App Academy

Supportive instructors and TAs who care about your learning process. Good explanations and curriculum, even though the pace is fast and rigorous, but that's why it's a bootcamp. The structure of each day is pretty good and kept my time well-managed. Cohort... Read More mates were very friendly and generous to work with, so it made my time at App Academy more enjoyable than expected! Made fun projects as well.

Though one of the more stressful and intensive times of my life, attending App Academy was definitely one of the best investments I've made. Prior to a/A, I did not have any technical coding experience other than small little resources online and through... Read More eBooks. The curriculum was pretty fast paced, but definitely manageable as long as you're putting in the work. They warned us that throughout this bootcamp, you will live and breathe code, and they were not wrong. I clocked in over 80 hours of work every week, but this amount of effort probably wasn't necessary just to simply pass the weekly assessments. Instructional staff were all very nice, understandable, and willing to help. Definitely take advantage of the TA's and ask for help! I made the mistake of wanting to try to figure things out myself, but my time would have been saved if I just called in a TA and ask for help. MAKE SURE TO EXERCISE PENCILED IN YOUR SCHEDULE; you will be sitting all day. Make friends! Coding is more fun with a small group than with yourself. Also encourage people to work with their classmates to learn about their perspectives and their way to doing things. In regards to a/A's downsides, there were a couple typos in the curriculum. Another downside would be the transition between each module. When you get near the end of a module, you start to get used to your instructor, and right when you get comfortable, you move on to a new module with a brand new instructor, and you get right into work. Overall, great experience!

I really enjoyed my time at App Academy. It was an amazing experience for six months. I loved the staff, they were all very welcoming and understanding. They also provided resources for outside of study materials. App Academy gave me access to a therapist... Read More and it really helped my mental health during the boot camp. I also appreciate the new friends I have made in the boot camp. I came in with the expectation of not making new friends or getting close with anyone but I am glad I was completely wrong. I know that I enjoyed my time during App Academy due to the staff and friends I have made. I would always look forward to attending class and working with new people every day. The only con was the long time commitment of six months but it was definitely worth every second. I would recommend this course to others any time.

App Academy is great in that it provides structure, a great curriculum, and a foundation that allows anybody to become a programmer. I had no prior knowledge in coding and did not know how to code at all. App academy's structure provides a great foundation... Read More for students who do not know how to code. Their emphasis is that they want you to learn and understand rather than go through the curriculum. They implement this by having weekly assessments, that'll determine whether the student understands the topic enough to move onto the next topic. I would suggest that if you're not ready to devote your time to study outside of the curriculum then you will not pass. You're given three deferrals and if you don't pass the third time then you're out of the program. Another pro about the program is that it provides a lot of help in the job search when you graduate. Overall, I would say that app academy does a great job in providing the education, care and support for those that want to learn and will put in the effort to learn as much as possible.

It was an amazing experience for me to be able to learn how to code without any prior knowledge. In addition to meeting amazing people, I learned how to code and developed my technical skills. The App Academy was intense and fast-paced because they were... Read More trying to teach so much material within 4 months, so you might not fully understand all the concepts right away, but it builds that foundation so you can review it later. The working environment at my first job as a software engineer was very similar to App Academy's structure, which emphasizes adapting and learning new technologies along with pair programming. Overall, App Academy was an amazing experience where I was able to meet new people, learn how to code, and land my first role as a software engineer.

Pros: Really dive deep into the ins and outs of coding. A lot of my classmates came from a non-engineering background and we were able to follow along. The support given after bootcamp was amazing. You have your own career coach who helps you with the... Read More job process. My coach helped me navigate negotiating salary when I got my job offer 1 and a half months after I graduated. Cons: Long Long Long study hours during class, after class, after program ends. I was waking up at 7AM to study until 9AM. 9AM-6PM is class and then 6AM - 1AM studying. Curriculum is about the same at every bootcamp. A easy to learn backend language and React/Redux/Javascript for the frontend.

The program is pretty intensive, given that it's a full time commitment. This said, the staff really do a good job of walking through the day to day and the ever-improving curriculum prepares you from any beginner level to being ready to apply for jobs... Read More right out of bootcamp.

I joined App Academy with no prior coding experience and I believe that I came out with a solid understanding of web development. The program was no small feat and you definitely need to put in the work, but for as little as just 4 months of your time,... Read More it was for sure worth it! Probably the biggest skill that I've learned early on in the program was how to use the debugger. This allowed me to debug my code as well as other people's code and figure out what every single line of code is doing. Definitely a great tool for beginners if they want strong fundamentals and a better understanding of the code that they write.

Pros: 3 different complete projects. Each one significantly different from the other. Two are fullstack apps, one using MERN and the other Ruby on Rails. The last is a frontend only javascript app. 2 languages. You learn basics of programming in ruby... Read More and then switch in the middle to javascript. You are forced to learn a new language in a short amount of time which I can attest is very helpful in the real world. Cons: Staffing issues, students are finding jobs and the teacher positions can't compete.

App Academy has team of instructors who give lectures on SW topics and help with projects. These instructors and the job search coaches are recent graduates from AA who are also doing their own job search. The projects were fun to work on and helped me... Read More put into practice the knowledge and skills that I was gaining from the curriculum and from working with other peers. AA makes sure you adhere to deadlines and stay on top of your projects and job search. This bootcamp is useful if you need some extra encouragement and direction in software engineering. On the curriculum: You will learn Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SQL, Active Record, JavaScript, React and Redux. There is very little on CS topics and ultimately when you finish the curriculum, they tell you to go back and study data structures and algorithms on your own and via LeetCode because that is what companies will interview you on. There is an assessment almost every week for the first 2 months and will have very thorough practice tests and some will just be a simple practice test. Instructors will tell you to do each practice test at least 10x over the weekend and the assessments are mostly memorization of material. Every night there is homework to do each night to prep you for the project you will do pair programming with the next day. The quality of this material can vary greatly from topic to topic. Post curriculum: Once you finish the 16-week curriculum, you have to do 3 projects (JavaScript, Fullstack and MERN, with MERN being a group project) which will become your portfolio projects. Once these are done, their job search team will guide you through the process of making job search materials. This will includes resume, cover letter, portfolio website, creating GitHub, LinkedIn and AngelList profiles, and how to give a personal pitch. So far I have received wonderful feedback from coaches (also past graduates). For those who are good at self study, you probably won't need AA because their curriculum is the same as their free online curriculum, or other free resources online. Communication with their team can be disorganized as they don't have a consistent platform to share information (including what is expected of each student). There were a couple things that caught us off guard and was a bit frustrating: * We were initially told passing scores for assessments are 50% but once you start, they tell you its 85% * They do not use Slack Premium, so you will not be able to look at communication that is over 1 week old * Deadlines for various tasks may be given in Zoom chats, Slack or verbally (inconsistent) - It would have been best if they used email * They have a bot that emails nightly with information needed but they are not updated - often we received deadlines for previous cohorts * All marketing says it's a 16-week program but after the 16-weeks, they begin the job search period which you are still required to attend for at least the first couple weeks after graduation, meaning you can't make vacation plans, this should have been better communicated prior to signing onto bootcamp Ultimately, it depends on what you want to get out of a bootcamp. They provide a set curriculum and structure for those who need it, which I like to have. I really enjoyed meeting people from a very diverse collection of backgrounds and learning from each of them. I also had a lot of fun using the knowledge learned to do the final projects. Since instructors are past grads, there is quite a bit of turnover and I think each cohort's experience will vary greatly depending on the team of instructors. It's a very good start for anyone who doesn't have a technical background and doesn't know how to start, or what materials to study on their own.