Byte Academy

By way of background, I am product professional at startup in NYC. I took the class with the hope that I could communicate more effectively with the engineers I work with.

I came away with much more. Currently, I am working with our machine learning specialist... Read More to build out the front-end for our own suite of internal tools. The instructors are phenomenal: They are knowledgeable, a lot of fun to be around, and will give help at almost any hour of the day. I plan to keep coming back to byte academy - both for additional classes & to hang out.

Byte Academy holds my highest recommendation.

I took the part time fintech program and was immediately impressed by both the caliber of instructors and their willingness to allow you to wade right into the deep end on any topic. I was not the best coder to begin with by far but that never impacted... Read More the attention or efforts of the teachers who went out of their way to drag me through the mud on more than one occasion. You will learn how to code and more importantly how to think like a developer. They give you the tools to succeed it's up to you to decide if you want to make use of them. Well worth the time and cash. I walked away with a new skill set and new career opportunities.

A childhood friend of mine told me that he was planning on attending Byte, in July (2016), and I decided to check the place out. I'll never forget how much Tom, an instructor at the time, and Kai, the head of admissions, didn't try to sell me on enrollment.... Read More It's kind of hard to explain, but it was like they were indifferent as to whether or not I ended up going, and that's -- perhaps counterintuitively-- what sold me.

I can't remember exactly when this was (it's mid-January, now), but I remember not doing much of the pre-course work. My friend was on top of it, from the start, but I thought that the bootcamp was going to be more or less of a cake-walk because I was developing websites with WordPress / managing my own servers, for a few years before I attended. I ended up paying for it the first month; if there's any advice I have to offer it's: 1) choose Byte and 2) do the pre-work.

I touched on Rak and Cody (my fin. and tech. instructors, respectively) in a review on Byte's website, but I'll mention them, here, too; if I had to choose one phrase to sum both of them up it'd be: "world class." I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I've been through a myriad of educational experiences (attending boarding school in South Korea, conducting research sponsored by General Electric, etc.) and this-- by far and away-- was the best educational experience of my life.

That's not to say that it isn't grueling. The first month can be a dog. I thought that I'd be the big-swinging-dick at Byte when I first signed up because of my experience developing WordPress themes and plugins, but I was leagues behind my peers for the entirety of the first month (en serio: do the pre-work). I think, in retrospect, that I thought that the rest of my cohort would be a bunch of chumps, but, as it turned out, every person in my cohort ended up having a work history that'd make your dick shrivel (investment banker at Credit Suisse, cryptolinguist at the National Security Agency, etc.) and, in my opinion, there's nothing better-- whether you're trying to become a better athlete or a better programmer-- than to be surrounded by your betters.

I wasn't on the struggle bus forever, either. I ended up getting an open-source project off the ground and speaking to a bunch of people about it at DigitalOcean's headquarters. It's still pretty small, but I feel like it's one of happening things at the crossroads of financial technology and we've even had the C.E.O. of Investopedia come by Byte, as part of the project's speaker series, to talk about his experiences in the industry. The project actually shares the name of a WordPress-based project that I demo-ed at DisruptNY's hackathon in 2015, and in a strange way, I feel like something about this anecdote sums up my opinion of Byte; it's something like a bridge: between what was and what could be.

It's a weird thing, to look back, you know? I mean, I read every single review on Course Report, and every other website that I could find, before I took the leap. I was hungry, man. I was f***ing rabid. I don't even know what this means, but I wanted "to know."

I took a moment to re-read what I'd written and the album "Is This It" came to mind. I was about to plug my headphones into my laptop and pull it up on Spotify, but I started to think about why the album came to mind in the first place as I reflected on what I meant when I wrote "I wanted 'to know'" I realized that that's exactly what I was asking myself right around the time in my life when my friend told me that he was going to go to Byte. You've really got to look inward before you take the leap. Three months can seem like a long time if you aren't ready for a lot of change, but if you're right head-space: it'll go by in the blink of an eye.

Switchup Full Disclosure: After graduating from the program, this student worked for this school.

pros:
some good teachers here, really know their stuff
convenient location in midtown
one of the only places that teaches python
small cohorts of ~5 students
somewhat cheaper than other bootcamps

cons:
business/management side of things are pretty shifty/shitty... Read More
not transparent about anything and their answer is "we're a startup"
rather unorganized- lectures happen whenever and topics tend to jump quickly
no building pass even though classroom is open 24/7... wtf
careers person doesn't seem to understand the tech world, just networking
TAs are hit or miss
their "fintech" and "medtech" tracks are a joke... they don't exist.
random co-working space startup guy tries to poach students as volunteer interns their first week of classes

3 phases -

Prepwork: (4/5) Great but it needs to be harder and more thorough. I believe they are working on it now.

