Rocket Academy

Disclaimer: I am a front-end developer with 6+ years of experience, so my opinions may not be an apt reflection of the experiences of first-time developers or strict career switchers. I took the SWE101 course as a requirement for undertaking the actual... Read More 6-month SWE1 bootcamp, as well as refresh my knowledge on JavaScript and basic programming methodology. As of writing this review, I have completed the SWE101 course, but not started the SWE1 bootcamp yet. I got to admit, I underestimated the rigour of SWE101 when I first joined it. I was expecting the course to be a rehash of the introductory curriculum in online platforms such as Codecademy or Freecodecamp, but the difficulty of the projects and exercises (especially if you attempt the "More Comfortable" challenges) quickly blew my mind. SWE101 operates in a "flipped classroom" methodology - you review pre-recorded online lectures and attempt pre-class exercises before the actual class, and in the actual class you will revisit your pre-class material as well as apply what you have learnt like in a computer lab session over Zoom. Using the university education analogy, think "pre-class online lectures" as your lectures, and your "Zoom in-class lessons" as your tutorial classes. The in-class lessons, structured in a small group (around 10 people) Zoom conference, encourage class participation and discussion over the material learnt prior. After the small group review of pre-class work, in-class exercises are then attempted in pairs. Students work those exercises using pair programming, with one playing the role of a navigator, and the other the driver. Pair programming will take a while to get used to for newbies, including me. For people used to working in silo, it can be a challenge to play either role in pair programming. The driver should get used to be "watched" while working, as well as learning not to panic when a simple bug is causing you to revisit your mental model. The navigator will need the patience and empathy to match his mental model with the driver's or vice versa, as well as the ability to slow down and articulate his thought processes clearly. As far as the projects and exercises go, they are definitely no cakewalk. Especially with the projects in the later half of the course, a student can spend more than 6 hours on a feature without good prior planning and prioritisation. The challenging assignments are definitely not a flaw of the course - you can definitely embark on them using just the material learnt in class. It just takes mastery of the content to attempt the "More Comfortable" exercises efficiently. It's an eye-opener to try building complicated pieces of logic using just simple syntax like loops and conditionals. Should you get the chance to attempt the more difficult problem sets in each project or exercise, please do so. It really forces you to know the ins-and-outs of your JavaScript data types. Rigour-wise, I dare say SWE101 is comparable to the equivalent of CS101 in top CS universities, having taken a few of such courses myself. Clearly, the course is structured more vocationally than theoretically. Thus, unlike a university's CS101, you will not be covering the basic algorithms and data structures in SWE101 yet. Regardless, the instructors are either veterans in the industry or former students in top CS universities, and the quality of the instruction is excellent. They are knowledgable with the latest JavaScript specifications (ES2015 and beyond), and I used the course and tapped their minds to begin familiarising with some of these. If there's a (minor) nitpick of this course, it is that I wished more time can be dedicated to addressing pseudo-code, tracing, rubber duck debugging, prioritisation, and other similar planning processes outside of entering your code editor and writing code. Currently, these topics are covered in a couple of lectures, but I feel more can be explored in the various ways people trace or write pseudo-code (even outside the code, such as planning the flow with just a pen and paper). However, perhaps it may be impossible to structure formal lectures around these topics. After all, everyone will have various strategies for prioritising and planning logic, and it may be too early to introduce them to new students who may believe the methodologies taught are the only ways to plan or prioritise. Also, mastery in planning and prioritising code takes a lot of practice, and maybe the only way to be better is attempting and experimenting with self-designed methodologies instead of blindly reading more about them. Moreover, I feel the later-half of the curriculum should gradually ease students into more additional readings of documentations, for instance JavaScript data types and methods such as https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array#, or introducing some of Rocket Academy's "approved" documentation platforms. Documentation reading, or even picking the appropriate documentation, is an important skill set for developers, new or otherwise. More examples of how to pick the correct documentation, and methodologies for deciding when the content of a documentation is "sufficient", "too complex" or "more beginner-friendly" will be helpful. Having access and getting acquainted to these documentations early on will also make some of the more challenging exercises accessible. As mentioned, you can definitely build complex pieces of logic from the ground-up using the simpler syntax taught like loops and conditionals. However, you may not want to re-invent the wheel for more complex systems - sometimes, it is much quicker to use in-built prototype functions. My counter-argument to introducing documentation reading methodologies in SWE101: it can be a dilemma deciding if documentation reading is too early a concept to be introduced here. For newer students, verbose documentations may only serve to confuse, or worse, cause them to use certain functions blindly without understanding these black boxes. Job support isn't readily available for SWE101 students yet, so I am reserving my judgment until I have embarked on SWE1. Despite that, Kai (Rocket Academy's founder) has been active on the Slack channel, frequently posting industry updates as well as any interesting job postings or tech events he knows, open to all Rocket Academy students (SWE101 or SWE1 alike). Overall, I had a really pleasant experience with Rocket Academy's SWE101 and it really challenged me to question some of my prior understanding of coding fundamentals and JavaScript. I will definitely be recommending this to people learning to code, or simply brushing up their programming fundamentals. Really looking forward to my sabbatical doing SWE1, and any more challenging work in the bootcamp.

