Software Guild

I attended because i wanted to get into advanced C# / ASP.net. I had a lot of coding experience as i had been a hobbyist developer on my own for over 10 years and mainly had good skills with basic website design.  We started out doing console applications which was annoying. It would be nice to at least start on a visual studio designer. They made us do console apps for the badges i was in which is horrible and outdated. I had completed the code at the last minute and had an issue with file access due to a bug in Visual Studio. The console apps open up flat text files which was ridiculous and should have taught us database at this point. I ended up losing out on my tuition. When i got to retake the course they gave me a new assignment structure to pass it since i was a former student in the same badge. Totally unfair. Usually you retake something and get the same content!! and for over $2000 its not fair. They gave me this game to program which i'm sorry but was impossible and i'm not going there for game programming. So i didn't make the next badge so instead i transferred over to Java so i wouldn't lose out on my money. It was good until they switched LMS and merged with Wiley. It used to be Canvas which was bad enough but looks like they moved to some old school open source platform. So now i am out over $6,000 and have no skills at all. And good luck finding an ASP.net bootcamp on flex schedule. I am from NY and all jobs are looking for ASP.net here and there is NO TRAINING for it.

It was a great and intensive program. All study materials were very well organized. They gave us only what we needed to enter a career in Software Engineering. All instructors are very helpful in all aspects of education. I was receiving a lot of support and help whenever I needed it. My instructor gave me the best advice that helped me to get through an intensive Bootcamp in a timely manner. It is "to understand the material and then to move forward with the study material". Obviously, I had to study hard to grasp the material. Even after graduating from the program, Software Guild still was supporting me in finding a job. During my adventure with Software Guild, I felt true happiness twice. The first time was when I graduated from Software Guild as a Full Stack Developer. I felt a great accomplishment! The second time was today when I received a job offer. I am very thankful to all staff at Sofware Guild for all their hard work and the most up-to-date resources that they make available for the students.

Worth every penny! I was definitely skepticle at first but I got started with an open mind and gave it my all to get through the boot camp. Commiting 100% of my time to studying and working on projects was stressful. I totaled 80 hours a week counting in class time, homework and weekend projects. The first half of the cohert was the most stressful as I had so much uncertainity I be able to meet the deadlines of weekend projects. With some help and determination I managed to get through it. The instructor was pretty was pretty awesome and hit all the marks to educate beginners. It took awhile for it to click in my brain but with some help from other programmers that would say the same things to validate his teachings I was able to understand the foundation of learning to code. After that I moved into the 2nd half of the cohort and worked with fullstack development and towards the end worked on employment information and practice to land a job after we graduate. Overall a great experience and very greatful to be given the oppurtunity The Software Guild gave me.

I am online java Apprentice as of the time I am doing this review.  I am on Badge 3 of Badge 4 as of the time i am conducting the review. Since I started the school with software Guild i always considered my self lucky to have known Software Guild.  I was thanked the friend who told me about the school.  When I came to software Guild i have taken java and some other programming related classes, However i didn't get chance to apply the knowledge i got from school and from studying by my own.  The greatest thing that I got from Software Guild is applying the programming knowledge that I got from the lessons.  The other thing is befor  i come to software Guild i tried to understand many concepts of programming from reading books and articles and watching YouTube but i couldn' t really understand. But when I read a software Guild materials i was able to understand everything.  Now that I am in Badge 3 i am feeling like I'm way more experienced than when I started.  I learned that programming is not only coding.  Even though coding one important thing there are also rules and best practices to become a good programmer.  Software Guild teaches everything that takes to make someone a good programmer.  It can be challenging for someone with zero coding skill but honestly feel programming is the easiest it can at software Guild.  A person with zero coding skill can still make it by giving some extra time to read the material and practice as well as to get help from instructors and openofficehour on slack. I strongly recommend software Guild for anyone who has passion for becoming a software developer. 

I started working in factories straight out of college and found out about the Software Guild in Minneapolis, MN. After about a year of dreading work I decided to take a risk and try out the Software Guild. I do not regret it one bit.
The instructor I had was great, and he helped me understand things I had trouble with. I had about a years worth of coding experience from college courses I took, but those courses taught me nowhere near as much or as effectively as the Guild did.
If I could start over I would have gone straight to the Software Guild instead of college, because it would have saved my tens of thousands of dollars and 4 years of my time.
If you can commit your time to completing the reading assignments, take notes, ask question about ANYTHING you don't understand, and actually practicing/ finishing projects, you can succeed and find a job afterwards.
The Guild does not hand you a job, they give the tools and resources to be able to find a job. They help make you look like a really strong candidate for junior developer positions.
The Guild in Minneapolis even gave us a chance to have speed interviews in the last 2 weeks of the course and I was one of the lucky few to get hired from that process. If you do not get hired during the speed interviews, do not worry, the guild sends out different opportunities that you can choose to apply to.

If you are questioning whether or not the Software Guild is worth it. I would tell you that It 100% is, and that you can become a developer if you put in the time and effort.

