Fullstack Academy

Fullstack Academy has the potential to give you an amazing education and potentially an equally great career, if you are willing to work hard and use all the tools they give you. The curriculum is structured to first expose you to their tech stack and... Read More to then let you use that stack to create projects for your portfolio. Fullstack gives you everything you need to succeed, but it's up to you to use what you're given. There is very little micromanaging in the course, meaning if you are struggling, it is up to you to seek out help and to improve yourself. While this does open up the opportunity for failure, anybody who is willing to work hard and has a passion for making cool stuff can definately succeed here.

In terms of getting a job, all graduates are definately prepared to work in a professional software engineering environment, however, Fullstack doesn't gurantee a job right off the bat. Fullstack does offer support on the job search, through Hiring Day, post-graduation career counseling, resume review, etc.. Just like with the curriculum, you will get what you put in, meaning if you work hard on it, you have everything you need to succeed.

I definitely recommend Fullstack Academy for anybody looking to become a software engineer. The curriculum is relevant, the instructors are knowledgable and easy to work with, and the career services team is dedicated to making sure you land a job. If you are willing to work hard, you will see some amazing results.

Foundations was incredibly challenging. Junior phase was very challenging. Senior phase was challenging. Everything got easier over time because your confidence improved and your understanding of the context of what you were learning improved, and your... Read More skills for learning improved. At the beginning we all kept telling each other and ourselves, "trust the process." It got easier to trust over time. We got a lot closer than I thought we'd be able to over a remote platform, but it really felt like we were all hanging out every day. I made friends that I still talk to all the time. The instructors are not equal, but they're all very competent and helpful. Everyone in the tech world that I talked to after the program was thoroughly impressed by my knowledge and experience from Fullstack. I felt great during interviews and ended up with 2 offers. It's not all perfect, you've got to advocate for yourself and take initiative to get out of the program what you need from it. At the end of the day I really had fun in the program and I'm literally making more than double what I was in my last profession (with a master's degree) with no prior tech education or experience. What more is there?

Attending Fullstack was a great experience. The curriculum is very well designed, the instructors and support staff are great (and very invested in making sure students do well), and my cohort was full of smart, interesting, and fun future developers.... Read More

After completing four weeks of "foundations" work (intended to ensure that everyone starts the learning phase on the same page), the first 6 weeks of the program was the instructional part of the program. You learn a lot of new things, and they tell you that you won't understand them all - that's something I struggled with at first, but that truly made sense when I got to the last 6 weeks of the program, which is the project phase. Working on projects really solidifies everything you learned earlier in the program, and I think setting it up this way really helped me learn and then apply the information.

The career success lectures we had seemed somewhat pointless sometimes (because half of them were quiz games to test if we watched videos ... I didn't learn anything from the quizzes) and it became a little overwhelming when the last week of the program was suddenly "all career success all the time." My cohort graduated in December, right before the holidays, so the career success department went on vacation right after we graduated and weren't available when I needed them that week. Thankfully, the next time I needed help from career success, they were more than available and really helped me figure out something I was struggling with (networking). When I wasn't sure whether or not to accept (or negotiate) an offer, the career success department was very helpful. So while my career success experience didn't start out great, it ended well.

The only "warning" I would give is to make sure that you have no personal engagements that would interfere with your ability to show up every day. Obviously, emergencies will come up, but if you know that there will be some days that you have to miss classes, maybe wait a few months and apply for the next cohort. This happened to me (I knew I was going to miss several days of class), and every time I came back from missing classes, I felt like I was behind. I did receive a lot of support from the instructors and teaching fellows, and they were definitely willing to work with my needs, but I still would not recommend going in knowing that you will miss classes.

The Fullstack Academy Software Engineer Immersive program has a great curriculum and the schedule is layed out effectively. The first six weeks of the program is lectures and workshops. The workshops solidify the material in the lectures. As you work... Read More in pairs, some doubts you may have can be cleared with your peer programming buddy. If not, you always have a Fellow to aks questions. Fellows are alumni who stay for the next cohort to help instructors. This guarantees coverage for questions and general help for students. The curriculum for lectures is updated often between cohorts and reflects the software and languages being used in the real world.

The latter six weeks of the program you spend all your time in project work. I think this is a valuable time for many of my fellow cohorts who may have never worked as a group in a software project. It reveals to them how communication is important to collaborate when working on a single GitHub repo (think merge conflicts!).

One other valuable part of the program is during the latter six weeks as well. Every morning we work on an algorithm challenge. This time helps solidify fundamental computer science concepts and prepares you for what you will face in real interview.

The instructors are very knowledgeable and helpful, the Fellows provide another level of coverage so students never feel lost or without help resources.

