Lighthouse Labs

My background is in electrical engineering and I attended lighthouse labs web development bootcamp. It is highly intensive and at the same time. highly awarding. The first week I felt overwhelmed but I talked to one of our mentors who was a Lighthouse alumni as well and after that chat, I felt much better and felt that others have the same feeling and I am not the only one who feels under pressure. That made me more confident and I continued my practice to the last minutes of the bootcamp and even after my graduation. 

It is 9 weeks (8 weeks have classes and the last week is only for finishing the final project). Every day have 2 hr of class in the morning and 1 hr in the afternoon, the rest of the time you will code on your own and get help from mentors. There are 2 main projects which you'll do in groups: final and midterm project, others are individual projects which each of them is aimed to teach you some language or frame work.

After finishing the final project, there is a demo day which some employers come and see what you've done and that is a great opportunity to be hired by them. However, hiring is seasonal so don't worry if you don't get many interviews after your graduations, they will come to you after a month or so. I personally graduated at a time which was not many hirings so it was hard to get an interview and interview processes were slow but I got a job in 2.5 months.

lighthouse labs introduces you to companies and let them hire you for 3-4 month as a contract developer for monthly 2000$ (obviously if you want they do so otherwise you are able to find a job on your own! ) and then after that period, the company usually hires that person as a full time or 1 year contract developer. that is a way that makes it easier for you to get your first job and add a line to your resume.

A good thing about lighthouse was that we used to learn the most part on our own and in this way, I learnt how to teach myself how to code which is a vital skill set for a developer since there are new frameworks and even programming languages introduced to the community every year. Thus, a developer should be able to learn new skills in a short time and on his/her own. That is the best thing you will learn in lighthouse labs.

I had a very good experience at Lighthouse Labs, and believe it was worth the price of admission for myself. Having a strong background in programming going into the bootcamp, it was not too intensive, however, it gives you an opprotunity to add intensity depending on how determined you are to learn and improve. This meant adding my own stretch goals and milestones for some projects, and Lighthouse Labs allows you to be surrounded by experienced developers that can assist you along the way.

The curriculum is very well setup, as it allows you to complete a project a week using a new framework/technology every week. The first week is basic Javascript fundamentals, and following that, you learn to make a backend tinyURL clone using nodeJS and an express server, then a twitter clone with jQuery/AJAX on the front end and mongoDB, then a midterm project using PostgreSQL, followed by a slack clone using websockets and ReactJS, and finally an Amazon clone using Ruby on Rails, with a final project built in whatever stack you want to use. You will learn a lot and get your foot into many different doors of web development, and how far you go is dependant on yourself.

Career services was not as good as it was hyped to be, but I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on it being bad timming, as the cohort after mine recieved a lot more job opprotunities.

Overall, it was a great experience, and I made a lot of great friends in the process while learning a lot.

I did the 8 week web dev bootcamp. It was tough but worth it. I highly reccomend it to anyone serious and I mean geniunely serious about becoming a developer. It is a great way to get your foot in the door. It teaches you more than just how to code but how to learn quickly and efficiently. Covers all the techinical jargon to get you through an interview and this will be embedded in your brain for eons. Also the ability to figure out a code base will become second nature. It is however, not for the faint of heart. You aint got grit, forget about it. But if you wanna haul butt for eight weeks and get a jr dev position then this is the start of your journey. Would do a again if I have access to a time machine. 

I took it when they still had a rails focus, and really excelled in the environment. You get as much out of it as you are willing to put in; if you really apply yourself you will learn a tremendous amount in a very short time.

It does not prepare you amazingly for the working world, but is effective in helping you learn how to teach yourself, and covers the basics in a clear and easy to understand way. You need to be prepared to continue working hard once you graduate and start working, as that is when the true learning begins.

