Code institute anyone used these?

The course costs £6500 and apparently gives you an university accredit qualification and you are then a qualified full stack software developer.

Sounds abit to good to be true.

Anyone been a student with these or have any thoughts on this?

Doing some research it would appear Code Institute is an accredited bootcamp in Europe, which means its a credible source. So if you graduate through the bootcamp, you learned what was in the curriculum.

This does not mean you learned as much as you would going to an accredited university, or similar accredited organization. It only means you learned what’s in their curriculum. As a university would have a different curriculum, you will learn different things going to either.

Development doesn’t have traditional qualifications like other fields. You can be a full stack developer if you can build stuff full stack yourself and do that as your work. As such if you go through this bootcamp and learn enough to do as such yes, you can probably do full stack work with what you learned.

Its worth considering that you can also do the work if you learn the content without spending this much money through free resources (like freeCodeCamp). You wont get the same level of dedication, support, or structure but you also aren’t paying for anything going the self taught route.

If you want to pay for that support and structure then sure. Just understand there are other paths, and which one is right is more up to your individual circumstances.

2 Likes

Unless you can get it for free/seriously discounted (not so easy in England, unless you’re doing it via an associated college) and you’re doing it in-person then I’d think very carefully. You’re paying for the tuition/networking. What you’re learning is going to be same or lower level than free resources like FCC, it’s going to be basic so you need to be sure that the intensive environment is actually going to work, that the support is there.

It’s difficult to find info on it beyond the blurb on the website. In particular, there is almost zero information regarding what exactly they teach (compare to any uni/college, which will have a fully broken down syllabus). The positive reviews on Reddit all seem to be a. suspiciously similar and b. almost universally from accounts with a single post.

The companies that Code Institute is linked to seem to mainly be large contractors (Accenture et al), which implies that their business model primarily involves providing lots of bodies with a qualification to those contractors. That’s how Accenture etc work: get a tender for a big contract, charge that organisation £X/senior, £Y/mid-level and £Z/junior. Also the least suspicious reviews commonly mention apprenticeships so I’m not sure what percentage of the end jobs are those rather than actual. So from their business PoV, I get the impression they provide bodies with certs to huge contracting companies + hoover up government apprenticeship finding :man_shrugging:t3:. I’ve seen the CEO a few times being interviewed on the news when they need someone to talk about digital skills; he always talks about the skills gap but I’m a bit sceptical that he’s particularly bothered about doing much about that. It’s also not clear what the certification is. Also, there seems to be some suggestion that they’re offering sweeteners in the form of Amazon vouchers to people who pay the full cost of the course up front which seems v sketchy.

None of that means that it won’t be very valuable: it’s a bootcamp, if you’ve got mentoring and in-person support throughout, and you commit, it’s likely going to be very useful. It’s just an intensive vocational course that gives you a basic grounding hopefully followed by a very junior job – similar companies do almost exactly the same thing for training electricians or bricklayers or plumbers or whatever, that’s the level it is.

They’ve got connections to Newcastle College so I can probably talk to one of my colleagues who is still on his course there and see if he knows much about it.

Edit: they seem to be well funded afaics, seem kosher (in as much as that means anything here), just be careful and keep trying to talk to some people who’ve actually been on one of the courses to try to get a realistic view

1 Like

Thanks alot for your input. You really are a great assist to freecodecamp, I have lost count how many times you have responded quickly with valuable and accurate information to my questions.

So thanks for that Brad :+1:

1 Like

Wow, really appreciate that reply very informative and you really have filled in a few gaps and really got me thinking about a few things that I didn’t consider.

Omg no way, that’s so kind of you to offer to ask a colleague, if you could do that, that would be amazing and massively appreciated.

I ain’t got much money. To spend £6500 is like 6 months wages for me, so the last thing I want to happen is getting ripped off.

I would just do free code camp on its own but I only have around 12 to 17 hours a week free (3 boys, partner, work, ect) so completing all the curriculum would take me years

1 Like

don’t take the “300 hours” at face value, it’s an estimate. Everyone takes the time they need.
Also, if you can’t do freeCodeCamp, a bootcamp will require much more of your time as it’s on a schedule and not self-paced, would that work with your current life style?

1 Like

The boot camp says it can be done over a year and requires a minimum for 12 hours a week so that could work.

So with the timescale of freecodecamp maybe I should try doing a full section and see how long it takes me, do you think?

Also has freecodecamp got a paid feature maybe mentoring or something like that?

There is no such thing as paid mentoring in freeCodeCamp, it’s called FREECodeCamp for a reason… These forums offer mentoring for free. Whenever you get stuck with something, you can consult the forums, and usually you’ll get an answer quite quickly, especially when it’s related to the curriculum.

Trying to work through the first section sounds like a good idea, before you pay vast amounts of money for something that you might not even need. If fCC doesn’t work for you, you can still go for a paid bootcamp.

1 Like

Thank you for your input :grinning:

It is worth keeping in mind you get as much as you put in. In the same vein you could skate your way through college and learn nothing, and pay a lot more than a bootcamp.

As long as you do the bare minimum so you don’t fail, you can complete all three options (self-taught, bootcamp, college) but learn as little as possible in all three.

If you spend 12 hours of your time learning, you will learn at least 12 hours of content. Its possible you will need more time to meet the bare minimum standards expected, but ultimately you will learn what you put in.

You could spend 12 hours of hard study in freeCodeCamp and complete the curriculum very fast by rushing through as much as possible. Or you could spend much more time per week and learn much more if you spend more time in detail.

There aren’t many if any “shortcuts” when it comes to gaining experience. There are ways to waste time, you could spend 10 of those 12 hours watching a youtube video on some topic and half pay attention, or you could spend those 12 hours grinding out a project within a week.

There are services out there where you can pay to get a mentor. Just understand you can get some form of mentorship here for free, right now. However, its possible the idea of paying money means you will have an incentive to use the service more, this could be the case. You could also try to leverage what is available as best you can and not “guilt-trip” yourself into using services just because you paid for them. Its also possible you want more “focused help” that isn’t in the public forum, this is something you could end up paying for. However, I think being able to ask for help on something publicly is an important skill required. Simply put, you will need help, and you will need to talk with others publicly about getting help.

Your welcome glad to help :slight_smile:

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 182 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.