Claim Academy

I have been very interested in pursuing a coding career for several years. When I discovered that I was able to use my VA benefits through the VETTECH program to attend Claim Academy, I jumped on it. It started off well and I truly enjoyed our first teacher,... Read More Denish, as he was extremely thorough and genuinely cared about each and every student. Unfortunately, the next few weeks were not as successful as there was clearly a lack of communication between the school and the instructor. After that bump in the road, we received better instruction from Lamar. The mentor, Brandon, was phenomenal and he truly was the reason I feel successful in the course. I feel as though I have a solid knowledge of Java Development and I am excited to see where my career takes me.

This program is not for the faint of heart. It will challenge you in ways that only a coding bootcamp of this caliber can provide. My final takeaway for this program is that it is what you make of it. Provided that you attend all the lectures, engage... Read More with your mentors, and lean on your group, you will walk away from this as a newly-minted software developer. The instructors and mentors are top-notch and demonstrate a great degree of patience for students at every level of proficiency. Denish was an expert at teaching core Java fundamentals, eventually handing it off to Lamar who ramped it up into Spring and React territory. Our student mentor, Brandon, supported us every step of the way, clarifying concepts offline and building students up to the level of competency to ensure that nobody gets left behind. Outside of lecture, communications were a little rough at times often with little prior notice for alumni nights and other mandatory sessions. These sessions were invaluable as one makes steps into a career, however navigating the Basecamp platform and gaining visibility of these calendar invites were hit-and-miss, and as a result I missed out on a few. Should you decide to embark on this journey, be ready for a few sleepless nights, many lows, and many highs. The final capstone presentation amongst your peers is a rare treat. You will feel on Cloud Nine by the end of it, provided that you stay engaged and accept nothing short of success. The remedy to bouts of imposter syndrome and self-doubt is to simply push through and ask questions. As a final note: I kept my day job throughout the entire bootcamp, albeit dropped down to part-time. In hindsight, while I made it work, I DO NOT recommend going this route. It's probably best to block off 3 months for total immersion.

awesome bootcamp, the final month was really challenging but in the end with the help of mentors and peers I was able to graduate. Highly recommend if you can assist in person because you will get the most complete experience with them. I was really impressed... Read More with the quality of the instructors.

The pros for me: -the ability to do the entire course online remotely from Hawaii -Fully funded by VET-TEC from the VA -Perfectly aligns with my personal goals in the software development industry -Provides tools for success -Job placement and resume... Read More assistance Cons: -More instructors that have the right credentials for the course being taught

Claim Academy is amazing at what they do and how they run the program. If you need help they will be there every step of the way. That being said is don’t be afraid to reach out and ask questions to both the staff and the other students. There is always... Read More something new you can learn from everyone. This course will definitely keep you engaged as long as you are willing to put in the effort.

Overall, I learned a lot and was challenged by Claim. I do not regret signing up and recommend others to sign up with Claim. Claim is very supportive and will help you propel yourself tremendously. I currently am going into my sophomore year of college... Read More and majoring in computer science. I decided to sign up with claim to prepare myself for my college degree and I feel after completing the 12 week full stack java bootcamp that I am more than prepared for the next 3 years of college. I will say during my 12 weeks at Claim there were a couple circumstances. We had a teacher change after the fourth week which made the next 3 weeks more challenging than I expected. However, a group of students and myself banded together and overcame those 3 weeks. The remaining 6 weeks of the course with our teacher, Lamar, was the best experience I have ever had learning about coding and building a real world application. Do not hesitate and sign up with Claim. I promise you will come out with loads of knowledge and confidence that you will get a job or succeed in college!

The instructors and mentors were extremely helpful. I learned more than what I expected in 3 months. You will have to put in effort on your end though. A lot about the bootcamp is teaching yourself but the instructors are always there when you get lost.... Read More

When Claim Academy defined itself as a boot camp and expressed how time consuming and intense the work would be to me, I was expecting a mentally grueling 12 weeks. Instead, I found it to be very laid back, with only 3 hours of lecture a day, and the... Read More rest of the time to work alone or in groups. I often wished for more class time, even though learning hands outside lecture hours was invaluable. My class in particular had some issues with teachers. One left the school halfway through, then another led in a difficult to follow manner. Our final instructor was phenomenal, however. They also have non-instructor mentors on-hand that are great assistance. One of my biggest grievances was the erratic nature of their schedules. We started the course off doing class at 10 am, but after two or three weeks it was switched to 4pm without any warning or reason. They also provide "company spotlights" and "alumni meetings", which are great, but were also often scheduled directly over our already limited class time. A lot of these spotlight hours are also sprung up randomly with only an hour or two warning, which personally led to me missing many of them. As for the content, I can safely say that I do now know how to code, when I had zero experience or knowledge before coming here. Although I do feel like there is so much I don't know or understand, that would be expected from leaving any school. Most learning comes from real life experience. I used the VETTEC program to fund my way through this school. Having done that, I would tell anybody with the same capability to go for it. I don't know if I would feel the same way if I had paid out-of-pocket. I'll leave that opinion to somebody who had done that. Since, I'm only graduating at the time I write this, I haven't received much job assistance yet. They claim to be very helpful. I just hope they don't just copy and paste everything they find off of indeed that requires 5+ years of experience.

Can improve, at least needs full time instructors. Overall, there are better options, but Claim does have potential, although they must be willing to take suggestions and be willing to improve. Although it was 12 weeks long, the course was really only... Read More on for 3 hours a day, schedules got shifted around depending on the instructors' other employment and communication (basecamp) was a thorn in the side of the students.

Claim Academy will challenge you to push yourself through the arduous task of learning Java as well as Front end programming technology. They will give you access to renowned Lecturers and mentors who will be there to help guide you through your learning... Read More process as well as your practical assignments. You will take your newly gained knowledge and be challenge to complete projects that are difficult, but with the aforementioned mentors and teachers you have the tools. You will come out of the experience better because of the experience and will have met many interesting people along a similar journey from around the world.