Hack Reactor

I came in with high expectations and my experience far exceeded those expectations. I have never learned so much in such a short period of time. The culture was very healthy in that in pushed us to the limits of our abilities, and often beyond those abilities,... Read More but was always there to catch us and help us grow.

I am a strong believer in disrupting our traditional education system. Hack Reactor fills an important niche. It is rigorously designed; staff care, but hold you accountable. If you are serious about making a switch to software engineering, then this... Read More will be a great, structured springboard to a new skill and potentially a new career. IF you are ***insanely*** self-motivated and already build your own applications, this course is probably not for you. Everybody else, consider it after doing some research. Don't go anywhere but a top tier program (HR, App Academy, and a few others). Although the program overall is great I worry that bootcamps in general have gone downhill. I have many friends that went through bootcamps in their early days, who are now engineers. Instructors at these early stages were all highly qualified engineers, with many years of experience, that had a deep interest in teaching. However, instructors for Hack Reactor now are almost universally former graduates, MANY OF WHOM HAVE SPENT LITTLE OR NO TIME IN INDUSTRY. Whether this is due to limited teaching talent and an excess of demand with too many bootcamps, I do not know, but the result is a much less experienced staff. You must go into the program realizing that the lion's share of learning will be done by you, yourself, and your cohort mates. Commitment to quality education is high at the very top. Marcus, the co-founder is stellar. You will learn from him personally, but those experiences are limited, and the excellent pedagogical skills he possesses are not well-distributed throughout the organization. In a similar vein, the curriculum is a few years old. Updates come slowly, if at all. The organization seems to have developed quite a bit of inertia, and its educational content is still running on the momentum of absolutely superstar instructors from the early days like Fred Zirdung. You will see quite a few videos from him explaining concepts. But in an industry that is so fast-paced, it is disconcerting to see videos that are so old. At the end of the day, these are challenges I assume many bootcamps have to wrestle. However, if the best value adds of the program are that it creates an environment for self-directed learning and provides a proven rigorous (albeit aging) curriculum, you really have to ask yourself, 'will I bring relentless focus and a commitment to explore and internalized outside resources to the table?' If so, then this is probably the right place for you, and it will change your life despite its limited drawbacks. If not, then keep studying coding on the side via free resources. The rest of the staff is incredibly supportive and committed to your success. Especially if you have not had a job, there is some good basic career advice most people never receive in high school or college. Finally the program is technically stable. Few changes and high throughput means few errors and a high degree of stability for all materials and resources you utilize. Finally, HR does a great job of ensuring quality via remote learning. So if you are worried the pandemic or distance learning will and asterisk to your degree here, don't.

Hack Reactor is a vigorous course. Long days, long weeks and hard work should be expected from this course but all the work and effort is worth it. I came from a non-technical background, knowing nothing about programming and in the three month course... Read More I've become pretty comfortable with programming. One of the most important things I've learned, is autonomy. Hack Reactor stresses the practice of researching and approaching problems in such a way that I feel like I can tackle anything. The staff is amazing and well qualified, helping at any instance you feel lost. I highly recommend this program to anyone looking to change their life.

First thing first, this program is tough. Expect to spend 70 hours/week working on the material. It's not for everyone. That being said, it was incredibly rewarding. Hack Reactor packs in so much material in such a short amount of time. The quality of... Read More the instruction is top-notch. I attended the Seattle campus and our program lead Josh was excellent. And so is the quality of student. You spend a lot of time pair programming and working in groups, so this is especially important. I obviously have not attended any of the other bootcamps, but I imagine the average quality of student is higher at Hack Reactor than at many others. The pre-course material and admissions test to get into the course are a great feature to make sure that quality of student stays high. As for the actual course itself, it is divided into two sections: the junior section and the senior section. The junior section is a rigorous, jam-packed crash course in JavaScript and CS fundamentals. You learn the basics of full-stack development. The junior section probably will feel overwhelming and stressful due to the volume of material. In the senior section, it all comes together. You take that knowledge and create fully formed applications. Trust the process. The job search. For context, I graduated one month ago and am currently looking for a job. One of my worries was that once you graduated, you would be forgotten and be completely on your own. This has not been the case. No, they will not go out and get you a job, but they definitely do not abandon you. You are assigned a career services advisor that will work with you for up to six months after graduating. My experience with the Seattle campus's advisor Liz has been tremendous. You can meet with her as many times a week as you would like and practice interviewing, talk about the job search or just vent. There is also an optional Job Search program you can enroll in if you want to hold yourself accountable. This program is new, and they are still working out the kinks, and ultimately it's going to be on you to keep yourself accountable in the job search. One downside is that there is not a lot of time allotted in the program for practicing technical interviewing. This is a skill you definitely need to learn, and for most of the students in my cohort, we spent our first few weeks after the program ended practicing it before we felt ready to apply for jobs. But, there's only so much time over 13 weeks, and this is something that I'm okay with mostly leaving out of the curriculum. Hack Reactor is a great program, and I believe a tremendous value for those looking to jump into a software engineering career. The numbers speak for themselves. Hack Reactor really can help you jumpstart a new career.

