Full stack developer and SheCanCode blogger, Emma Deacon, has compiled a list of the top coding bootcamps for developers.
Add these to your New Year’s resolutions and upskill yourself this year.
1. Founders & Coders
Location: London, and as of February 2017, Jerusalem.
The only free coding bootcamp in Europe, Founders & Coders is dedicated purely to JavaScript.
The course pushes you to your limits but does so in a friendly, positive environment. The whole concept of Founders is to promote community, and to promote coding to those who would not necessarily have been involved with it. The only drawback? It is a full time, four-month commitment, and pre-requisites are high – not for the faint-hearted.
I am an alumna of Founders & Coders, having completed their course in summer 2016. This bootcamp was the greatest experience of my life; it’s hard to put down in words how much it broadened my horizons.
2. Free Code Camp (with help from Codebar)
Location: from home with Codebar available in multiple regions of the country and across Europe (Brighton, Oxford, Berlin and others).
Free Code Camp is an online bootcamp that is truly second to none when it comes to knowledge for beginners, focusing on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It is clear, and insightful, and easy to engage with. I would recommend this to anyone who wishes to be able to learn from the comfort of their own home, but have the chance to get help from developers through groups like Codebar.
Codebar is a weekly meetup run in various parts of London, where beginners are invited to solve problems with support from the developer they’re paired with. Codebar teachers are all professional developers from amazing companies such as Ticketmaster, Government Digital Services, Zoopla and many others.
In sum, Codebar is one and a half hours of pure coding fun, designed specifically for beginners. Combining it with Free Code Camp is a superb way to experience a coding bootcamp without the stress of having to be in one place, great for personal freedom.
3. Treehouse
Location: online coding course with huge numbers of courses and classes.
Treehouse is a worldwide community, and is very beginner friendly in its appearance.
It’s a fantastic resource for those who want to explore multiple programming topics, and have knowledge of more than the basic website development languages. Introduction to App Development, Android Development and the like are all found on Treehouse; it is more of a guide showcasing the possibilities of coding than anything else. There is a fee ($25 a month), but with a week’s free trial you can dip your toes in the water.
Treehouse is, in my opinion, a more intelligent Codecademy, offering more chances for real-world experiences and implementation.
4. Makers Academy
Location: London and remote.
Makers Academy is on nearly every bootcamp list out there; it is one of the most acknowledged and respected bootcamps in London. A crash course from A to Z, Makers and combines HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Ruby to provide a truly thorough experience to those wishing to learn development.
On top of this, they pride themselves in offering yoga throughout the course, as a means of de-stressing.
It is a 12 week course, with the in-person bootcamp costing £8,000 (£4,000 online). It is a selective process, and Makers receive a lot of applications, but they’ve recently started to offer scholarships for women, so keep a look out for that!
5. Code First: Girls
Location: nationwide for students (see universities, also available for graduates), and London for professionals.
CF:G is an incredible organisation that promotes equality in technology. Their courses are free for university students, and they run twice yearly. As well as university students, they also offer professional women’s courses classes at £655, with classes that run in the evenings over 8 weeks. What you get with something like Code First Girls is a community, and a growing one at that; they run masterclasses, and conferences, and are truly an incredible group to get involved with.
Their classes are not as intense as a traditional bootcamps, but they ease beginners into the fundamentals of website development (HTML, CSS, Bootstrap and JavaScript), something all non-coders benefit from in the beginning.
So what are you waiting for? With so many options, there’s bound to be a course to suit you.
Emma is currently an MSc student studying Technology Entrepreneurship at UCL. Having completed both her undergraduate studies in History of Art, and worked as a Full Stack Developer at Founders & Coders, Emma has every intention to create a startup in the Culture-Tech Sector.
