General Assembly

I have always been interested in working with computers and after being surrounded by some amazing software engineering friends, I decided I wanted to delve deeply into coding projects and problem-solve just like them. Fast forward to my General Assembly... Read More experience, I graduated from the Software Engineering Immersive program where I developed skills in JavaScript, React, Ruby on Rails, and other technical languages that allowed me to build four projects over the course of the twelve-week full-time program. The amount of support provided during the program was absolutely amazing and next to none. I really felt cared for during the class with the instructors, teaching assistants, and classmates. GA is a wonderfully collaborative community.  After graduating, my career coach Anna stuck by my side for an entire year until I got a job in tech (at General Motors as a Software Developer!). It took a little longer to find work due to the pandemic, but Anna and the entire GA community are extremely dedicated to seeing you succeed. I am very excited about my new job and will continue to grow and learn within the field of technology long after my experience with GA!

Overall, I had a great experience during my time at GA's UXDI bootcamp. Not only did I make great friends in my program and come out with a working portfolio, but ultimately gained a great foundation in UX principles and methodologies to prepare me for... Read More my job search/career transition. There were some parts of the curriculum I wish we could have gone deeper into (sometimes certain lectures felt more like a high-level overview), but my instructors were always there to answer any questions and encouraged us to dig deeper in the material. The program takes a lot of self-motivation, hard work, and being okay with navigating the abstract and I do strongly feel though the program is what you make of it. UX is a competitive field to get your foot in and it takes more than just going through a 3-month bootcamp to make that jump. But I feel GA gave me a solid jumping off point and allowed me to be in a safe space to ask questions, learn, make connections, and gain confidence in my process as I transitioned into the job search. Even in my UX job now I find myself looking back at old lecture decks to inform some of the work I do! I would recommend the course to those serious about making the career transition but also keep in mind that finding a job post-course requires the same amount of hard work and self-motivation to successfully to do.

There were both pros and cons to attending GA. The biggest benefit was being a part of a group who were all on the same mission and had relatively similar levels of experience. Having labs, homework, and projects to work on together gave us each a chance... Read More to help each other out and solidify concepts by teaching them to each other. Bouncing ideas off each other and being resources to each other was a critical driver in our individual success. The next biggest benefit was having a career coach. The counseling was invaluable, especially since that level of support would be hard to find elsewhere. However, the program is not for the faint of heart or people who are not fully committed to grinding and putting in the time to grow. In terms of material, I believe that the course did not dive deeply enough into fundamentals, and in each unit, barely scratched the surface of what we were studying. I felt that I was able to teach myself everything we learned in class, on my own and in a fraction of the time, for free through the right resources like javascript.info, Reactjs.org, css-tricks.com, freecodecamp.com, etc. The whole point of the internet is that the knowledge is out there, and can usually be found for free. For the price that we paid, I felt that the course could have been more challenging -- but it only demanded as much as could be demanded from the slowest students in the class, so as to not leave a student behind. The problem is that there were students who had no business being in the course. I think the program should have a slightly higher bar for acceptance, but their "admission" policy is for show, and I wouldn't be surprised if over 95% of "applicants" are accepted. Of course, bootcamps are a business, and the main goal of any business is always profit. Overall, I don't think it's exactly as advertised. People don't always graduate from GA and go straight to a top tech firm or similarly high paying role -- that is definitely the exception, and demonstrates a level of effort behind the scenes on the students' own time that does not indicate anything about GA. But the average bootcamp graduate is certainly capable of being hired into the majority of the companies out there. I just think instructors should be more candid about what it takes to truly excel in this field, instead of pretending that the coursework is sufficient. However, GA did offer me the environment in which to grow and challenge myself, a guideline for becoming a software engineer, the career counseling -- which is extremely insightful to those who are coming from other industries, and the certificate that I can have on my resume to show I'm dedicated to the career -- which is especially helpful for a college dropout whose previous experience has only been in restaurants. There are pros and cons, and they will differ for each person. It's a hard decision to enroll in a bootcamp, and I believe everyone has to consider their own circumstances to make the decision.

I didn't have any experience in Data Science and Machine learning, but also no coding prior knowledge. At the end of the course I was able to complete project, scrap data from internet and build decent machine learning models. Congrats to the teachers... Read More and GA

So happy I decided to attend General Assembly's User Experience Design Immersive program! The classes were very hands-on and a nice balance of learning something new, and quickly apply it. I was surprised with how much I gained from just 12-weeks. Some... Read More people say you can learn UX design on your own--and you can, but GA offers way more. Access to a career coach during the program as well as during and after your job search; connections to other GA alumni; compassionate staff who really cares about your success.

General Assembly was instrumental in allowing me to switch careers into a field that is challenging, engaging, and always growing. During the program I gained highly applicable skills, and learned what it's like to work in software development. This new... Read More knowledge was directly responsible for helping me to land a full-time gig as a software engineer.

This program was AMAZING! I was skeptical at first due to the cost but it is totally worth it - they will make you a marketable software engineer. It is a truly inclusive community that build you up and trains you in what you need to get started as an... Read More SE. I struggled on my own doing tutorials before and wasn't able to learn much but now I can build on the knowledge from this course and get through tutorials like a breeze. Not to mention, there's fantastic career support throughout and post-course.

The course will take over your life and you will be working day and night on it, but you will have a new profession in 3 months, and you will meet great teachers and students. Worth every penny. I am now thinking about doing another course with GA in... Read More the future.

Pros- you learn the basics of ux, great lead instructors, I had a great experience with my career coach Cons- my lead instructors left. The one particular assistant instructor I’m thinking about informed me I would have confidence but instead shared my... Read More information with a person(s) and that person shared it with the class. Not only was it sensitive information, it was high school gossip the way I got treated the rest of the course. So if you want to prepare for professional settings while learning ux, this isn’t it. The cherry on the top was that assistant instructor was promoted to a lead instructor. So good luck folks. Hopefully you won’t get this blonde woman that only started in the field a year or so ago, but that’s all I can say. Good luck! Maybe try another immersive program.

Before I applied and decided to go to GA, I did my extensive research like most of you who are reading this and it boiled down to two options. I was very hesitant and when I saw a YouTube video of one of their past students and how her background matches... Read More mine, I also saw how she knows so much about the field, that's when I took the plunge. I didn't and still don't see any cons to going to GA but I will say I have been working in the Marketing and Design Industry for the past 7 years and when I took the UX class at GA, it put all of my knowledge into one big thing which was my main goal. If asked if I'm going to do it again, I would do so in a heartbeat. It has helped my career tremendously and I've seen a lot of successful students who went to GA as well. Hopefully this helps! Feel free to send me an InMail if you have more questions!