General Assembly

Pros: 1. Cheaper and Quicker Than a College Degree 2. Practical (Hands-On) Curriculum 3. amazing instructor 4. great content CONS 1. Too Fast to Keep Up 2.Sometimes A Degree is Still King in finding a job 3. Narrow Focus- you have to take other courses... Read More from other websites like udemy to learn more.

I completed the part-time 10-week Product Management course with GA remotely from Melbourne. I thoroughly enjoyed the coursework and especially valued the opportunity to book in time to speak with the instructors and pick their brains. I found the remote... Read More learning to be engaging - which I was concerned about but with all of the partner and group activities amongst the course work, it was easy to remain engaged and excited to learn.

Pros. They teach you a lot and provide a lot of opportunities to get assistance if you get stuck or have concept questions. There is lab time where you can receive help wit homework and collaborate with classmates There are office hours four days a week,... Read More so can get additional help if needed. Cons. It takes up all of your time, so prepare for that. There is a wait during office hours, if there are a lot of students .

I really enjoyed the UXDI bootcamp online with GA. I had a small cohort of 10 students, all of who were very supportive of each other, which I think was a very important factor to my enjoyment of the course. I now know the basics of design principles,... Read More and have a new approach to how I look at problems in my every day life, which is really insightful and inspiring. Pros: Projects work fostered learning throughout the course. Good mix of working in groups and autonomously. Immediate support available in the online environment. Built up my enthusiasm in the design space. Great job outcomes post-course program. Much preferred short intensive course than a longer, more drawn out. Cons: There were times in the course where we could have learnt more, but were given time to 'learn on our own'. The course is expensive - but you get out what you put in. Due to the short duration, lacks real industry experience or opportunities to learn in other skill areas critical to the job, e.g. stakeholder management, however, this would apply to any style course taught this way.

This was the worst online course I have ever attended. They are only looking to fill their pocket and not thinking about the student learning process at all. Classes were too crowded, instructors could not handle the course. There were three weeks' breaks... Read More and they tried to finish the course anyway. One-on-one times are only jokes. Such a waste of time, money, and energy.

Overall great course, happy with the outcome. The GA team is very helpful the instructor and assistants we had were available and flexible with all students, which was key because sometimes work and life got in the way. The course consists of the core... Read More skills needed in Excel, Tableau and SQL that are needed in data analytics. The units were taught well, it can feel a little quick but as long as you are willing to put in the time then all is good. If I have to say one negative thing about the course it would be the fact that it does not include anything about the use of Python in data analytics since some employers ask for this skill. However, I knew this before selecting the course and given the length of the course it is not something I would signal as a major criticism at all. Overall, happy and would recommend.

My experience at GA was extremely positive. I was very impressed with GA's team knowledge, with their way of teaching and how the course was correctly structured and timely-measured. These guys they really know what they are doing and working on. Their... Read More resources and avaibility to hekp the students to understand re-explaining what as much as needed in order to make sure that the concepts are understood it's something remarkable. If you are looking to give your first-deep-steps in Data Science, this must be one of the best places to take them.

The overall experience was awesome. The instructors and course content allowed me to have sufficient skills, knowledge, and experience for my mid-career switch. I will recommend this course to others who are interested in the world of user experience... Read More and user interface design.

Personally, their style didn't work for me. There are slides provided, the instructor briefly reads through them and then splits us into groups to work. They encouraged us to google if we got stuck, but I wanted guided instruction. There weren't any back-up... Read More instructors available so when our instructor became sick we lost that day of instruction. They tried to do make-up days, but they didn't work for most of the students and only made-up a fraction of the lost instruction. It didn't feel like a supportive environment that wanted to see us thrive, instead we needed to google solutions.

I would recommend GA to anyone I knew looking for a quality coding bootcamp. I first reached out to GA after extensive research while I was still employed at my finance job. I was impressed right off the bat with my admissions rep not being pushy or salesy,... Read More and gave me space to decide whether I really liked coding before quitting my job and enrolling. He was incredibly helpful throughout my decision to quit and enroll. Does it teach you the skills needed to be employable at graduation? Yes. My personal experience coming from a 0 coding background (I did some freecodecamp lessons to prepare as recommended by GA admissions but that was it) was that GA makes it incredibly feasible to learn full stack development- IF you complete everything they tell you. It is no secret that you get what you put into it. For 3 months you will not have a life. The amount of hours you put in is way more than just the 40 that your are in class. I probably came out around 75 hours a week with homework, labs and projects. You really will not be able to see family/friends during this time. However, the way my cohort was set up (I believe this is a GA-wide) was you technically only had to complete 80% of all homework and assignments- plus 4 big projects. I completed 100% of all the assignments and tried on all bonuses. I treated every homework like a project to turn over to a client. If you are paying this much money and signing up to truly change your career and get employed quickly then you need to be prepared to give it your all. I did see other students in my cohort struggle with turning things in and it shows in their job hunt after the fact (some still not employed). Your life will be nonexistent for 3 months but it is a worth it. Is there enough support from GA instruction? In my case, yes. But take that with a grain of salt. I happened to be in a cohort which started out with ~11 students, but by the end there were only 7 of us (Again, don’t underestimate the difficulty) with 2 instructors and a TA so I had ample support. My instructors were so knowledgeable and could solve any coding problem it seemed. I lucked out with quality instructors. The quality of instruction can vary based on your cohort. We had TA sessions I think 3 times a week where our TA would help you finish any assignment you were stuck on. Since there were so few of us we really got tailored support. I have heard other cohorts now are much larger - some 35 students with the same number of instructors/ TAs so you may want to ask about your cohort size, it makes a huge difference. I guess I got lucky. But I tried to solve things on my own before going to instructors and TAs though, google will be your best friend and if you only rely on instructors to do your work for you or solve your problems, it won’t do your any good in the long run. Is the career/after graduation support good? Yes! They stay with you until you find a job. No joke. I couldn’t believe that I still had GA’s support after graduation. Right when I graduated I felt a little bit of an existential crisis- what do I do now, how to structure my day to job hunt. It was so nice to have a dedicated career coach to keep me on track and at least help with my materials (resume, portfolio, cover letters). I didn’t end up leaning on GA too much for interview prep but they do offer that among so many other career services. I put a ton of work into my resume, portfolio, and LinkedIn. Because I worked hard during the bootcamp, I had ample portfolio pieces to add. I ended up applying to only around ~25 jobs. I got a call back on around ~5 of those, and ended up with 2 offers in the same week for software engineer positions. My current role is a full stack developer. Total job search was around 2 months. Some may look at me as the best case scenario, but I also took the time and I truly believe anyone can do it if they are emotionally, and mentally prepared to put in the work. If this all speaks to you- look into General Assembly. Trust in their process and you won’t be let down. It is truly a life changing experience and I have never felt so proud of myself for doing it.