I don't think I've been in a facility (Venice, CA) that is more deliberately designed to be TOTALLY…read moreINACCESSIBLE to people with mobility, vision, and audio disabilities. I can assure you none of the pleasant 5-star reviewers are people with disabilities or thought for a moment about people with disabilities while writing their review. Facility ingress/egress, floor to floor, room to room, fixtures, and furniture either inaccessible or un-adaptable to people with disabilities. Really shocking and shameful!

Codesmith is the type of program where every student leaves as a transformed version of the person…read morehe/she came in as. The most obvious transformation is one's exponentially expanded software engineering knowledge and experience, but students also leave with a radically broader grasp on empathy, the kind of empathy you gain from intense pair programming sessions and grinding through 12+ hour days with your Cohort-mates. The curriculum is always evolving and is updated as a result of student feedback and/or the ever continuous momentum of the industry. Over my 12 weeks (13 including a prep/gap week between cohorts) Codesmith presented daily opportunities for 'aggressive expansion' of my engineering and problem solving skills (for anyone thinking of the scene from The Dark Knight, there is never any battling , though Ping Pong games can get intense). You go deep in JavaScript, by the end you can truly develop a web application that includes a database, RESTful API based server, and powerful front-end (using Vanilla JS, React, Angular, or whatever you desire because you have to mental tools to learn anything new). You learn about more than just JavaScript at Codesmith though. Daily, you will experience the exciting challenge of a new algorithm problem, you learn data structures, engineering best practices, and possibly most important of all you will grow tremendously in your technical communication. Anyone who has tried to solve a highly technical problem in a team setting will relate to how important technical communication is for the project's success. At every point throughout the program you will either be asked to communicate to your pair-programming partner when you are not actively typing, or with the Engineering Fellows during code review, and ultimately all of these experiences result in a deeper understanding of the material and an ability to explain your code that is highly valuable to teammates and employers. Attending a coding bootcamp is a major life decision, and I have not once regretted choosing Codesmith over any of the other options in LA or elsewhere. You receive full devotion during and after graduation and I wholeheartedly believe there is nowhere better to begin the next chapter of one's life.

I am really rating the campus from an outside perspective as I'm not a student. I use the track…read morethat SMC has and honestly it is one of the best tracks in Santa Monica. It's usually clean and spacious that so many people can run around the track all at once. The community is also very respectful and the people that use SMC tracks are all very nice. Now that the are renovating the tracks, it is hard to find a track similar to what SMC provided. Still, the campus is a great place to run at even if there is no more track currently. I hear a lot of good things about the campus and everytime I visit, I think they either have built something new or renovated something !

I have never experienced such a terrible situation in my life. I traveled from abroad for my…read moresister's university graduation, but they refused to let me in while allowing others with the same bag and items. The staff were extremely rude, disrespectful, and I felt discriminated against. Very racist!!! A truly awful experience.

I had the pleasure of participating in a tight-knit cohort for my Product Management Class under…read morethe guidance and instruction of Lenworth Gordon. For those of us who are wanting to level up their own skills sets so that they can enhance their career (and progress upwards into new possibilities), this is a great fundamental class that introduces you to the product manager style of thinking. What enriches the class are the in-class discussion topics on trends and sharing of professional and personal experiences. A key take away is to understand the different point of views that people are expressing themselves. Point of views are influenced by experiences, culture, and circumstances, and its always great to have this insight. I also did enjoy Lenworth - he made it relatable and he was quite approachable. Good times.

