he views minorities merely as tools to make white liberals feel better about themselves.

Luckily, I didn't have to pay for the course upfront when I was unable to obtain a PCDL as I'd taught myself Ruby on Rails before I'd enrolled. Given the way in which the founder treats his students, the policing of people's emotions that went on and the hostile environment that I had to endure as a strong, independent-minded, and decidedly single woman, I'm rather glad that I didn't and have no intention of paying anything close to the £8000 rip-off that he typically charges. With that in mind, things were certainly more bearable when the American was teaching the course and not meddling in his students' affairs as he is the better teacher. However, the fact that he hadn't made the effort to sort out his immigration status before the start of the course struck me as a miscalculation on his part.

On a lighter note, the food - which I did pay for during the course - was great as our chef was very talented. I'm not usually one for the outdoors but I did appreciate the beauty of the garden on occasion which was quite lovely in the summer. My room was rather comfortable as well (even if it didn't have a lock). In the end, I managed to find a job at a really cool startup without the help of We Got Chauvinists and now earn more than I would have done on one of their salaries. I will leave the reader to draw their own conclusions regarding this.