I attend the Bootcamp in lighthouse lab in Toronto in 2016. Their curriculum teaches the core of Javascript and Ruby, and also a lot of development related knowledge. It is profound and well organized. Also, students will take the weekly review to make sure to catch up with the whole courses. And you will have a chance to develop a midterm project and the final project. The job hunting service is also available to the students who are ready for a job. So, on the whole, my experience was good. But I can also feel the content in last two weeks ran into a rush, and I feel zoned out easily. By the way, I really like their mentors. they are knowledgeable to help me whenever I need a help.

I attended LHL during the May01-June2017 cohort. It was a very good experience and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to career shift into development or want hands-on experience. The strongest product of LHL is the curriculum. It is kept up-to-date and is continually updated to reflect industry needs. You will find lots of overlap between job descriptions and the technologies you'll be learning at LHL. 

Like any boot camp, it is important to go into it with the right expectations. You will learn a lot at LHL, but recognize that there will be holes in your knowledge. Their idea that the whole boot camp experience is around ~year is correct -- LHL will set you up with enough to take on a first developer job but the learning will have to continue after boot camp has ended. If you understand this and come in with a good attitude, you will be successful. 

LHL does a good job creating an environment that will allow you to learn an immense amount during the 8 weeks. As a student, its important to get comfortable as soon as you can, and you will enjoy / take advantage of the environment they have set-up. The LHL connection doesn't end after boot camp either, as this community enviroment translate into the alumni community well. 

Instructors are LHL are knowledgeable, and care a lot about student success. They are a valuable resource along with the available mentors, and they all do a good job assisting students in getting as much as they possibly can out of the boot camp experience. 

Career services do a good job of setting you up to be in a position to find work. Set realistic expectations, be willing to try different options, and you'll get a lot of CS. 

Overall, I will recommend LHL to anyone serious about getting into development. I've recommended it to friends but the number one thing is the expectations and attitude going into it. 

I am really happy about my time at Lighthouse, the staff is amazing,the overall culture super relaxed and inspiring and the instructors are really awesome, very knowledgeble and always available, even after the completion of the bootcamp.

It was a life changing experience and I have not only adquired knowledge that I would never adquired by myself in such short period of time, but I have learned how to learn, which is the most important skill in the world of programming, and thanks to it and thanks also to the great network I have built at the lab,  I have landend on my dream job as game developer in less than 2 month. I had no prior experience in game development but the coding experience I have developed in the bootcamp allowed my mind to learn fast every coding language.

I definitely suggest to enroll!

There isn't much more I can add that isn't already known about Lighthouse. There is a high placement rate for a good reason. The program is popular for a good reason. I attended the Lighthouse bootcamp in Sept of 2014 and it was pivotal in the new direction of my career and life really. I was very skeptical if I would be able to attain the necessary skills to start as a developer in just 2 short months. But not only did I leave with the confidence to start, I also had the tools to continue to learn and grow afterwards. I'm not the best with words so I will put in bullet form the highlights and challenges I encountered during my time at Lighthouse.

*Challenges*

• grinding: for someone coming in with little background in coding or computer science, working on projects/tutorials for the entire day was a grueling process. It was probably the hardest class I've ever taken. The pace is fast and the information comes at you like a firehose. Be ready to feel uncomfortable and make use of the TAs
• stubborn: partially related to the previous point. quality TAs and teachers is what you pay for. Don't bang away at a problem for 3 hours. If you can't find the solution ask for help, it will give you new knowledge, clear explanations and you can be better equipped for when that same problem comes up again. Make use of the TAs.
• life balance: spent my time from 8am to almost midnight some days for the 2 and a half months of the program. It's draining and would be difficult for those with families to take care of. Come into the program expecting a lifestyle change for the duration and a bit after as you look for work and get those interviews.

*Highlights*

• cool peers: the people that make the commitment to do a coding bootcamp are driven, dedicated and the kind of people you will enjoy working/learning along with.
• instructors: I can't stress enough how good the teachers and TAs are at Lighthouse. The lecutures are fun, engaging and clearly explained.
• projects: the project based work keeps things interesting. Which is needed to keep things focused during the heavy workload.
• iteration: Lighthouse is constantly changing and improving their curriculum to match industry changes and make the education better. Even during my time there, little changes and tweaks were made.

