Claim Academy

Change is not easy for anyone. But for those who have the courage to push themselves for three months, Claim Academy will channel your persistent efforts toward a positive career change. As a Full Stack Java Boot Camp graduate, I experienced this guided... Read More change firsthand. Denish Otieno skillfully and patiently taught us core Java for the first three weeks, with clever examples and labs to push us to experience the important concepts and nuances of the Java language. After this, the instructors built on this foundation with frameworks and tool sets which allowed us to tie our Java data models to persistent databases, control the flow of information here with responsive and data-driven web front ends. This was done with nightly classes and several practical projects which pushed us just a bit beyond what what we knew when the project was assigned, giving us goals on which to focus. While it remained fast-paced, Alex Duncan and the instructors were on hand to guide us to finding and fixing our errors, teaching us how to solve problems while pushing us to embrace new methods necessary for a full stack developer to succeed in the industry. Alex in particular, tenaciously tackled every bug we brought him and with utmost patience showed us how to move forward. With our unexpectedly large group, it was difficult to get detailed feedback on our project code, since most of the mentoring time was used for guided troubleshooting. If you stick with the curriculum, you will be made ready to tackle technical challenges, present a polished resume, interview well, and make that career change/bump Claim Academy claims. The more you put into it, the more drastic and marketable your change will be.

Overall a great experience and time meeting new friends and connections, and giving you the tools to start a new life and occupation. Buyer beware—Preparation is key, you must be able to sacrifice something to get the full experience. Make the sacrifice... Read More and see results. Never be afraid to ask questions.

I had no regrets choosing Claim Academy, my over all experience was challenging and rewarding. Their instructors were very good at what they do, I started this course from having little to no experience at all to being able to create a web application.... Read More All the staff were very nice and very helpful and will provide you with resources to help you with your project and finding a job as well as your soft skills.

I completed the Full Stack C# Developer program and loved it. I came in with no knowledge of programing my instructor did a great job at bringing me and others with no knowledge or some up to build a full functioning application. It’s definitely a program... Read More that requires self-motivation and discipline to get the most out of it but the staff is there to assist you in that journey.

Claim Academy was a lot of hard work and amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, they have done their best to make the hybrid program accommodating. Alex was a phenomenal mentor and normally who I (as well as my whole cohort) received a lot of help from. I think... Read More that things could be structured a little better there in terms of organization. Halfway through the course we began to fly through the material with out a reason as 'why' we were doing a lot of things. It would have helped a TON (especially during this point) if the powerpoints explained more and didn't have so many redundancies. This caused a lot of frustration among the class. Overall, it's a good experience and looks good on your resume. Everyone in my cohort was really amazing. I'm hoping that I can use my experience here and jump into the data field. I wish you the best of luck and you can reach me on LinkedIn if you have any questions.

(01NOV20) Overall I wish I could give a higher review, as the staff that I did interact with (remotely due to Covid-19) were all very professional, polite, and responsive. I certainly did learn quite a bit from my 3 Months in the Full Stack Java Developer... Read More Training so that is definitely a positive. I was expecting/hoping for more in regards to the "Job Support." I have only just graduated from the course, and plan to update this review as time progresses, and hopefully I land a new career position.

Curriculum - The bottom line is I learned how to create a Web Application with Java. However, I feel that I did not learn the "why" or "how to use" a lot of these aspects. Only 3 hours per evening with an instructor does not leave a lot of time to break down and explain some of these concepts we are trying to learn. I brought up repeatedly than learning to "Copy and Paste" doesn't teach me very much, and is concerning for answering technical questions during interviews. Instead of addressing the concern, the most common answer I got was "A lot of coding is Copy & Paste." Leaving the actual learning of content (outside of a poorly constructed, not very informational, copy and pasted Powerpoint during the 3-hour instruction block) to google and search engines. I did not use 6-months of my GI Benefits to learn how to code via Google and youtube.

Job Search - As I said earlier, I have only recently graduated and have not seen very much job support to this point. We have had a virtual demo day prior to graduation, and hopefully over the coming days there will be some kind of response to that. We had a few organizations/student alums come throughout my course to present about their company, but wasn't really beneficial or impactful (they took time out of the short instruction block most often, so more detrimental most often).

Pro's-
Staff is great * Good number of connections for setting up presentations * Coding mentor for me was phenomenal (Alex graduated claim a short time ago, came back to help as a mentor and is great at debugging/ explaining what we are doing, HE SHOULD BE AN INSTRUCTOR) * I went from No coding to developing a WEB APP from the ground up in 3 months.

Needs Work -
Communication, things just sort of happen with no real instruction of what each time block means, what to do next, etc. * Orientation paperwork has some concerning wording and could use refinement * More teaching of the concepts * teach more than just creating a web app

Overall, knowing what I know now, I would say that the Claim Academy is worth the time. I have registered for one more cohort here, because I know that I will definitely learn how to do something, and gives me the foundation to learn the concepts again on my own instead of starting from nowhere with nothing.

I took the Cybersecurity course with a previous background in AV and basic IT. This course made me more confident with my IT skills. The Sec+ test prep was extremely helpful and the labs provided me a solid understand of the basic tools used in the cyber... Read More industry. I learned a lot in 3 months and am every grateful the the supportive staff.

I completed the Full Stack JavaScript Developer program and loved it. I came in with some coding knowledge and Manav, my instructor, did a great job balancing bringing the others from no or little knowledge up and challenging me with more topics to explore.... Read More

It’s definitely a program that requires self-motivation and discipline to get the most out of it but the staff is there to assist you in that journey.

With the virus they had to do online only and even with that they did an amazing job of teaching! Praneeth the instructor did a very good job at explaining everything. If I had misunderstood anything they did a great job explaining things and showing... Read More me what to do!

Coding can be a tough. It takes a lot of practice and determination to figure out solutions to technical problems and learn how to use them creatively. Claim Academy gave me the tools and confidence to create wonderful looking and functional web applications.... Read More