This is my review of The Web Developer Bootcamp by Colt Steele. I have to say this was course was easily worth $1000. I learned the full stack like he promises in his sales pitch. I want to break it down by three topics that I want to touch on.
Support:
I really know that Colt cares about his students. In the beginning he was actively posting, and trying to help people. Thats not the case anymore. He’s hired Ian, who is amazing to really just run the Q&A.
Engagement:
Colt makes it fun, he talks a lot about his dog, with cat and dog examples, but I retained everything he taught me. I felt the videos were made at a perfect pace.
Consolation.
I feel like a mix of Free Code Camp and The Web Developer Bootcamp is all you will need. The waypoints on FCC are hard. However; I feel confident that I can do them based on the fundamentals I learned from Colt Steele. However; the course feels unfinished. I know that Ian is going to release the last bit in the next couple days but I cant help but wonder: “will he ever release a the react or angular project he promised” because, even if he did sell something as another course I would pay thousands.
I totally agree that the course by colt steele is worth every penny! I purchased his course before black Friday and got that crazy deal. I paid $12 for it.
All I can say is that this course paired along with FCC is an amazing combo! If anyone has a chance to purchase this I say go for it!
I agree the course is amazing but I do not think it is worth paying $200 for when you can find material in other places. If you want to buy the course you should find a coupon from somewhere which I do not think is too hard to do.
I got it on black friday for 15$ even though I didn’t research on it at all. Haven’t even touched it yet! Looks like I’m in luck Thank you for this! I’ll start it very very soon.
It’s a good course, especially if you’re completly new to web development. Well worth the $15 . It will help you understand your future FCC challenges. I’m about half way through that udemy course. And I just entered the Javascript course on FCC.
I’m over 80% done this course, and it was great for me when starting out. I’m currently finishing up the final YelpCamp (node.js, express, mongoDB) project which is a nice introduction to JavaScript in the backend.
I am currently doing this bootcamp alongside FCC. I made 50% so far and I feel really good with what I’m learning. Basically, I watch the videos, try myself every code and after that I do the FCC exercises. This strategy is working really well for me. The best part is I paid just 7 dollars on the web dev bootcamp (I live in Brazil).
Ps I agree you can find awesome free content around the web, but Colt structures the course in a really solid way, which can for sure bring a more accurate learning.
I’m not very far in the course so I’ll come back when I’ve finished to give a more complete review…BUT:
like @michelmarechal says, it is structured. That’s something very important when you don’t really know how things are connected.
I foolishly assumed I’d be bored during the HTML / CSS parts but Colt Steele gives lots of bits of explanations that just clarify things or are really new to me.
It’s a step by step approach but done in such a way that you really assimilate things. Doing the exercises on your own is really a great way of checking you’ve understood/assimilated the material and makes new questions pop up.
He also shows a lot of websites, tips and tools that he uses and that are very useful - I’ve bookmarked most of them.
I can only assume he’ll continue the same way for Javascript and the next parts of the course.
Although it’s not free, it seems there are discounts on a regular basis hat make it completely affordable.
Colt Steele also claims it’s a one-stop-shop. Of course I don’t think anyone here believes it but I guess it must be understood in terms of getting some core material you can add to later on.
I think that for beginners who feel overwhelmed by the amount of material, languages, and stuff out there, it’s also reassuring to follow one path and then be able to stray when we’ve gained some confidence.
And obviously, no one ever sticks to one thing only…
Well, I can’t say which one is better. Colt’s bootcam has more video time, with a total of 40 hours of course, against the 30 hours from Rob Percival. But looking what the course covers, I believe Rob’s goes deeper in CSS and HTML, while with Colts you may have to do some extra research. In other hand, Colt gives a great introduction to backend, with NodeJs, MongoDB and more.
Both courses looks great. I can say The Web Developer Bootcamp is really great with an awesome structure. You definelly won’t regret to take it. In the end, you have to choose the one which covers the topics you want to learn. My goal is to go full stack, so I believe Colt’s course is the best option for me.
I signed up on December 8 on a sale that had the course on for $19 CAD and which was supposed to end December 11 (today). I tried to sign up my daughter about 30 minutes ago but the price was bumped to $205.
The code you provided dropped the price to $15 CAD. It should be good until December 16.
Thanks for the insight. Been reading about Colt’s course today and I am attracted. I like Rob’s course too especially the free one-year web hosting that comes with it. I’m almost done with the JS part but I felt like it doesn’t dig deeper enough that’s why I searched for alternatives/reinforcement and ended up here at FCC.
Rob is a self-taught developer with a teaching background while Colt is a seasoned full-pledge bootcamp instructor and that sounds incredible to a complete beginner like me. I might consider a refund and get this course instead.
Original Poster here. I’m glad all of you are either agreeing with me, or just finding out about Colt from my review. If you have any doubt about this let me bring something up. In my first week here at free code camp I did 221 exercises with in about a total of 5-6 hours. I’m 100% sure I can get the front end certification in a couple of days with minimal effort.
So right now Im doing freelance work for a client making an admin / client panel. Just a bunch of forms. I’m building it with node, express, mongodb, bootstrap 4(flexbox enabled), bower, gulp, and sass.
I’m not saying it was easy… but I learned a LOT of what I’m doing for a client from Colt. I love Free Code Camps bonfires, and portfolio it gives you. The community is amazing. We all have the same goals. Im going to go for the front and and back end certification as soon as Im done with this clients site.
Nice! Before you take Colt bootcamp, you had any previous experience with programming languages? How long to find your first job after finishing the course?
@michelmarechal, sure. So WordPress sites. I managed a multi million dollar in revenue woocommerce site for 5 years. So I already was somewhat decent enough with bootstrap to do what I needed. I’m very good with ACP, and gravity forms to do anything I need for a client site in WordPress. Defiantly not able to work at a ‘developer shop’. Though, I managed developers and had clients from my marketing background.
However, I hit rock bottom financially, and emotionally after being screwed from a developer that I paid $6000 deposit for a client site, and he walked away. Which was last year. That is when I decided screw this, I need to learn this backend stuff myself.
So I started Colts course last year, and got stick at the reverseString() and gave up. I overcomplicated life. I tried putting the last item a new array. All the things I tried didn’t work when all I had to do is reverse the for loop. I started back at it 2 months ago. One of the things that really helped me is a small 14" x 10" whiteboard which I learned to write things down, and say it out loud to myself. Solve the problems with a plan before I write code.
I’ll end it with this. Colts course does not give you ‘everything’ but he does teach you how to use the documentation, and understand what’s going on. When you look at code you can kind of figure out what’s going on. One thing Im forcing myself when I look back to Colts course thinking: how did we do that? is to type it out word for word while thinking to myself: what do I expect to happen? wink
Can I get a job at a dev shop? Maybe. They hire you for more than just skill, but algorithms which is where FCC shines. Though I really want to have something I created on my own, and work through these bonfires, than get these certifications so that I have more to ‘show’ when I do finally applying. Plus with my marketing/ecommerce background I’m more valuable. That’s where I want to end up. Working for an eCommerce company.
I agree that Colt’s Udemy course is excellent. I am taking it at the same time as FCC.
Many Udemy courses go on sale for $10 - $20. Do not pay the full price for the courses, just wait till the sale. I am always getting the sales discount emails sent to me.
I’m currently going through that program now and I like it a lot. Colt does seem to genuinely care about his students, his teaching approach, and web development as a subject. I would highly recommend anyone wanting to break into web development include this course in their learning strategy
Thank you for this! I’ll start it very very soon.