It is not 36 hrs as it says on the website. Every class starts with 1hr of just going through slides with words with an unethusiatic instructor. After the 1hr, you are free to go or do some exercises that take about 30 min to finish. 

Some days we get exercises to work on and other days we just do some reading written by the company. But the information is medicore and very short (about 5 min reading). We didn't do much. I felt alike it was place to hang out with an instructor. The whole class doesn't really have a goal. Rather, the whole course felt alike " here are list of things you should know related to some coding, and bye go home or whatever."

Honestly, the course can be silently more engaging and challenging or teach students how to learn better so that they can code some basic apps. On the last day we just looked at games (1.5 hrs of my money drained down the toilet) after the slides were done.  Also, I was told that the some course materials were too hard for students, such as learning parsing. The company refuses to change the material because it was in the Vancouver branch, and the instructor gave up on teaching material because he knows students can't learn it at their level.

The course is just so expensive for the materials, and quality. This is almost a scam to make money off people who are naive and not knoweldgeable in coding.

Did a ton of research, visited every bootcamp location in Toronto and had a friend go to Bitmaker while I went to Lighthouse. I just graduated this week and my friend and I have been sharing our experiences, and there is no doubt I got the better education. We actually co-coded together, and I think he might be smarter than me, but my knowledge of how things work, different frameworks and how to learn quickly were so far ahead that he said he might go back and tell them he wants a refund. He was near the top of his class while I was definitely amongst the second half. 

I haven't gone throught the Career Services yet, but they have been really transparent with how it works, how it's not a guarantee, but almost all grads I speak to says they got jobs, companies knew Lighthouse and they respect the quality of the grads coming out of the bootcamp as some of the best. 

Was a bit worried in terms of bootcamps at first, but really happy with this whole experience. It definitely matters which one you pick though, which is why I came here to give a review. 

There's little question that Lighthouse Labs is one of the better schools I've come across in the coding bootcamp world. I finished a little while back, but the current and after-grad assistance has been swell. It's been about 45 days since the end, and everyone in my cohort who wanted work as a dev in Toronto has found it. Each and every one.

The curriculum is solid, and has enough flexibility to allow individuals to make it their own thing to suit their interests. Web-framework for a rasberry-pi sensor network? Sure! Web-GIS tools? You bet. Diabetes monitoring templates for insulin pumps? True story, with a proven outcome! They can help you follow your dreams starting from the fundamentals up so long as you bring your passion to the front.

The cast of instructors and mentors are diverse in character as well as background, and are there to help offer results. They can help you build yourself in fundamentals and base frameworks so you can do that thing. 

In the iOS Bootcamp the pace of learning was intense, and it never lets up. And that is one of its best features. You never feel like you had an easy day, or a wasted day. The lectures start with intermediate topics and grow in complexity very quickly from one day to the next. You are always covering new ground, mastering new concepts, and taking on bigger and more complex assignments. By the end of the 8 weeks we were all creating projects we wouldn't have thought possible in week 1. The leap in learning you make in the 8 weeks in truly incredible. 
I had no background in coding, comp-sci, or programming but was still able to handle the workload, just barely. The TA's and instructors made sure that they were available to help, but never just handed you the answer. They insist that you learn as you go, rather than giving you the answer, which I am grateful for. With an extremely low ratio of teachers to students, help is always at hand, 12 hours a day. It is this close interaction with instructors and other class mates that I feel really makes all the difference. It is like having a private mentor for 8 weeks, 12 hours day, sharing all of their knowledge openly.

The staff are amazing. Instructors, Admin, and everyone else really come together to help make the bootcamp experience the best it can be for everyone. There are plenty of social events, as well as meaningful and important opportunities to interact with and get to know many of Vancouver's top tech talent. 
The only thing I wish had been done differently is the prep work they recommend you do before taking the course. It should be more in depth and tougher. I think students would get more out of the course if they were more prepared. Having said that, if you have any programming, coding, or comp-sci experience you will probably not need the prep. My comments are more directed at those of us without any background in tech.