Finally towards the end of the program the Career Resources team kicks in to help you prepare for interviews and job search. The team is very helpful and really walk you through the entire process in detail. For those cohorts looking for work for the first time in their lives this is very valuable information. Even for someone with experience like me, it provides a review of what the job search practices are today.

Overall I got a lot out of the program and was able to get the type of job I wanted. I highly recommend the program.

Attending Fullstack has been one of the greatest decisions of my life. I honestly never thought I could learn so much in just a few months. I had no idea how much attending this bootcamp would change me. Not only have I learned full stack JavaScript,... Read More as well as a plethora of very relevant frameworks, libraries, etc., but I have been implementing this knowledge every step of the way, and have already created multiple applications! This school has been there for me every step of the way, and the resources they have provided me with have been pivotal to my success. The instructors are brilliant and excel at teaching. The cirriculum is clearly well thought out and top notch. From the instructors to my fellow classmates, I have been inspired every single day to learn more than I thought I could, and to do more than I ever imagined. I thank my lucky stars every day that I was able to have this amazing life-changing experience and have now joined the ranks of NYC's Software Engineers! I'm so excited about projects I have in the works, and what the future now holds for me!

My time at Fullstack Academy was one of the most fun and fulfilling experiences I have ever had! I was already an experienced backend coder, but Fullstack helped me learn to get a project completely off the ground by myself with an experience of the entire... Read More stack and how to integrate all of the pieces. Every instructor was incredibly knowledgeable in their field and left me with valuable skills that have helped me every day of my new career. As a Fullstack Alumni, I am also part of a large community that continues to interact. I am constantly running into other alumni, even within my own company. I would recommend this course to anyone who truly loves coding and is either just starting out, or wants to learn all of the most relevant JavaScript libraries/frameworks in the industry.

My wife and I had just had our first child and we realized we weren’t going to be able to live the kind of life we want, if we both continued in our current jobs. I always liked to code, and had even done some Udemy courses on web-development, but I still... Read More felt there was something missing. So I decided to investigate Bootcamps. After having an on-campus informational interview with two of the lecturers to find out more about Fullstack, and speaking it over with my wife, we decided to take a risk.

Risk? Yes, bootcamp is expensive, and me being a skeptic was worried that I was being taken for a ride. Moreover, I had a family to support (they were supporting me during the bootcamp) and the pressure to not have picked a dud was big. So, I was nervous. Once bootcamp started, there wasn’t even time to be nervous we were learning so much at such a great pace. Looking back, it is the smartest investment I made in my and my familiy’s future.

Before I started I wondered if I couldn’t just do this on my own for cheaper (I’m a pretty well-disciplined learner after all). But I learned more in 6 weeks at Fullstack, than I could have taught myself over the course of a year. The curriculum is well paced and structured, and it is kept challenging throughout. Not a day went by when I thought, that was a wasted day.

Why Fullstack though? I had taught myself a little bit of Ruby and Rails, and when playing around with building web apps, JavaScript always seemed to stump me a little due to its nature. So I decided to pick a bootcamp that does JavaScript throughout the stack. Again, looking back this was the best decision for me since there was no context switching between back and front end development, and I got to learn one language really well, instead of learning two a little.

Another reason I picked fullstack was because it was so challenging to get in to. They don’t promise to take in everyone and turn them into a coder. They want people who have the aptitude, and have demonstrated at least a basic ability to solve small tasks using code. This meant that the classes could move faster, and I was always being challenged by classmates that were smarter and faster than me. I can’t stress how important this environment was for learning to code. If you’ve never coded before, I highly recommend taking a month to learn the basics of coding and then applying to Fullstack instead of choosing a bootcamp that takes anyone.

Another thing that sets Fullstack apart is the quality of the lecturers. While other bootcamps have gone for an expand at all costs, Fullstack academy has really made quality their primary concern. This came through from day one in their lecturers, who were passionate, experienced and just really good teachers and mentors. They are people that I look up to, and will always credit with changing my life.

But truthfully, in the end, all the preceding paragraphs would mean nothing if it didn’t result in a job, and I can happily report I landed a dream fullstack job at a top company in Chicago. Not only did the content Fullstack taught me make me a suitable candidate, all the extra effort they put into helping me perfect my resume, and equip me with interview skills particular to the tech job market made me a great candidate.

TL/DR: Fullstack was the best educational investment of my life. You will learn a ton. If you are considering it but on the fence, just do it.

From a dollar-to-learning standpoint, I got much more value from Fullstack than I did from my 4 year degree at... Read More NYU.

Before Fullstack, I spent the better part of a year coding on my own and evaluating bootcamps. I wanted to learn full stack Javascript. I hemmed and hawed and couldn't decide because I was too afraid of writing a big check to some fly-by-night operation and getting ripped off.

