Fullstack Academy

I had an incredible experience at Fullstack academy. I came into the program with hardly any coding experience and left feeling like a certified pro. The instructors were made the course such a wonderful academy. Unlike my college educators, the Fullstack... Read More instructors were engaging, thoughtful, and made learning quite fun. I would recommend the class to anyone that has an interest in becoming a software engineer.

I just finished my 3-month immersive program at Fullstack, thought it might be a good time to review and share what my experience was.

My overall experience at Fullstack was great! My intend to join a bootcamp instead of learning from online resources... Read More was to be able to get one-on-one feedback on my learning progress, Fullstack has a good reputation on that and that’s why I chose it! And definitely I made the right choice and got lots of one-on-one attentions both in class and outside of class. During class, you are encouraged to ask questions, and never feel shame to ask DUMB questions (actually they kept saying there is no DUMB questions)! Outside of class, you can sign up office hours with the instructors. I have to say all my three instructors Dan, Karen and David are awesome! They literally knew every single student’s name in one week (we had nearly 40 students in my cohort). I felt that every student was highly respected. And they really want you to succeed and tried their best to help you thoughtout this learning path. They took the initiative to remind you that they had office hours for questions so you would never feel that you are pushed away! One minor feedback I have is that if we have some good sample of code work that we can refer to after we’ve done the projects, that would be a great way for us to review our own projects and find areas to improve. But of course, we can get individual comments and ideas from instructors and fellows regarding our code work too!!! So if you value comments, feedbacks in your learning, you should go for Fullstack!!!

I completed the immersive program in February 2018 and landed a job in May of the same year. I have a BA in English and was an Account Manager when I decided to quit my job for Fullstack.

Was it worth the cost of tuition?

I think that's probably one of... Read More the biggest concerns for people when deciding whether or not to take the risk. You can find all sorts of comments on Reddit or Quora from people telling you to save your money and just teach yourself. And it's true, there are tons of free resources online that will help you learn how to program.

By attending Fullstack Academy, however, I gained more than just practical JavaScript skills. I regularly practiced pair programming, learned to conceptualize and build apps from start to finish (both independently and with a team), became comfortable with tech documentation, beefed up my resume and LinkedIn profile, gained valuable feedback from practice interviews, and now have a network of people willing to help me as I continue my career.

Fullstack Academy will set you up with everything you need to kickstart your career as a software developer, but as others have said, the curriculum is fast-paced and by no means magic, so expect to work hard and take ownership for your own success.

Coming from a non-CS background, Fullstack really helped me kickstart my career into software development. They teach you modern and popular technologies that many companies use in a very efficient and understanding way. On top of offering great education... Read More and mentoring, their job search support is amazing as well. They provide lots of resources and opportunities for one to utilize. Would definitely recommend Fullstack to those who are considering it.

Attending FullStack Academy(Grace Hopper Program) was an extremely positive experience in my life. The Immersive Program has a good quality, is fast and effective, super challenging especially the first month, but the good thing is that you will be able... Read More to learn faster than you ever thought, and if at some point you feel discouraged, remember to repeat to yourself `TRUST THE PROCESS`. I had a great time there, my cohort was excellent as well as all the instructors and staff. Thank you FullStack Academy!

To echo a lot of other sentiments, my decision to go to Fullstack Academy was one of the best of my life. Previously, I had been working in the business (sales, support, marketing) side of tech. While I had some basic coding experience, I learned an immense... Read More amount from the robust curriculum taught at Fullstack. The entire staff in Chicago - whether instructional (Collin, Ben W, Priti, and Finn) or career/operations (Ben N, Holly, Brett) have been incredibly helpful in my success.

I'm completely indebted to them for both my education and for the opportunity to serve as a Teaching Fellow. And without the hard work of the Career Success team, I would not have the amazing job I do now as I was able to land it through Fullstack's Launch Day.

Overall, the highest praise I can give.

Going to Fullstack Academy was easily one of the best decisions in my life.

When you go to a bootcamp, if you're just going for the material, you're doing it wrong. If you just want the material, it's all available for free somewhere on the internet. You... Read More should be going to a bootcamp for several reasons:

1) Learning how to learn various techs, and how to learn them quickly. Fullstack handles this wonderfully by constantly never allowing you to become complacent in your learning or start slacking. You constantly have to be pushing yourself to absorb new material and how to digest documentation.

