Actualize

I could not speak more highly of Actualize, and my instructor Katherine, who led my evening cohort. I went into this course worried I’d struggle to stay engaged given that it was 3.5 hours after a full work day, but Katherine was extremely engaging and... Read More brought so much energy to the class every single day, it was much easier than I had anticipated. Structurally, it was a good mix of learning via demos and and actually coding ourselves and working with our classmates. We had a 9:1 ratio + TAs, which worked well and our questions were always answered.

I chose Actualize after several weeks of researching coding bootcamps. After narrowing my search down to 4 schools, I settled on Actualize. Throughout the reviews, one theme remained the same about Actualize…Student Focus. Student after student kept commenting... Read More about the instructors genuinely cared about the growth and development of the students. And I can say I experienced that personally. My experience at Actualize was phenomenal. The program is not easy by any means, but it is very rewarding and the knowledge you walk away with is abundant. I would recommend this program to anyone that is seeking a career in software development.

Katherine Evans, my professor, was a literal angel. She led with confidence and had a very kind and funny demeanor. DJ and Matt, former graduates, were theee best TA's anyone could ask for. My class, the evening cohort, was full of unique, creative, determined... Read More individuals looking for a change. This was one of the best experiences of my life and I would recommend it to anyone. You can do this.

After months and months of researching coding bootcamps, reading reviews online (reddit, on here, etc.) I could not decide on one based on how polarizing the reviews were for almost every major bootcamp out there. But after being on Course Report one... Read More day and somehow landing on Actualize, I was highly impressed by the reviews from previous students and TAs. After researching Actualize more and interviewing with them, I decided to commit. I signed up for the full time bootcamp and it was a great decision! The format of the bootcamp kind of moves a bit fast in the beginning (especially as someone with very low previous coding knowledge), but with the resources they provide it helps you accommodate quite quickly. The office hours, the practice during class, the one on ones with your instructor, all begin helping you feel more comfortable with coding each day as you move forward through the bootcamp. I know there are sooo many different bootcamps out there with different formats, curriculums, etc., but this one worked for me and would definitely recommend it to anyone out there ready to get their feet wet with web development and coding. My instructor and TAs helped us form good coding habits all bootcamp long for our success moving forward. You definitely will not learn everything you need to learn in 12 weeks about full stack web development, but it was enough structure and motivation for me to individually continue moving forward. You get the resources to continue learning, practice coding, and begin searching for careers in software development after the 12 weeks. They will help you find a job to if you are truly committed!

I just finished this Bootcamp today, and I definitely recommend it. Everything about it was exactly what I was looking for, and reviews I read for the course were very accurate, which is what lead me to pick this course in the first place. If you have... Read More read older reviews about Actualize, I can vouch for what most of them say. It was fun, informative, challenging, and all the other things everyone else has said. Joey was my instructor, and he was great. Surprisingly, it was his first time teaching an Actualize class, but he was born for the role.

I did the online (full-time) bootcamp that ended in July of 2022. I had worked as a Product Manager for 1.5 years before the bootcamp began, and I was looking to gain the technical know-how to become an even better PM, so I wasn't like most of the other... Read More students who were looking at getting full-time developer jobs after the bootcamp. I didn't want to do a bootcamp that was 8am - 8pm where you just watch videos and work on projects. I'd heard horror stories from two friends who went to bootcamps that were bought by PE firms, so I knew I wanted a bootcamp that was intensive and owned by the founder(s), but not crazy time - intensive. Pros: 1) Great experience: overall I'd say it was a 10/10. I would definitely do the bootcamp over again if I were given the opportunity to do so. You go from knowing close to nothing about coding to being able to code fullstack applications on your own. 2) Great day-to-day: The day-to-day was really engaging and had a nice mix of live-teaching, exercises, and project work. The breaks made it so that you didn't get tired. The 11am start (CT) allowed me to work out in the morning and practice some coding. 3) Amazing Instructor: Joey was phenomenal! He was engaging and very knowledgable. Having gone through the bootcamp himself several years back, he had some great insights. The TAs were great too, but the instructor (Joey) was the MVP. Cons: 1) Pre-Work & Homework: The Pre-Work portion for Ruby & JavaScript were very helpful, and prepared me well for the first 6 weeks of the course. The Pre-Work for HTML/CSS was minimal, and when we jumped into the Vue JS portion, you could tell some people (including myself) were struggling given the lack of knowledge in HTML/CSS. I'd recommend anybody signing up for Actualize to take the Codecademy HTML/CSS courses before the live portion of the bootcamp begins. The homework was solid, but I wish we had a small primer on what was going to be taught the following day. A 15 - 30 min primer would help students to be better prepared for the material taught the following class.

