App Academy

Attending App Academy has been an overall good experience. It can be ROUGH at times (puts the boot in the world bootcamp) but it really teaches you a LOT and prepares you as best as a person could possibly be to go from 0 to developer in 3 months. I feel... Read More like part of the experience is being around other cool aspiring developers as well, it's something that you can't really replicate with just some kind of online class or something like that.

One of the best decisions I've ever made. In going to app academy, I've surrounded myself with ambitious intelligent people who constantly push me to do better.

The program is rigorous, but the difficulty definitely breeds camaraderie with your cohort-mates.... Read More A few areas of improvement: Ruby on Rails is trending downwards, would loved to have learned Node.js or Go as a backend framework. Also be prepared to go farther with Algorithms & Data Structures than the curriculum as of writing.

App academy has positioned me well to succeed. I don't regret it one bit.

The curriculum starts off basic, but is very fast paced. You'll be pushed to your limits and will sometimes not be able to take in everything. Unless you're already a developer and have had job experience in web development, you will not be able to get... Read More by with just 40-60 hours a week of working. 80-100 Hour weeks are more close to what you will be experiencing as you get busy. Saying that is was a very rewarding experience, filled with great TAs and other students as well. I don't have as much to say about the job search side yet, besides Eli is great, but it's only about a 2 week curriculum so you'll have to practice a lot of the skills there on your own.

App Academy is a great program for those who haven't had too much experience in software development. The whole course goes through Ruby, Rails, JS, React, then a full stack project and a MERN stack project. There's also a vanilla JS project at the end.... Read More You'll learn a ton from the projects and TAs are always around to help you if you have any questions.

Some warnings though, the program is no joke. You'll be spending around 100 hours a week sometimes just working on your projects, and projects are expected to be completed over weekends as well. In addition, the last couple weeks which are dedicated to projects are not as structured as the first 9 or so weeks. This means that you'll have to make sure you're organized enough to keep yourself on schedule since there's always a new topic every day.

Be ready to give up everything else that is going on in your life, this course needs 100% of your time. They aren't lying when they say the course can take up to 100 hours a week.

The teaching is solid and all of the other students are serious about what... Read More they are doing and are really smart and capable people. In regards to the curriculum, ruby is a great language to learn the fundamentals of programming. With that said I don't think that it's very useful to teach us about rails when the last few weeks we barely have enough time to learn MERN stack, which seems to be the more relevant stack in the industry now.

App Academy is great, but the results depend on the amount of work you are willing to put in. The pace is rigorous, and it gets more rigorous from day one. Do not expect to get through a/A without significant effort.

If you have a habit of procrastination,... Read More don’t worry. You won’t have enough time to procrastinate at App Academy.

Your instructors are, friendly, knowledgeable, and fantastic at explaining the material. Your peers are some of the most talented and hard working people you will ever meet. And if you’ve done the work, by the end of the program you will be a software developer.

Let me first start with this... this boot camp IS NOT for everyone. What I mean by that is that IT IS intense. You will be stressed out by the amount of work you have to do, the lack of time (or at least the feeling of it) and ultimately the strictness... Read More that is enforced.

There is a device & attendance strike system (that could lead to dismissal) to make sure people aren't being distracted by their phones, laptops, whatever instead of doing their work. This can be a pro or a con depending on your perspective. They WILL dismiss you if you fail 2 of the 6 assessments that happen within the first 5-1/2 weeks. Curriculum topics change every 1 to 1.5 weeks. If you're completely new to programming, there isn't much time to deeply absorb the topics before moving on to another one.

From a materials standpoint, some of the videos, articles, and information that they use is between 3-5 years old. That's ancient in the world of tech. At times, the instructions used in pair programming or for the projects (or the homework) can be vague & unintentionally (or intentionally?) misleading. Often times I was frustrated by how little focus the work presented seemed to have.

There were a few times where it felt less like inspiration/motivation and more like scare-tactics were used to get people to do their work. The assessments carry so much weight that a few of my classmates failed because they freaked out during the test and couldn't recover. The instructors tell you to "make sure you sleep", "take care of yourself", etc. But then there's a timed assessment that basically dictates your future looming over your head. And every day is regimented, scheduled, lectured and pre-determined for you, that there isn't time to catch up from anything in the previous days.

This all may sound scary, and intimidating or more like a military boot camp, than a coding one (I sometimes wonder if that's really what they're going for), but after the assessments are done, and the weight of dismissal has been lifted, things start to make sense. Around Week 7/8 is when you start to build your fullstack project. For me at least, this is where all the pieces began to come together. Each of the topics that we learned finally had a place, and while you still don't know everything about any of it all, you have at least a base understanding that you can build from. You can start to ask questions about where to begin, where to go, what you want to do, etc.

To be clear, the level of knowledge that you gain once the first 9 weeks are done WILL allow you to build a fullstack, fully working app. Will it be the next Facebook, Google, Instagram or Snapchat? Highly unlikely, but you now have a solid foundation that could possibly get you there.

All in all, my outlook on the program is that I didn't much care for certain portions of it while going through it, but I am thankful for being shown the frustrations, intricacies and the BS that comes with web development. As they say, "what doesn't dismiss you from bootcamp, only makes you a stronger software dev" (or something like that ;-) ).

So to conclude, this school isn't for everyone, it doesn't need to be. If you thrive in pressure or at least know yourself well enough to be able to work through intense situations, then this may be for you. Just know that it's not going to be pretty. It's not going to be easy. But if you make it through, you should feel rewarded.

DISCLAIMER: I'm currently in the job search portion of the curriculum, so I cannot fully give an opinion on this piece yet. I will update this review (if I can) once I've had some exposure to that side of things.

App Academy has been a great experience! It's a tough, fast Bootcamp and it's extremely rewarding. The instructors are awesome and the curriculum moves at a rapid pace. After a few months, you'll be surprised at how much you've learned. I tried teaching... Read More myself (to no avail) and had already surpassed my prior knowledge within the first week in class.

On top of that, they dedicate a good portion of your time in class to building up your portfolio and skills for the job search.

The most intensive coding experience you can have, even for someone with previous coding experience!
A lot to learn, ruby rails javascript react and a lot of pair programming.
In addition to learning to code you will learn how to communicate your ideas,... Read More how to study for a do or die test under a lot of pressure, and how to survive and thrive with a 100+ hours a week workload.
Pros:
* A lot of pair programming with awesome people
* Top notch training for algorithms and user authentication
* Rewarding and expansive final projects
* Any other challenge will pale in comparison
* You will be pushed to become amazing
* Bonding with classmates

Cons:
* Some people don't make it! (Don't pass the assessments)
* Its TOO intense maybe. You will suffer! (but worth it)