Phase 1: (5/5) Very happy. It's a good introduction to Python and they go over pretty much all the basic/some intermediate stuff. They could... Read More give more work for the prep work so students can study more advanced topics during class. I highly advise to study Python and finish the prep work.

Phase 2: (4/5) Pure web development, Javascript, HTML, CSS. It is good, they go over everything. I would have liked to see more in the prep work considering the fast pace. I prepared accordingly for the Python part and I would have liked to do the same for the web development stuff. I felt lost at times. Just a suggestion. - They also introduce Finance lectures, but it is really an overview of financial concepts. I never saw a connection between coding and the financial part.

Phase 3: (4/5) Work on projects. It was good, although I would have liked to see more assistance and help to review the code along the way. Positive overall.

Fintech: (1/5) Part of the reason why I am a bit disappointed is I decided to join the program because it was a FinTech program. There is no Fintech. It is just a Full Stack Development program. Going over a list of financial concepts is not Fintech. I think I would have learned more financial technology by doing a Data Science program.

Instructors: (5/5) EXCELLENT! What a great asset! They are all so talented and willing to help you. If they fix other areas, this bootcamp could do so much more. They just need more structure I believe.

Job Assistance: (2/5) A bit disappointed too. They have staff trying to do their best to help you but the program is still young. I was told they had all these partners but I never saw anything. It's more assistance as a referral to pass your resume and help you with links online to apply. I do not consider this as 'job partners'.

Overall a positive experience, misleading in terms of the Fintech area, but positive. They are still young and with a bit more experience and structure, they can become a great program.

My experience at Byte Academy was intense. I had to work hard, and probably learned the most in the short duration that I was there. It all paid off though. I was quite happy with the final project that we completed in my cohort and was able to get a... Read More great job within a month of graduating. Thanks Tom, for all your help with my final project and with preparing me for job interviews.

I guess it is quite true that what you'll get out of Byte is what you put in. If you're ready to work hard and spend the time in learning the material, this is a great bootcamp. If you want to just sit back and listen to lectures, this is not for you.

I loved the small cohorts at Byte Academy. Our cohort had access to a few different technology instructors as well as a finance instructor. Also, we had teaching assistants available to help. I entered without much of a background in coding and was able... Read More to learn a lot in the 3 months that I was there. The small cohorts and the many different instructors had a lot to do with my learning.

The focus is on learning by doing. I think this is very useful since I needed the encouragement and hands-on environment for learning. We had lectures everyday, but most of the learning is through projects and coding.

The mentorship during the job search helps a lot. I was able to get a lot of good ideas for companies to target as well as help on my resumes. In addition, the interview prep was very useful.

I am glad I signed up for Byte Academy. My cohort was small, so I was able to get a lot of attention from the instructors and teaching assistants. Quite amazed with the great student-teacher ratio. I really needed the individualized attention, so thanks... Read More to everyone who helped me along the way!

The program was tough. I had no programming experience before joining. I found myself spending extra time trying to keep up with the rest of the class. However, the late nights definitely paid off at the end. My advice for people joining - if you work hard, you will learn a lot. If you're not willing to put in the time, don't waste your money.

I read the past reviews on this site, prior to writing my review. It seems a couple of people submitted negative reviews. I can't relate to their problems, since my experience was quite positive. I do know that some of the past instructors have left, the current instructors definitely seem capable and eager to teach.

It's one of the few bootcamps that teaches Python, so that's the main reason I chose it.
Curriculum with a lot of stuff to cover in only three months, so that pretty much sums up your life during this period.
Intense weeks, but for someone that didn't know... Read More how to write a line of code before it, well worth learning experience.
Great instructors, staff and environment. Had a lot of fun at Byte.

It's one of the few bootcamps that teaches Python, so that's the main reason I chose it.
Curriculum with a lot of stuff to cover in only three months, so that pretty much sums up your life during this period.
Intense weeks, but for someone that didn't know... Read More how to write a line of code before it, well worth learning experience.
Great instructors, staff and environment. Had a lot of fun at Byte.