Comments on: Dev Bootcamp

By: RUBYCASTS.IO

RUBYCASTS.IO — Sun, 03 May 2015 09:30:00 +0000

I teach quite a few devbootcamp graduates (and a few dropouts). For the most part people have been positive about the experience. For the record I used to teach for Bloc, but I found the curriculum to be fairly crappy as an expert ruby/rails dev. They were teaching bad habits.

So now I teach at codementor.io (for over a year) and I create ruby on rails screencasts for all levels of programmer at http://www.rubycasts.io.

If you need tutoring or want to take a more comprehensive mentorship, hit me up.

By: Robert Jones

Robert Jones — Sat, 20 Sep 2014 00:11:00 +0000

So from the research I had done, Dev Bootcamp was considered the original bootcamp in the united states. they were recently acquired by Kaplan to my understanding.
Although I looked pretty closely at Dev Bootcamp and even got admitted, I ended up choosing http://www.bloc.io – an online bootcamp that allowed me to continue working while going through the program.

I just finished Bloc about two weeks ago and am going through their job prep program right now, working 1-on-1 with their CTO doing practice technical interviews.

I’d say that the best part of my Bloc experience was the feeling of finishing a web app or site and moving on to the next one. The feeling of “I did this!” And then the being able to create a solid portfolio that shows the work that you’ve done, its just really gratifying and useful. In fact, that’s actually why I chose Bloc. I wanted to be able to come out with all the knowledge I’d need for a RoR job, but also be able to show what I could do becuase that’s a big part of getting a good job.

I also really liked Bloc’s mentorship aspect because I know that going in I had a ton of questions. Before I enrolled in Bloc’s Full Stack course I was teaching myself Ruby on Rails for about 4 months. But as I messed around with the XAMP stack I was also trying to improve my CSS/HTML skills. So having someone help me break down each of the languages and frameworks I realized where my gaps in knowledge were and what I really needed help with. My mentor, John, was just really helpful, and had a lot of information. If there were things I didn’t know the answers to, we would look it up and solve it together.

By: Anna Hernandez

Anna Hernandez — Sat, 20 Sep 2014 00:01:00 +0000

I took a long look at this program but ended up going with Bloc. (Because Bloc is an online bootcamp). Before Bloc I was working in marketing at a big tech start up, not really making much of a difference at the company. I had started looking into a graphic design courses at City College of San Francisco but after my second course I realized that I would need a more intensive course if I really wanted to switch to UX/UI Design from my current position. That’s when I did some research and found Bloc.

Bloc was convenient because it allowed me to keep my 9-5, instead of having to physically go to an in-person program. It was pretty affordable compared with other courses i had looked at. I’m now working at a tech company as a web designer.

By: Silas Barta

Silas Barta — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 19:19:00 +0000

In reply to YES WE CAN. Which skills? And yes it does claim to be for beginners. And, IMHO and from my experience, it fails to get people to the capable, app-a-day developer it claims it can. I sat through group coding interviews where my fellow classmates (and yes, me as well) could not complete the steps to create simple CRUD apps without extensive help.

By: YES WE CAN

YES WE CAN — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 08:43:00 +0000

In reply to Silas Barta. But you need to already have the skills, right? It's not really for beginners is it?

By: Silas Barta

Silas Barta — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:40:00 +0000

I’m not as satisfied as most people who graduated from it. I was basically at the top of the class (was in the Spring 2012 cohort), able to ace the interview questions that no one else was, and yet I still got almost no callbacks from employers. Shereef didn’t use any of his connections to get my foot in the door. I also think the instruction was very lacking when it came to the hard parts.

I eventually got employment through the attention that my final project got (from the company whose product it imitated) but since this employer wasn’t one of theirs, I didn’t get the refund. Still, if you don’t have another way to get connected to the SF/SV employers or show off mad skills you’ve picked up, it’s probably worth it, at least on the payment plan.