2) You have zero idea how to actually break into the industry. Again, Fullstack provided this with great career coaching and prepping you to have a resume that is worth looking at. Fullstack as well provides an opportunity to meet several companies, towards the end of your bootcamp, allowing you to potentially to turn these meetings into on-site interviews (which definitely happened for me).

3) If you're new to this... you don't actually realize your own knowledge gaps and weaknesses. And it takes an instructor to help you with these and point you towards things you may have never come across before. You can have all the motivation in the world, but without a good teacher to take you there, it's useless. Fullstack has wonderful instructors who are extremely passionate about not only teaching, but improving their teaching (shout out to Corey Greenwald, one of the best instructors I've ever had in any sort of educational setting).

This being said, prepare to work hard. You will only get out of it what you put in. If you think you can just go during the day and not also put in the time, constantly, during your nights and weekends... and think things will go just as well, you're mistaken. Maybe you can coast. But if that's what you're intending to do... what's even the point? I really recommend Fullstack. But if you're going to do it, do it right. Give up your life for three months. It will pay off.

I started the program without any knowledge in coding. The speed of the course is high and you as a student will fell you aren't in control more often than you imagine. To follow that, I had to dedicate more than I had ever dedicated myself to any other... Read More academic experience. And after three months, you will be ready to get into the market that changes every single minute. More than JavaScript or any other framework, Fullstack taught me how to learn new things in the speed that the market requires. The school environment is also a plus. They take seriously themes like diversity and all the staff and teachers are very supportive. I couldn't be more grateful for the teacher and fellows I had during the program. Trust the process!

Fullstack Academy can be best described in two words - life changing. For several years, I worked in Technology but in functional fields, while always being interested in and curious about building technology myself. However, I always felt an intimidation... Read More towards software development and in all honesty, some skepticism towards programs that seemingly turn you into a developer in a few months. I held on to my fear and doubts for a long time while a few of my friends went through the program and successfully became developers. One day, I decided that I didn't want to regret not trying and took the leap of faith and applied for Fullstack Academy after doing the bootcamp prep course, one of the best decisions I've ever made. I graduated from Fullstack in February this year and went through their Fellowship program for three months before working fulltime as a developer which I'm currently doing since the past four months.

Just the fact that Fullstack Academy forces you to prepare with some coding experience and you need to interview and show your readiness for the program so that you're setup for success before getting in, tells you a lot about the quality of this program. That is what made the decision easy for me to apply here versus other bootcamps although it was a harder process. Once in the bootcamp, we all had to go through a 5 week remote course that gets us all on the same page as people are coming in with various backgrounds and experience levels. You think you have learned so much already, and then you get on campus and the next few months, you are all hands on deck, building different applications with incremental knowledge growth day by day.

You get to pair program with others a lot (where two people write code and solve problems together) so you're not on your own and get experience working with others and talking your thoughts out loud which is key. There is a ton of support offered from fellows (previously graduated students who serve as teaching assistants and mentors), instructor office hours, and more. There are minimal lectures and the curriculum is mostly based on writing code yourself which is why you learn a lot in a short amount of time. You're not alone, you're in a room full of people that are going through the same thing you are together. That is powerful and has a huge impact on your learning journey. You gain a crazy amount of knowledge in 3 months, more than you could ever imagine. Towards the end of the program, Fullstack also prepares you for the job hunt and supports you in preparing your resume, linked in, interviewing, etc. and keeps in touch for post-program job search support. In my cohort, almost everyone was able to land a job in three to six months.

Now that I am working as a developer and have been for the past four months, I have realized what Fullstack gave me even more. I am a Level 1 engineer at my company but am told that I am able to work on features at least one if not two levels above my level, all because Fullstack's program was that in depth to prepare me for that, both on the front end and back end. I started out fixing small bugs but quickly transitioned into building new front end features and writing services on the back end which has been so exciting. I highly highly recommend Fullstack Academy for anyone who is looking for a means to change your career and life, and go into a creative and stimulating field like software development with support and expertise from the best staff, instructors, peers, and mentors around.

After looking into many Coding Bootcamps with the motivation of getting more "hands-on" experience so I could make a radical career change, I found at Full Stack everything I was looking for and decided to join. The result: an amazing experience where... Read More I got to meet awesome and very smart people, where I got to learn a lot about the most up to date technologies for full stack web development and, where I felt like already working in the field since day 1.

After graduating from Fullstack Academy and successfully landing my first position as a Software Engineer within a month, I was proud of myself for making such a great decision. Fullstack was the best/smartest investment I have ever made. 100% recommended!