Hack Reactor is an intensive program that really drills in core concepts and replicates the closest experience you can find to a real engineering work environment. I knew from the prep course (prior to the admission exam) that Hack Reactor has a reputation... Read More and isn't going to let anyone with interest into the program. With failed attempts, my motivation to make the cut helped me expend all my energy and push myself harder than anything I had ever done previously. This mentally set me up for the standard that was going to be held at Hack Reactor. The program was as vigorous as anything I have done, but it really helped build a base that I was able to continually add onto. As the program continued, I began to have an easier time keeping up due to my newly developed excitement for learning that Hack Reactor instilled. They provided environments that allowed collaboration at all points throughout the bootcamp. Through this collaboration, I was able to understand that I was not alone in my struggles and it allowed me to teach and learn from other students. The curriculum provided a wide range of knowledge and focused on technologies and practices that are required in the field. The Hack Reactor Bootcamp was a gift that kept on giving. They continually give support even after the bootcamp ended by providing help throughout the job search. I am pleasantly surprised by the help and community that was provided and cannot believe the amount of growth that I have made in 3 months. This was easily the best educational experience I have ever had and I feel more proud of being a Hack Reactor Alum than even being an alum of my college. Pros: Community was amazing, especially with my cohort being switched to remote because of COVID-19. Very Rigorous and isn't going to let everyone through. Hack Reactor cares more about their reputation and service than taking your money. Course Work was great and I can feel it building on itself and getting more difficult, while preparing us for it. Cons: Need to make a lot of personal sacrifices, but this is the only way to grow at such a quick rate.

I recently graduated from Hack Reactor and have a number of positive things to say about the program as a whole. The program is definitely difficult and you should try your best to prepare as much as possible before starting it. The staff is supportive... Read More but won’t hold your hand, and the course curriculum moves at such a fast pace that it feels like you’re learning at least one new and relevant thing almost every single day. There’s an emphasis on process and thinking about problems methodically, which means that understanding why a solution works is almost always more important than simply achieving a working solution. Additionally, the staff proves consistently impressive throughout the immersive. They are the bedrock that makes this program, and each staff member brings a unique perspective and set of skills to the program to create a team that consistently and effectively meets the learning needs of each cohort’s students. From the cohort leads to the tech mentors to the career services team you meet with at the program’s end, the team at Hack Reactor genuinely wants to see their students succeed, and they often go above and beyond responsibilities to ensure that this happens. I personally received help from staff on numerous occasions outside of the program’s container hours, and staff members also proactively check in with students to ensure that learning needs and objectives are met. I can walk away from Hack Reactor and say I’m glad to have been part of it. The experience was transformative in a number of ways, and at this point my biggest regret regarding Hack Reactor is not having discovered it earlier.

Hack Reactor is a great program to introduce people to web development and the in's and out's of the Javascript language. The immersive is very structured, with the first half as two-day sprints, introducing different parts of the stack (using Javascript... Read More and some SQL) and the latter half as group projects, which has deadlines, and is supposed to be a pseudo-work environment. There is a wealth of good information available during the immersive. Hack Reactor staff have managed to make the experience an outstanding education even in a remote environment. What makes the program valuable is that the staff has a passion for teaching and puts thought into each student based on their performance, and there is both technical and non-technical feedback provided. As far as support goes, there is plenty here. I'd especially like to thank Tech Mentor Rob Lopez and Shepherd Chris Ciervo for routinely going above and beyond working hours to provide support and assistance. Although it is possible to learn the same information without a program, the solid foundation of knowledge that Hack Reactor provides it's students with within a relatively short period of time (4.5 months including pre-course) is impressive, and unlikely to be matched by self-learning. The program also has an excellent community, which the staff works tirelessly to keep alive even in the remote environment, and which I wish I had participated in more! There is a program in place for job support, still in the early iterations. Overall, Hack Reactor's program does an excellent job laying a strong foundation of programming fundamentals that enables future web developers to build a career.

