App Academy

It was a rigorous and fast-paced boot camp program with a lot of assessments to get you up to speed on the curriculum. You do end up learning a lot and the projects you do towards the end of the program are really worth-while. The pair programming experience... Read More is rewarding and gears you towards working in a team. There are good instructors to help whenever you get stuck.

It would be good if they upgrade the curriculum and possibly have some tie-ups with companies & recruiters to make job search easier.

Full disclosure: AppAcademy promised my a hoodie for this review.

As we took the program, every week aA has asked from 1-10 how likely we would be
to recommend it to a friend. Every week I have answered 10/10, and I still would.

I came to aA after having... Read More studied CS formally, as well as having a lot of experience
working as a developer in the past, just looking to reskill to keep up with the
industry. This is not the story for most students, and you certainly don't need
prior experience to succeed, although you will probably have to put in more effort
before-hand to ensure you understand the basics.

AA is as difficult as everyone says. I have probably spent 100-120 hours working
on material every week since the program started to keep up with the readings.
Expect to spend every waking minute once you start doing nothing but studying or
coding. Your life will be AA; it is a bootcamp after all. No nights, no weekends,
no holidays (we were expected to come in Memorial day).

You will come out of this knowing how to develop a full stack application, as well
as have a portfolio of several projects to show an employer. You will learn a few
basic CS concepts (a very small introduction to DS/A), but without college experience
you will probably need to spend a bit of time doing additional independent study
after the cohort, during interview prep. Compared to a college degree where you will
learn more of the academic CS concepts, but have a lot less to actually show.

You will also get through this much faster, and cheaper, than going for a four year degree.
I personally feel that actually being able to build a real app, something a lot of college
curricula spend too little time focusing on, is a huge advantage over traditional study.

There are a few negatives. Most of the project work you complete before your fullstack
project will not actually be usable for portfolios, although it will teach you a lot.
You will not always get a good pair, although almost everyone you work with will become
your closest friends for the next 12 weeks. There are also some policies that could use
some reworking. Prior to my application, it was not clear that the program also had a
preliminary "foundations" course, four weeks of self directed study to prep for the
program (which you absolutely need to do if you don't have experience!! make sure you
are comfortable with this material on day 1 of in person), and this could have been
made more transparent prior to applying. Some of the material is a bit outdated, which
is expected given how fast technologies evolve and new versions come out. The curricula
is constantly under development, but some aspects may lag slightly behind.

I still say, given the choice between this and a CS degree, this will be more useful to
you practically, as you will actually be building real applications in what is equivalent
to less than a semester of college. AA is extremely prestigious, and I would not have
decided to come here if I wasn't going to be proud to include it on my Resume.

I attended the program in spring of 2019 and loved it. You need to prepare for a few months before by studying javascript and ruby basics, but if you prepare enough, you'll do fine. Be ready for an intense 12 weeks. If you put in the work required, you... Read More will be successful.

I appreciated the structure of learning each subject. You will read and watch videos the night before, then lecture on the topic the next morning, and a project tailored to that topic in the afternoon.

Disclaimer: Being compensated with a hoodie on graduation for this review.

App Academy has a 12 week intensive bootcamp program to prepare people for fullstack web development. It is a bootcamp (read: fast-paced and intensive), and will take up your life... Read More for the entire time you're there until you get a job. The TAs and lecturers are all students from prior cohorts so they have experienced what you will be going through, but they are software engineers at heart as well. The culture is great, and the pair programming experience is a fantastic way to develop your collaboration skills.

That being said, it is a bootcamp, and not for everyone. I've personally spent about 10-12 hours daily on campus, the majority of the time studying/working on projects. The curriculum is fast paced and rigorous, and you will live assessment by assessment. The Ruby curriculum is much better than the JavaScript curriculum, despite JavaScript being the more popular language by far. The time allocated for the three major projects seemed too restricting, despite the repeated emphasis of the importance of team projects. On top of that, the JavaScript curriculum is taught as ES6, but most of the resources given are for ES4 and ES5.

TL;DR - It's a bootcamp, be prepared for many hours of work

Overall I'm happy with my experience as an App Academy student! The staff are very engaged and truly focused on the success and learning of their students. The curriculum spends time covering concepts but also requires projects to rebuild the concept... Read More so that your understanding goes into what is occurring behind the scenes and not just the use behind it. A lot of effort is placed to provide students the resources required to learn the material, either staying late or volunteering their time over the weekends when students can come in to study. While I still have things to learn before I probably will be hired full time, aA provided me all the tools and skills necessary to achieve my goal of becoming a software engineer!

There are many positive things about App Academy. I will begin by saying that the program is absolutely as rigorous as it is advertised to be. That said, you will certainly get out of it what you put in, and the opportunity to learn a great deal in a... Read More very short amount of time is certainly, at least to an extent, dependent upon how much effort and time you are able to put in. For me, App Academy was certainly a life changing experience, and I would do it all over again if I had to. But the reality is that it is not for everyone, and the demanding curriculum and constant threat of being expelled are important considerations for anyone thinking about taking the dive with a/A.

I can confidently say that the first few weeks of the curriculum are very well organized. While the pace is aggressive, the structure is easy to follow, and the TAs are an invaluable resource. A majority of the day is spent pair programming with other members of your cohort, and asking questions is probably the primary way that you will learn the material. You quickly move from Ruby, to SQL, and on to Rails, before you run into something of a slowdown with the Javascript curriculum. Once you enter the land of JS, the instruction on projects becomes muddled, at times lacking, and is often just flat outdated. I understand that a shift away from Rails to more relevant frameworks and libraries will be a process. But it is unfortunate.

I will close by stressing that if you decide to take the leap and attend a/A, be ready to put everything else on the back burner. You will be tested and pushed to your limits often, but if you are able to meet the demands, then it can be a truly rewarding experience.

- The curriculum moves fast, but there's great, knowledgeable staff who will make themselves available to help you learn.
- You pair program for the first 7 weeks, everyday, until you reach your full stack project where you'll get to create your own apps.... Read More
- You'll spend all your waking hours dedicated to the curriculum, don't expect to have a life.
- You'll learn through repetition - read the material, watch the material, sit in the lecture to clarify the material, and hands-on practicing the material.

Pros:
- Fellow classmates are all amazing people (in my case), the time spent day by day is made easier when everyone is working towards the same goal
- Curriculum is in depth, but what you get out of it is dependent on how much you are willing to work... Read More
- Amazing instructors and teaching assistants, all of the staff here are knowledgable and overall just amazing people
Cons:
- A lot of material is thrown at you fast, along with assessments, homework, and projects the amount of work can lead to burn out if you don't take care of yourself
- Material is a bit outdated, ruby is on its way out and it would've been more beneficial if they utilized a more modern language to start learning with

TA's are very helpful at App Academy, the curriculum is up to date with industry standards, and the deferred tuition model attracts many top talent. That being said, App Academy is a valid path to full stack development, or perhaps aspiring software engineers.... Read More Overall, my experience was amazing !