First things first: School is about what effort you put into it!…read more That being said, I give five stars to Product School for two reasons: The Instructor and The Cohort. These two items are critical to your success, in addition to what you put into it. I have taken 2 courses so far: Data Analytics and Product Management. Both instructors (Andy Chu and Lenworth Gordon) have been outstanding - they really make Product School worth it from a teaching stand point. Both are established Product Managers and make the course more than the material. Andy specializes in Data Analytics and gives you a good analytical approach to Product First Thinking. Lenworth is on the money in terms of Product Management principles and helped us outside of class to network and grow professionally. Both instructors get you focused for a possible job transition if you put in the effort. I highly recommend both instructors if you see a class available with either of them. The cohorts have been good and the teams focused on classwork. I think we meshed well for the most part and it is good for networking outside of class too. The only downsides about Product School: The courses are fast! You have to put in the time and effort to get every dollar out of them. The teachers will help, but make sure to invest all your available resources to get that value out of your time. Also, the classroom we had was not good. They should use another location (I told them that directly). Additionally, the course material for Data Analytics needs to be built out a little more. Andy really helped to make the course material a better product and deliver true value (see what I did there :)). Just to note, I will be taking 3rd course in Digital Marketing.

Excellent course! Easy to follow. They really explain things…read morewell. I love the videos the most. I passed my California exam first try!

Online courses can be difficult but I'm so glad I took this crash course. Mr. Nomara had great tips…read moreand advice for taking the test. The practice tests helped so much. I would have never felt as confident going into the exam if I had just studied my course notes on my own.

I have been attending CA realty class in Marina del Rey. I find Mrs. Veronica Jones delightful and…read morevery engaging. She teaches with ease and tries to connect with all her students. It is a great class for those of you, like me who doesn't like doing on-line classes and wants to be in an actual class room. With this class you attend twice a week and then work on-line which is quite simple to follow. You can have discussion in class and also they offer an on-line forum with class calendar, syllabus and a student forum for questions and discussions.

So far so good. Great communication. I am doing the free live webinar tonight that the offer at…read morebeginning of every month. I have received reminders so I do not miss. I will more than likely enroll in this school. Totally impressed with first impressions. Updates to follow once I enroll.

By now, everyone knows SWE bootcamps are legit. But I thought it would be interesting to provide…read morejust one more update. 1. I would now probably qualify as a Senior Engineer in most companies. I can lead architecture to scale a high load MVP (though I'm still learning how to scale production grade infrastructure to millions). 2. My best skills now include Frontend/Backend Architecture, Domain Driven Design, Event Sourcing, Blockchain Smart Contracts, Blockchain Infrastructure. 3. I have since moved to the Bay Area and my base salary is much higher than anything I could have imagined coming out of school years ago. It is typical for me to get offers between $170k-$200k and I imagine others from the bootcamp are doing much better. Hack Reactor still exists, I think. But has since been acuired by Galvanize. If you are considering the bootcamp, you now have 3 updated reviews detailing my progression over the years. If you find that coding is for you and you can stomach the stress from startups, try it. I have never felt more fulfilled in my life in terms of my skills and profession. I hope this changes your life too and I hope these 3 reviews will encourage you to take the plunge. PS: As a side note, after moving to the Bay Area, I think LA engineering culture is stale and relatively less open-minded. After graduating, it's in your best interest to work around the general engineering culture in the Bay Area so you can be rapidly exposed to good implementations of standard tech and process as well as emerging ideas in technology.

