I saw this thread pop up again. I did the CFGdegree and have been at my role (company sponsored) for over a year and still enjoying it. I'm not going to say what company it is but it doesn't actually matter because they are no longer sponsoring places so specifics about them won't help anyway.
My biggest advice is if it's at all possible, get a company sponsored place that comes with a job offer (even if it's not your ideal job) and use it to get past the massive hurdle that is getting an entry-level job as a developer.
In my cohort there were quite a few ladies who were CFG-sponsored or sponsored by companies who were not offering jobs. Obviously for quite a few of them they simply had no choice as there was nothing suitable that came with a job offer. If that's true for you, it's definitely still worth going for the CFG degree and I'll come back to that later.
For the ones who had actively chosen not to apply for a sponsored place with a job offer though, I think truthfully almost all of them regretted it.
For a few of them they did seem really keen on career changing but said they didn't want to be tied down and committed to taking the job at the end. Some of them just didn't want to work at the sponsoring companies. There was quite a bit of wanting to work in a fun and exciting start-up that aimed to be the new google rather than something boring and corporate.
Truthfully, I think they were quite naïve about the realities of the job market and how hard getting a junior role actually is. I think they thought that the CFG degree would give them the skills to work as a junior and that once it was on their CV, they'd put their heads down, apply for a load of jobs and get one and work their way up. I'm not still in touch with all of them but from what I last heard I'd be pretty sure that less than half got a job by themselves.
For some others, their reasons for going for the non-job offer places were that they were not completely committed to career changing and did the CFG degree to see if it was something they liked. While this was fine for the people who decided to go onto something different, for those who did decide they wanted to go into a career, it was a wasted opportunity. You can only take the CFG degree once, so they missed out on a place that would give them a job. I completely get why they felt quite casually about it. Even the whole application process with a web form feels quite casual but actually CFG is really quite unique in the job-offer thing. It's the one massive thing that sets them apart and it's really not something to gloss over.
I can't emphasise it enough that if you can get a job offer with your place then I think it's so worth it just to get a foot in the door. Even if it means waiting for the next cohort and applying again. After a year or so in the role, you can flounce off to some exciting cool new tech company or whatever once you have some experience. Then after a few years you're set and you will find it relatively easy to job hop around as you please.
The CFG degree does what it can do in 16 weeks but it absolutely scratches the tiniest tip of the iceberg. When you go into a job there is so much more to learn and you're almost definitely going to be very useless for a long time. What you learn on the CFGdegree is not even sort of enough for you to actually be valuable to a company yet. Working on live code in a team is so different to just doing personal projects on a small scale. The skills you learn are definitely useful as a foundation but it's not a situation where you can expect to walk in ready to add value to your team straight away.
If you are interested in it seriously, I would not treat the CFGdegree as a learning experience. I'd do the learning first. Udemy or whatever courses. Learn to code well enough that you're making your own projects and are ready for a junior role. Then if you can, get a sponsored place with CFG and use it as a stepping stone into a career.
I realise that my post sounds really discouraging to those who have no choice and can't get a place with a job-offer and I don't mean for it to come across that way. I want to step back and reiterate that there were still SOME people who got jobs that they loved by themselves, and it's very much possible for you to do so. It's just much harder which is why I'd only encourage that way if you have no other choice.
The people who got jobs afterwards were really on top of making portfolios. They were the people who made games or apps or websites or whatever for fun in their own time for their own entertainment.
Some people were technically very good at coding but really didn't seem to 'get' the level of drive they were going to need to impress enough to get a job. There were people who saw 'making a portfolio' as a task they needed to check off as part of the job application process. They'd watch a youtube tutorial and do a codealong of the exact thing then put it in their portfolio.
You need to be taking what you learn, from courses or tutorials or whatever and applying it to make your own things that you love. Not copying code down that someone on youtube is typing out.
There was a certain sort of spark and love for the creative side of coding and building things that the people who got the jobs had and I think it's hard to force that.
Ideally when you start learning to code, and making projects, you should find excitement and joy in making things you want to make and using the new things you've learned to improve it. Do you actually love making websites or games or analysing data or whatever?
It's a career with a lot of frustrating moments where you're spending so much time on tiny problems only to find out it was something stupid that you typed wrong. Yes it's well paid and it's a great job, but I think it would be miserable if you didn't really love it. Which is another reason I think you should already know if it's your passion before you sign up to a really intense 16 weeks.