Saturday, September 28, 2013

Coding Dojo Review: Day 19 Coding Dojo Senior Class Demo Day

The senior class had their Demo Day today. It was exciting to see what a person can accomplish with little to no coding experience in 9 weeks.

Projects that caught my attention the most:
  • Google Api with Facebook geolocation to track popular places friends visit
  • SMS survey built in Python ( this is something that the student decided to learn on her own)
  • Web app that is similar to meetup with Google API 
The biggest downside to Demo Day had to be the turnout. Most were the junior class and we had some prospective students. From what other students had heard it seems that the attendance of recruiters and employers has lessened as time went on. This is because they orginally wanted to see the caliber of students the school produced. Once they deemed to have gathered enough information they stope attending. I think this is a pretty big mistake to judge a school so early. The school is continuously improving its material, just today I heard we're going to be piloting a new JavaScript course and there were rumors that the course may be extended to 11 weeks in the future, no confirmation on that. 

Overall: I knew beforehand what the turnout was going to be like by reading past student's blogs, others in the class had attended past Demo Days, still there were some that were surprised by the turnout. Prospective students have to be aware that this is a pretty new school and it's going to take time to establish itself. Past students still visit the Dojo and they talk about their interviews, job offers, and call in when they accepted positions. 

I came in fully aware that I will have to network on my own if I wanted to land a position quickly after graduation. So if you were planning on a school's Demo Day to land you a position you might want to change that mindset, you can't be afraid of doing the legwork. 

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