I am transitioning to a new career as a web developer after my wife took a bootcamp, and I couldn't be happier with Actualize. I got to know my classmates, instructor, and was able to learn so much in so little time while also feeling accountable to the... Read More people around me. I had a ton of support both from the career advisor, TAs, and instructor. They truly care about you learning the material and getting the career you want. I would recommend to anyone looking for some guidance.

Actualize is one bootcamp among many with ostensibly comparable curricula. The course currently focuses on Ruby on Rails for backend and Vue.js (Vue 3) for frontend development, though they're always making tweaks and updates to stay current. It's organized... Read More very rationally into three sections: pre-work, live instruction, and the job search. Live instruction is typically the 'meat' of what people are looking for in coding bootcamp, often giving less consideration to incoming skill level or the real-life challenge of finding a job after the live course. The staff at Actualize are available to guide and support you all the way through, whether you're coming in with significant coding knowledge or none. Pre-work is self-paced and teaches fundamentals of Ruby programming. Live instruction is taught by one of several lead instructors (who may or may not have some great terrible jokes for the class) with additional TAs available to answer questions, and goes into some level of depth on backend and frontend web development. I was in a cohort of 12 and there was nearly always one TA in class with us, which is a significantly better student-to-teacher ratio than some other programs I researched. Live instruction was somewhat less intensive than I expected, but there's a good deal of suggested/optional homework to both review in-class material and explore topics in more depth, if you have the time and/or energy for it. I'm moving into the job search phase now, which includes specific instruction along with one-on-one support for as long as you need. Sure, I could likely have learned much of this material on my own from various online resources, but if you get overwhelmed with the universe of material that's out there, don't know where to start, need to be held accountable by real human beings or just know you do better in class settings, this might be for you. I can't speak to the full extent of career support at this point, but the knowledge that I will have access to career advisors and the Actualize alumni community for as long as I need, I have a feeling that will be a truly invaluable resource.

I chose Actualize because they emphasized long-term learning over teaching too many technologies in the short term. I'm leaving the bootcamp with strong foundational knowledge I can use to learn new technologies independently. I found that to be a lot... Read More more valuable than getting exposed to too many things and not understanding how to continue learning independently post-bootcamp. Our instructor also took the time to gauge how we were feeling about certain topics and would spend an extra day diving a little deeper if we needed. Our feedback, confusion, and questions were taken seriously, and he took the time to thoroughly explains things to us or change up the schedule a little to fit our needs. During the bootcamp, I experienced varying levels of doubt/imposter syndrome in myself and the work I was completing. The best choice I made was to voice these concerns with my instructor, teaching assistants, and career advisor. No matter how many times I reached out, they were incredibly supportive and encouraging. They really helped with putting my fears into perspective so I could grow past them. Although it's not an easy process, I felt as though I had the right people in my corner to bolster me up when needed, and I'm incredibly thankful for that. I would recommend Actualize to anyone who wants to enter a bootcamp with a strong support system of instructors, teaching assistants, and career advisors to foster long-term success.

This course was great. I took another course similar to this one before, and I think it is beyond great. The teachers are very friendly, have tons of variety of knowledge, and the class material was very thoughtful. I can implement more complicated functions... Read More than ever.