Personal Background

I've been messing around with programming ever since I was the age of 14 (I'm 21 now as of writing this review), and I knew that being a software developer was always what I wanted to pursue, so it didn't come as a surprise when my trajectory shifted from completing a college degree to joining a code bootcamp after 3 years of taking classes that didn't benefit my degree, and pretty much setting myself up to be in college for way longer than I hoped for. I really wanted to just jump into my career as soon as I could considering the previous experience that I had. After some research, I had selected my top three picks for bootcamps that I was interested in. 

The Software Guild really stood out to me because of the employment statistics, along with offering a .NET/C# course which I was also pursuing. After looking into the school, I learned more of the fantastic job prep skills that the guild offered, and at that point I decided to apply.

The Experience

Upon being accepted to the guild as an apprentice, I was given the pre-cohort coursework that is mandatory to be completed before starting, which is an introductory, online web development course that focuses in teaching you the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This is so that all apprentices are on the same basic level of web development knowledge before starting that section of the actual course, which is very beneficial to your success at the guild (especially if you really dive into it!). It took me a little while to get the pre-work done, but it was very worth the time. 

At the start of the cohort, it is all fundamentals. If you are new to programming, or just object oriented programming in general, getting through the first half of the course WILL be fairly difficult. There's a lot of material to cover, and you have to make sure that you're pushing yourself to complete your projects on time, and to get all the help you can get from your instructor (that's what you're paying for, after all) in each course milestone. Even with my previous experience with programming, there were still so many new fundamental skills that I picked up, and the workload of the course certainly challenged me.

The next section of the course is where you'll be putting all that basic web development knowledge, along with your newly gained .NET/C# knowledge to use. In my opinion, this is the most difficult section of the entire cohort, since there is so much information that is being taken in, and each week moves by so quickly that it's easy to fall behind. However if you are to fall behind at all in the course, you can quickly get caught up if you are proactive and get all the help you need to get up to speed with the material you might be struggling in. I don't think that there was a single day that I was in class and didn't ask at least a handful of questions to my instructor on what I was working on or anything at all that I was curious about. 

There will be many presentations, guest panels, mock interviews, and other very beneficial tools available to you as an apprentice to get you ready for starting your job search that I STRONGLY would recommend not to pass up. Take all the notes and soak up all the information you can during all these sessions.

Concluding Thoughts

Like the title says, joining The Software Guild was one of the best decisions that I could have made for my career. I was provided with skills that I wouldn't be able to obtain on my own time, and it has opened up so many opportunities for me, as well as given me tools that are applicable to not only my software development career, but many other sections of my life too.

The #1 advice I'd give to somebody looking to join The Software Guild, or any code bootcamp in general goes as follows:

1. Be ready to work. You'll be very busy with projects and staying on top of course material throughout the cohort.

2. Don't miss up on all the opportunities & additional help that you're offered from the staff & instructors! You want to take in as much information as you can that can benefit you & your career.

3. Just have fun. Find ways to make the course enjoyable for you.

Background: I attended UofL Computer Engineering program for a year before dropping out in favor of this bootcamp. In 3 months I learned more than I probably would have staying all 4 years at university writing tic-tac-toe applications.

Coursework: Having some (although very basic) knowledge of Java helped me with the first week or so of the coursework. Regardless, the projects you will work on are challenging for a beginner; do not be scared off by this, it is good to struggle a bit when learning to code. The instructors will guide you through the purpose of fundamental techniques so that you can gain a solid foundation of learning how to go about solving problems through code. This is type of critical thinking is key to having a successful career after graduation and definitely seems to be the focus of the program, rather than just writing code for repitition sake.

Post Graduation: I have been working as a developer full time for nearly two years now and continue to use techniques that I learned while studying at the Software Guild. This program has been incredibly useful propelling my career and the community is great even after graduating -- I still talk with friends I made in the program regularly and sometimes go back for Wednesday night board games.

I can only consider my experience at the Software Guild as the best career decision I have ever made. Because of the skills I learned at the Guild I have been able to excel in an incredibly challenging, lucrative, and fulfilling career. You are thrown into a very expansive and comprehensive curriculum with only a certain amount of knowledge and encouraged to struggle and learn from the difficulty. This was key for my success in the Guild and now in my career. The single best skill I learned was how to effectively research issues, problems, code, etc and how to find the answer I needed. I will say at some point I do wish I was given a bit more direction at the beginning of the bootcamp when I knew practically nothing and slowly given less and less as I learned on my own but nevertheless I was successful. 

I had some previous coding experience through school but didn't want to pursue a bachelors so I decided to try the Software Guild out. I had a newer instructor so the first few days were a little rough around the edges but by the end of the program everyone was prepared for an entry level position and had the skills to continually learn new things. The course is really hard if you don't commit to it and use your time efficiently, several people switched to online because they couldn't keep up. 

They really do help you with finding a job, resume reviews, networking, interviews, etc. Basically the entire part after completion of the program. I found a job after about a month and the job market was slowing down when I was applying because of the holidays. (Nov - December)

I highly recommend checking the guild out if you are interested in a tech career. Also, you should probably research your job market when deciding which language to learn but it's not a big deal because they give you access to the other course at the end of the program. I learned Java but my job uses .NET/C#