Northcoders

This is from someone who chose to do the 18 month apprenticeship. The first 3 months on the bootcamp were great, good teachers and helpful tutors. Everything after that point has been a waste of time, the time spent gather materials to 'pass' the apprenticeship... Read More hinders your ability to learn at work. You'll find yourself gathering pace at work and then you're signed up for 5 days on something you're never going to use at work, or something you've already learnt at work. I've been informed on many occasions on courses passing that I was due to attend but wasn't told about, it feels extremely unorganised and I made that clear when Ofsted inspected them again, this is prior to the newest Ofsted report that hasn't come out yet. I would be a much better and experienced software engineer at this point if I hadn't done the apprenticeship. I also feel like they put a lot of effort into inclusivity which is fantastic, however it feels like everything else is neglected just so they can look pretty from the outside, people from certain backgrounds are told they're not allowed to attend revision courses for example, what if that person was only available on that day, how is that fair? Many strange requirements of the apprenticeship like British values and PREVENT just feel pointless and frustrating. Even now, a month or so before finishing I feel like I'd be happier if I just binned it off and worked for my company instead. If you have the opportunity to do either the 3 month bootcamp or the apprenticeship, avoid the apprenticeship.

You do about 2 hours of lectures a day and the rest of it working on something, early on into the course you do something call 'sprints' that cover what you're doing. You work in a pair 90% of the time, bearing in mind that right now we are all doing... Read More it virtually this is a terrible experience. Your partner might further ahead, they might be far behind, they might not care at all because they are an apprentice and already have a job. You are told at the start you will work in pairs sometimes, if you're a normal person you would think this would be during the projects, not 80% of the course. It absolutely ruined the entire experience for me, if I could I would've saved my money and just watched videos on youtube. I would not recommend this course.

If you want to work in software development and are looking for a bootcamp that will give you the skills you need then absolutely go with Northcoders. The course itself develops the skills you need even if you're coming with very little knowledge when... Read More you start. The tutors really help you through each stage of the course and some go above and beyond what you might expect the make sure you truly understand a concept, which is so important given the fast pace of the course #PayRiseForDave! They have great links to employers who are looking to hire but the pool of jobs available when you graduate is completely down to chance and the context of the job market at the time, so be prepared to look more broadly for jobs. However, in my experience, companies outside of their hiring network won't be as interested in considering you as those they have an existing relationship with. Their career support could be improved by giving feedback on your CV and more importantly your portfolio. There isn't an opportunity to sit down with someone and go over these and you're left to get on with it.

At 28 deciding to change careers can be a tricky business but I could not be happier with my decision. The course was quite challenging at times but I was a able to land my first developer role before I even graduated! The tutors are amazing and always... Read More there to help and the careers department is amazing and helped me a lot with great feedback about my cv and job applications

Northcoders was one of the best decisions I made. After learning to code in my spare time for a couple of years and attending multiple meet-ups, I decided I wanted to make the career change from project management to software development. I previously... Read More assumed I would have to go back to university to study but after asking the advice of current developers I eventually discovered Northcoders. From the day I applied, Northcoders supported me through onboarding and studying for the entry challenge (really important as it helps you discover if coding is really what you want to do!). The course was brilliant - it teaches you everything you need to be a Junior Developer and a bit more. The tutors are really supportive and relatable (they themselves have completed the course). The careers support was also really invaluable - the interviews were all arranged for you and I managed to find work after a couple of weeks!

My whole experience of Northcoders was really enjoyable and I learned so much in a short space of time. The tutors were friendly and patient, so that I always felt ok asking for help. In class a lot of ideas were explained through live coding, which I... Read More think helped me pick up coding ideas more easily. Completing the final three-week project was a challenge, but it gave me confidence to contribute to a team and work with new tech. I now draw upon this confidence in my new job.

Initially I wasn't sure whether I should self-learn instead, because I had done a lot of coding before for data science. I'm now really glad I didn't do that. It would have taken a lot longer to make the career change and I wouldn't have had the experience of pair coding, support, and friendship that I got in NC.

The content was good and useful for the job market, taught at a challenging yet not overwhelming pace with the option of resitting block at no further cost. The tutors were knowledgeable with strong familiarity of the content and offered both one-to-one... Read More support and support as a group.

As an older student with an interesting work history, it took me a little longer to find a job. I still started work only three months after graduation. Everything else, you can see on the website. It really is the real deal - the staff are all helpful... Read More and friendly, the skills I learned got me plenty of interest, and I finally have a career job that I actually enjoy going to every day! I can't recommend Northcoders enough; if you enjoy coding and can study full time then you should check them out. Some members of my team attend the additional training Northcoders provide, and they tell me that there are even puppies occasionally. I'm not sure what else you could ask for.

NorthCoders hand-hold you to the point where you make a fully-working application with a web-based front-end. When I was there, they taught you the fundamentals of JavaScript before you delved into databases and building a RESTful API for an Express router.... Read More Then, you used the exposed API to hook into a front-end framework, which for me was ReactJS. One criticism: you're buggered if you don't know basic HTML and CSS because without it you won't be able to grok what React's replacing and how it all fit together. For the final three weeks you drink a lot of coffee and produce a working project, and if you've any sense, this is with a different stack. And because you've gone through it all, you suddenly realise you're grappling with a new stack on your own. That's what something like NorthCoders teaches you: the frameworks may be dead in 5 years but the skills you learn in a short space of time are incredible. Way more useful than my degree... ...which was three times the price... ...and which I'm still doing... ...and never seems to end...

Northcoders provides an incredible supportive environment, I learned so much during the 12 weeks and couldn't have done it without all their support! The career support was also great and helped me to find a job very quickly after. It's hard work, but... Read More it's very worth it!