Incredible community-oriented coding boot camp. After working in tech for a decade, my curiosity got the better of me: WHAT exactly are developers doing all day? - What exactly is a "pull request?" - Why do you keep saying "deploy?" - How can changing a line of text take two weeks? Basically, I wanted to know if nerds had been pulling one over on me for 10 years. So I decided to learn how to code. In the past, I've tried to learn this stuff on my own but I always hit a wall. Programming is hard to learn from books and online tutorials alone. And while there are many boot camps in the Bay Area, most are full-time, five-figure affairs designed for people committed to a dramatic career change. 6-8 weeks of full-immersion was not what I was looking for. Kickstart Coding is different. They offer after work and weekend classes which means folks with full time jobs can still learn to code. They are based out of Oakstop (a community space) and host free Meetups where you can get advice from other coders. And they are far more affordable than the other options. If you don't have a laptop they will even let you borrow one for free. They really seem committed to helping all people learn how to code. About the class itself: my first class was March 2, 2020, which was only a few days before the State of California mandated that folks shelter in place due to the Coronavirus epidemic. In only a few days, they had converted the program into an online class. At first I was concerned about the lack of hands-on instruction, but they made it work. They offered office hours and review sessions if you needed extra help. Each class begins with review of the previous class' concepts to keep you up-to-date. Then we'd go through a series of problems that escalate in complexity. Then we would learn new concepts. The pace of the class is fast. You don't have time in class to complete all the exercises, and you're going to have to do at least 10-15 hours of work per week outside of class to keep up. And we learned a lot. We started from the bottom, learning command line basics, and by the end we were deploying(!) like real web applications. It's a full stack boot camp which means you'll learn both back-end (Python, Django) and front-end (JavaScript, React) frameworks. This program is great for anyone wanting to learn how to code, but who doesn't want to quit their day job. The instructors are committed to helping you learn and understand, and what you learn is very practical, i.e., the kind of stuff you'll need in an actual job setting. There isn't a lot of theory (I'd recommend the free Harvard CS50 if you want that kind of thing), but the instructors were always willing to explain and why and how of certain concepts. I highly recommend Kickstart Coding. read more

Kickstart Coding provided a great programming bootcamp experience and was a great option for me as the part-time course structure allowed me to continue with my full time job, while paying a fraction of the price of the other programming boot-camps in the area. The classes were structured to be very hands on, with multiple instructors present every lecture to help as needed. All of the instructors were very knowledgeable and friendly. Class material was structured in a way that people of all skill levels could succeeded, while more advanced students would stay challenged. Lessons consisted of a short lecture time, then hands on problem solving for the new materials. Each lesson would be 3-4 lecture blocks, and 3-4 activities. Activities would start with simple hello world types of problems and increase in difficulty. In addition to the lectures, there was weekly homework and reading, followed by a group project at the end of the course. Looking back, I am amazed at the amount of material we learned in 4 months. Overall, I feel like the course material was very applicable for anyone wanting to do software development, and it was clear that the curriculum is a labor of love for Michael B. If you are motivated to learn, I would highly recommend Kickstart Coding read more

After spending years as a software project and product manager flirting with the idea of becoming a software engineer, I finally got up the courage to sign up for a coding bootcamp. I looked at many different options and chose Kickstart Coding because it provides excellent value and is staffed by people that are clearly passionate about teaching technology. I enjoyed the in-class lessons which are an engaging mix of lecture, live-coding walkthroughs, and activities. The homework assignments and group projects built nicely on the stuff we learned in class and helped to reinforce the concepts with very practical examples. The curriculum does a masterful job of challenging people with some coding experience while also being accessible to people with no coding background at all. While the vast majority of the curriculum is very focused on teaching specific languages and frameworks, the last couple lessons of the Front-End portion of the course are focused on some more general concepts that were extremely helpful in preparing me for interviews. Using my newly acquired skills, I got a great new job as a Data Engineer just a couple of weeks after finishing the Kickstart Coding course. I would recommend Kickstart Coding to everyone, even if you don't want a job as a software engineer. Learning to code in this setting was really fun! read more

I completed the recent backend programming module of Kickstart Coding and, in 8 weeks, we covered a lot. The program was founded by Michael Bethencourt who is a former coding boot camp instructor at UC Berkeley Extension. He created an inclusive and collaborative learning environment enabling us to push our capacity to learn new things. They have the most up-to-date full-stack curriculum (python, javascript, and react focused curriculum), comprehensive didactic structure, and impact-oriented mission of inclusivity, affordability, and diversity. I learned to build my own static and dynamic web apps and developed my portfolio projects. The program provided the back end programming fundamentals and core programming concepts including Python, Django, Bootstrap, HTML, CSS, Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), Model-View-Controller Framework (MVC), Command Line Interface (CLI), Graphical User Interface (GUI), Application Programming Interface (API), Servers, Create-Read-Update-Delete (CRUD API), Pipenv, Virtualenv, Jinja2, Modules, Templating, Forms, Automated Testing, Postgresql, SQL, Git, Bash, Github, Heroku. The Kickstart Coding team is truly remarkable. Michael, the founder and lead instructor, is a Python coding guru and an open-source and free-software activist. He always made sure that everyone feels welcome regardless of their background. In such a short time, I learned so much from him. He provided us with weekly review sheets enabling us to focus on the most important programming topics. His teammates, Mark and Maddy were always there to help if there are chokepoints or areas that need to be clarified. Mark is the KSC associate instructor and a "coding ninja". He's quiet but super talented in coding. He was very patient in clarifying the concepts and helped us tremendously during the review sessions. He gave us tips on how to approach a problem to develop better solutions. Likewise, Maddy, KSC teaching assistant, was always there to assist and help us to understand the project assignments. Aside from the technical training in backend programming, the key takeaways that I will remember are the methods and processes of developing solutions to coding problems and the ability to "learn how to learn" as a way of growing professionally in the tech industry. I am so glad that I took the leap to enroll at Kickstart Coding and I am grateful for the opportunities that this course has provided me. If you are looking into live coding boot camps in the Bay Area, I highly recommend to give Michael a call or attend one of the free coding introductory sessions. It is the most affordable, inclusive, and industry-attuned coding boot camp in the Bay Area. Thank you Kickstart Coding! read more