I went through their premium Prep course, passed the TAA, did the Pre-course and started the Software Engineering Immersive January. Unfortunately, I had to drop from the cohort and decided to re-enroll into the upcoming March one. This is where is gets... Read More bad. I signed an agreement stating I will re-enroll and whatever tuition I paid for will be put to that cohort instead of getting a partial refund. They sent me another enrollment agreement stating my outstanding balance was more than $4,500 than what my actual balance is based on the previews document. I've been emailing back and forth with my enrollment advisor, but they refuse to change the document. I've been emailing the bursar and they have not responded at all. Finally they sent me another document only for me to see that it's the exact same one. My enrollment officer said they are "not legally allowed to apply [my] refund to [my] new enrollment until after [I] sign the enrollment agreement." So they basically just want me to sign the document that says I owe much more than I actually do because I have no other choice and it's easier for them...

I recently graduated from Hack Reactor and have a number of positive things to say about the program as a whole. The program is definitely difficult and you should try your best to prepare as much as possible before starting it. The staff is supportive... Read More but won’t hold your hand, and the course curriculum moves at such a fast pace that it feels like you’re learning at least one new and relevant thing almost every single day. There’s an emphasis on process and thinking about problems methodically, which means that understanding why a solution works is almost always more important than simply achieving a working solution. Additionally, the staff proves consistently impressive throughout the immersive. They are the bedrock that makes this program, and each staff member brings a unique perspective and set of skills to the program to create a team that consistently and effectively meets the learning needs of each cohort’s students. From the cohort leads to the tech mentors to the career services team you meet with at the program’s end, the team at Hack Reactor genuinely wants to see their students succeed, and they often go above and beyond responsibilities to ensure that this happens. I personally received help from staff on numerous occasions outside of the program’s container hours, and staff members also proactively check in with students to ensure that learning needs and objectives are met. I can walk away from Hack Reactor and say I’m glad to have been part of it. The experience was transformative in a number of ways, and at this point my biggest regret regarding Hack Reactor is not having discovered it earlier.

I graduated from Hack Reactor last month and I am currently on the job search. I will update this review when I get a job. My review in summary: HR is an excellently run program and does what it promises, which is transforming students into career-ready... Read More software engineers who can tackle new projects and technologies autonomously. That said, it might not be for everyone. Unlike some bootcamps, HR requires students to undergo a fair amount of preparation before the immersive program actually begins. After passing a technical interview admissions assessment, students spend roughly a month doing precourse material. This is a great time to figure out whether HR is a good fit for you. Students work individually on a series of “deliverables” with their own deadlines. The material ramps up quickly, and you have to figure out much of it on your own. Going through the precourse involves lurching between moments of feeling totally lost and then getting that hard-won clarity. There is excellent support from technical mentors but they will not give you the answers and cannot accomplish the process of learning so much in such a short time for you. The software immersive itself is a similar process of rapid learning but you are not alone. Not only are there lectures and more explicit instructions for the materials you work through, you will be paired with someone else or in a group. There are staff manning a help desk that can help answer questions, and the program instructors offer excellent one-on-one instruction for those struggling with certain concepts. Hack Reactor has a successful formula for making students into self-sufficient software engineers. Hack Reactor teaches every student two main things: a basic competency in creating full-stack software applications and an ability to learn what you don’t know but need to. The first half of the program is dedicated to the former. In the second half, once you know how to build full-stack applications, you develop your self-teaching skills. By the end, you will feel confident about your abilities. There is a lot I don’t know how to do and a lot of technologies I don’t know. But I feel confident that I could take on just about any project because of the skills I’ve learned at HR. The experience itself is also very rewarding. The instructors are smart and caring. The material is exciting. Despite the long hours, I often wished it had gone longer and would eagerly forward to starting each day. Because of the intensity of the experience, it is also likely that you will form close bonds with the peers in your cohort.