James Foley

Review of Geneva Coding Dojo

A little bit of my background before we get into t...

A little bit of my background before we get into the meat of this review.
*** feel free to skip the next 2 paragraphs if this doesn't apply to you, or skip to the end for the summary :) ***

So I was in the military as a Medic for 4 years prior to attending college. With that, I'm accustomed to the bootcamp style of training. They threw me into the fire and I managed to come out each time. (dramatic I know)

After that I decided to attend Arizona State University and pursue a Computer Science Degree as I always found myself drawn towards tech and realized the economic shift happening in the current job market. After two years I realized that I was rather unsatisfied with my learning experience to that point and I never really understood what I was leading up to with programming. I decided to take a few online courses and really started to enjoy programming. Web development seemed to stick out to me the most as far as what I saw, but I had little to no structure on what I was learning.

This is where Coding Dojo comes into play. I wanted to get structure and I was tired of the traditional learning environment that I was receiving through my college experience. It works great for some people, but I never felt like I was actually taking anything away from my classes. I looked around for different bootcamps and Coding Dojo's strength through struggle philosophy really struck home with my learning style. I find that I learn better and retain more in a rigorous environment.

From start to finish, Coding Dojo was an intense experience. Every single day you start out doing algorithms to warm your brain up and get you used to solving complex issues, and each day they get harder and harder. After that you will attend a short lecture on your daily topic and then you will start cracking down on assignments until you meet your end of day goal. That may happen by 5pm, but that's not often the case. I have spent plenty of days coding from 6am to 12 at night reaching my end of day assignment, or even getting myself ready for the next day's material.

All of the instructors are very knowledgeable and can help guide you in the right direction as far as HOW to approach a problem, but they will not give you the answers. They want to make you a self-sufficient developer, meaning there are no shortcuts. I would say on average, I put in about 70-90+ hours per week coding. I was generally first in, last out. I graduated with three black belts without any retakes. That being said, I put in significantly more time than anyone else in my program and that's what it's all about.

I'm running out of time today, so I'll cut to the end now. Coding Dojo has given me the tools to succeed as a Full Stack Web Developer and I would recommend it to anyone who can set aside the TIME to do it. There are some people who don't succeed in the same learning environment, but don't let that discourage you. Plenty of people came into this program with an open mind and little to no coding experience and come out on top. I think that if you put in the time and the effort anyone can succeed here.