I contacted several alums from Fullstack. They all gave it a resounding endorsement (and they were all employed as software developers). So I settled in on Fullstack because it seemed like the best option to get the skills I wanted. I was not disappointed.

Here's why:

It is intensely practical.

This is not to suggest that you get no theory, you do. But the bulk of the program is about writing code. So you spend a lot of time and energy and focus writing code. Everything in the environment is a conspiracy to get you writing code.

If you love to build things, Fullstack gives you lots of opportunities to do it while in the program and equips you to make great stuff as soon as you graduate. Practicality wins.

They have thought a lot about how to teach.

The founders and team have put a lot of thought into how to teach tech. It isn't some disorganized mess of pre-recorded tutorial modules that you can find online.

There is a structure and, even though it isn't always clear why you're doing a particular part while you're in it, you quickly discover that the process builds a tree of understanding. You'll learn the problem about some approach to development, struggle with it in vanilla JS, and only then get the library or framework that was built to resolve that problem.

The early part of the program uses test-driven development to help you get used to reading tests and inferring implementation from a desired functionality. I loved this approach.

After you struggle with the tests, the discovery of an answer feels like a grand, life-altering insight. I'm convinced this trial-and-error helps you learn and remember things more deeply than lecture, reading, or a repeat-after-me video tutorial.

The instructors are wizards.

You are not taught by recent grads, but by legit software engineers who really know their stuff. The environment in Fullstack is ultra-smart. It helps you up your game. I didn't want to leave at the end because I knew I would miss spending so much time around such smart people. My instructors, Omri and John, were both great programmers and great people. I will miss learning from them.

The founders actually care about the business.

The two founders are still intimately involved in the business. You can feel in the environment that the business has their attention and that they're improving it. I have huge respect for them both, especially when I saw that David (one of the founders) was actually sitting in the room on our final day when we all gave feedback about the program. When it comes to 'caring for your students', talk is cheap. David's presence shows a true investment of time and attention that are the hallmarks of a dedicated entrepreneur.

The tech stack is in demand.

Full stack Javascript is huge on the market right now. There were tons of jobs available after graduation. It was not hard to get interviews based on companies' desire for Node.js/React.js devs.

You make friends with smart people.

Fullstack selects really smart people. Your peers will be people from finance, entrepreneurship, academia, or even software developers looking to update their skills. Hanging out with smart friends = you getting smarter. You'll end the program with a great group of friends.

It works.

If you do the work, the process works wondefully.

The graduation and placement stats speak for themselves and Fullstack has led the way in transparency in results.

My own experience: it isn't even a month since I graduated and I already landed an awesome full stack engineering job at an early-stage startup, which is exactly what I wanted when I signed up for Fullstack.

This is an Intense program. You will be firing on all cylinders for its duration, but you will learn so much. Be sure to utilize the instructors an teaching fellows, they really have your best interests at heart. Some workshops will feel a little rough... Read More around the edges, they are Constantly iterating and improving them, so occasionally you are the experimental cohort. Just be sure to give feedback as they Do listen and correct for the future. Also, when they tell you that you should expect to wait 1 to 3 months before landing a job, that is probably on the lower end at the moment, it is tough to get your foot in the front door, but as long as you reach out to the career success team, they will help guide you through the process. This is also Definitely a you get out what you put in situation, if you work hard you will learn a lot (but know your limits and don't burn out!). One word of warning though, if this is your first foray into programming, this will teach you a lot But when you are done you will feel like there is an infinite universe of things you don't know. So Keep learning new things!

I had computer science and programming experience prior to attending Fullstack, but was unable to find a development job on my own. The program at Fullstack is perfect for getting into the industry. The first half of the course immerses you in labs that... Read More teach JavaScript, pair programming, development tools (git, chrome dev tools, and gulp, to name a few), and popular web dev frameworks and technologies. The second half involves building larger projects and sites in teams, with a focus on a final capstone project that will be presented to employers. This part of the program is particularly effective for teaching industry practices, as it lets you get used to working on a team of developers and allocating work.

At the end of the program, a hiring day matches you up with companies big and small in the New York area (I went to the Manhattan campus, other locations will have companies from around their area). Alternatively, students can apply to become fellows that help the next incoming class and write the code that powers the program itself, with potential to even become an instructor. Immediately after graduation I had multiple interviews set up, and ended up getting 4 different offers within a month. Hiring support is provided not just for recent grads, but for alumni looking for new opportunities. I wouldn't be working where I am now if it wasn't for the connections I made and the help I received at Fullstack.

If you have prior programming experience but are having trouble connecting with employers, or you're interested in becoming a web developer with no experience and don't know where to start, I would highly recommend Fullstack for its in depth curriculum, helpful staff, and fantastic environment.