Rocket Academy has extremely capable educators who spend time and effort to get you up to speed with learning. Small class sizes and helpful team mates and teachers will definitely get you up to speed with whatever you are learning. Content is structured... Read More clearly, and the teachers are definitely well versed in their craft. Assignments can get hard ( not spoon fed), suggest you just ask for help when you are stuck, instead of spending too many hours on a specific problem in order to maximise use of time. Big thumbs up to the educators Kai and Akira! Thanks for the course!

The course set out to teach beginners the fundamentals of coding and get them somewhat comfortable with using the basics of javascript. Throughout the weeks, the curriculum was well-paced and the projects given allowed us to make use of the concepts learnt.... Read More

Pros: + Instructors are knowledgeable and helpful! They were always happy to walk through difficult problems with us + Classmates are from diverse backgrounds and levels of proficiency. + I feel that it is a safe learning environment to ask openly ask... Read More questions/clarify doubts + At the end of the course I had a better understanding about how to think like a programmer and use the range of tools (git + github, javascript, vscode) + I found it intellectually stimulating - I personally like this! Cons: + Learning curve could be steep - be prepared to commit time and effort to the learning journey!

The lesson material and the class size (10-12) was very conducive for learning! The teachers, Kai & Akira, are also extremely helpful. Overall, swe101 is great for people who are considering a career switch into software engineering and want a quick peek.... Read More

Pros • You get to learn from experienced programmers who have real world experience. • The class size is not too big. • Many exercises for you to flex your coding skills depending on your ability. • Pair programming trains you to work with other people... Read More and solve problems together • Get to meet people from different backgrounds but similar interest Cons • Most of the questions or exercises require quite a bit of thought to work through, be prepared to spend time doing the work • Not for someone with zero knowledge of coding.

Pros are: - Learning without being spoon fed, makes for a more thorough understanding of the material. A bit of initiative is required to complete some assignments. - Support from instructors readily available, even outside of office hours - No boring... Read More lectures to contend with Cons: - More reference material could be provided, apart from material provided for classes (which is great, by the way)

I started with absolutely no knowledge in coding but this program made it easy to learn from scratch. The teachers explain all my questions thoroughly and even answer my questions outside teaching hours. The exercises can be quite challenging but I always... Read More feel supported by my teachers and classmates. Overall, loved this program and felt like I learnt a lot in only 6 weeks :). Definitely will recommend to any who wants to learning more about coding :).

I attended this bootcamp in the hopes of getting an introduction to JavaScript, however, picked up alot more than just language syntax. The applications of SWE101 due to the projects & content leads one to think of programming from first-principles first... Read More rather than being focused on just picking up a language. The content supports this very well as only JavaScript-specific syntax is carefully introduced at the right time - this has allowed me to focus more on the foundations rather than being to engrossed in a specific language. My experience with both instructors Kai & Akira has been a pleasant one. They were always willing to listen & then answer in a way that not only addresses the issue at hand, but also causes you to think more high-level/big-picture; as how a programmer should think.