Before attending Hack Reactor, I had anxiety and imposter syndrome. I wasn't sure if I was able to…read moresucceed in computer science. However, after the first day of the program I was immediately supported by the HR faculty and my cohort mates. Every Hacker in Residence (HiR) who had gone through the program before had a similar story and experience to what we were going through and assisted us with understanding and kindness. The instructors were always encouraging and extremely knowledgable. By the end of the program, many of my peers had become some of my best friends. THE COURSE The program consisted of two halves. The first half consisted of JavaScript and computer science fundamentals such as Big O Notation, JS 'this' binding, and functional patterns. Some concepts were picked up faster by certain people, which caused a positive feedback loop of assistance between peers. An extremely important skill that was hammered into us was autonomous learning. Even though HiRs were readily available to assist us, they supported us attempting to search for answers on our own because this is an extremely valuable skill to have as a software engineer. And unlike many other fields of study, computer science and web development resources are bountiful and easily searchable. The second half of the course consisted of two projects where we were split into groups of 3-5. During this time, we gradually increased the amount of interview practice along with learning some industry practices and technologies. Some valuable technologies/concepts they had taught us were that of Docker containerization, system design, AWS tools, and Agile Methodologies. This portion of the course was essentially a ramp up to let us out into the real world. Autonomy and time management was a key portion because of the freedom gained in the second half of the course, so self discipline and motivation is definitely key. If you did not have the motivation and self discipline to apply yourself in this part of the course, you were more likely to not absorb the material. Since it is largely self-motivated, several people who were not as focused struggled in this aspect. The last week of the course consisted of job coaching from resume/cover letter writing to behavioral interview practice and even as far as negotiating a job offer. This instilled an extremely high level of confidence in my job search process and helped me interview. I would also like to state that not all of the technologies and format may be correct if you were to attend now. Hack Reactor rapidly iterates their curriculum to keep up with the changing demand of skills in the web development field. One such change is the implementation of Docker. When we had an alumni panel, one of the alumni had stated that Docker was not incorporated into the curriculum when he attended the program a year before I had attended. With this, you can confidently be reassured that Hack Reactor are constantly on the lookout to make you the most desirable software engineer possible. OVERALL Why did I remove a star? Unfortunately, not many of my cohort mates were as lucky as me - someone else mentioned it already, but Los Angeles is not a great market for junior devs. If you are considering HR, I highly recommend you expand your job search to be outside of LA. I found a job because I moved to Seattle which had more junior dev openings than LA. Another cohort mate was able to find one in Boston. The 2nd half of the program, since it was largely self driven, felt like we were all headless chickens trying to program. I sincerely wish they could have taught us more in the time since a lot of time was wasted. Upper management for the LA HR group was also lackluster and felt disconnected from the group as a result. Overall, I would highly recommend Hack Reactor as a coding bootcamp. I gained so much confidence in myself both technically and socially because of this software engineering immersive, and have even obtained a job as a software engineer within the average time expected of a Hack Reactor grad (3 months). WHO IS HR FOR? Attend HR if you are able to be self-driven, motivated, and have a strong work ethic and passion for coding. I do not recommend this course if you are coming in half-assed and are expecting a fat paycheck to be handed to you at the end of the course. Many of my cohort mates and I have had to slave away for months applying, interviewing, and coding to be successful. Although HR does try its best to help you get a job, at the end of the day, that will be up to you on how much you want to apply yourself and how much you're willing to sacrifice sleep to succeed. There is only so much HR can do for you. They can teach you the skills, but the rest is up to you.

Obviously not my choice of a fun morning, however, a requirement for the CA state bar exam is to…read moresubmit live scan fingerprints. I made an appointment online and the website was user-friendly and provided me with innumerable options for my appointment time. Went in, hardly waited, and was out of the office within 15-20 minutes. Also, after I left I received a phone call from my technician, she left a voicemail and said it was urgent she spoke with me regarding my appointment. I called her back thinking there was a mistake and I would have to go back and redo the prints, but rather, she called to say she overcharged me by $5.00 and it would be credited onto my card soon. I thought it was very sweet of her to take the time to let me know of a charge so small.

It's 8:36AM (the day of my appointment) and I received a text from an unknown number regarding my…read moreappointment and a reschedule request. I'm not a difficult person, was simply asking questions to try and accommodate. Read the attached image of the text exchange between the annoying staff member and myself. I immediately cancelled because of how rude the person was with me. No thanks. I hope this person is trained to speak with customers in a kinder matter ASAP.

O Nick é um excelente professor de inglês e me ajudou a aperfeiçoar meu nível. Ele teve uma…read moreabordagem diferente revisando textos e melhorando minha forma de se comunicar. O fato dele saber Português (Brasil), contribuiu para a comunicação em Inglês! Recomendo!

If you're looking to learn Spanish with someone who's got the heart and passion for you to succeed,…read moreit's Nick. He's not a native speaker, so has gone through the weeds and knows how to help navigate you through the language learning jungle. It takes time, effort and commitment and by building the blocks, can help you either have fun touristy chats when you're traveling, or intense business conversations. He brings a lot of worldly and educational experience, and makes learning easy and fun!