iO Academy

I am so glad that I took this course! I had no previous coding experience or technical background, so this was a huge switch of mental focus for me. But the support we received during and even after the training was/is incredible. The atmosphere is very... Read More community - like and welcoming. The trainers are amazing - very knowledgeable, approachable and supportive. They are also the most patient people you may ever, ever meet. If I had teachers like that as a teenager, I would be a different person today! I couldn't have chosen better place to start a new career. I am endlessly grateful for the encouragement I received - that definitely helped me to believe in myself and my abilities. My group started in person and moved remote after a few weeks but it wasn't a problem at all. iO Academy team adapted really well to these circumstances and I found learning on - line even easier. The course is very intense at times but it is manageable and we were actively encouraged to look after ourselves, take our breaks and use our weekends for rest. Trainers are also very adaptable and responsive to any issues or struggles you may experience. I become quite easily overwhelmed and I did it, which means you can do it too! I would advice starting preparing for the course as soon as you can - the more you already know, the easier it will be. And taking good notes is also important, as they become handy after the training, when you realize you need to go over it all again!

If you're debating joining iO Academy, just do it! it's the best decision I've ever made. The training and support is great and they really help prepare you for your first role as a developer. And the support continues even after finishing the course,... Read More helping with any coding problems and searching for jobs.  I started the course in person and after a few weeks got moved to being remote which I was dreading but it was actually even easier than in person. Can't recommend the academy enough! I got a job a week after graduating and am excited to begin my career as a developer.

I can't thank iO Academy enough, the training is first class and the support is incredible. We had to switch from in person too remote during the course and even this was handled so professionally. In many ways it actually helped prepare us for the current... Read More workplace environment. If you're looking for a coding course that prepares you for the workplace, then this is really the one to do.

Having an established career already, it was a bit daunting to say the least to leave employment and retrain. However, the course at iO Academy has given me the best start to launch my new career that I could have hoped for. It was an amazing experience... Read More from the start and I honestly wouldn't change a thing. The course is structured really well, with a general format of one theory week followed by a project week to put your newfound knowledge into practice. You come out with a solid portfolio of work, which is probably the most valuable thing when starting as a new developer. As you might imagine, it is intensive and definitely hard-work at times. However the pace is achievable and the support is always there to help if you need it. The agile aspects are invaluable for those who haven't worked in a similar environment before, with the Scrum Master certification being a real bonus. There are also regular guest speakers which are really interesting and a great introduction to life in the industry and the dev community in general. I couldn't have asked for better trainers - they are really friendly and approachable, incredibly knowledgeable, excellent teachers, and always available and eager to help whenever needed. They are very conscious of continuous improvement, asking for feedback after each module. They also offer one-on-one chats (both planned and ad-hoc) where you can go through anything you need. The whole course is underpinned by an excellent office team, who do a great job at supporting students and trainers alike throughout. Learning remotely for the majority of the course wasn't a problem at all, in fact I think it actually worked better than it would have done in the classroom with social distancing. Towards the end of the course there are excellent job planning sessions, including support with CVs, interviews, tech tests, hiring partner events, recruiter contacts etc., which are essential to get the best start to the job hunt. Overall I am really pleased that I decided to go down the bootcamp route and wouldn't hesitate to do so again if I were to start over. It was an amazing experience throughout and I honestly wouldn't change a thing. I now am part of an ever-expanding alumni of like-minded individuals, who continue to provide opportunities as I start my career. I'm very happy I made the leap and couldn't/wouldn't have done it without the course - thanks to all at iO Academy!

Having been a stay at home mum for 5 years with absolutely no coding experience at all, I strangely decided that software development was for me and applied for iO academy. I am incredibly glad that I made that odd choice, because it turns out that not... Read More only is coding great fun, but I couldn’t have chosen a better place to be trained up. The content was great and has set me in good-stead to be taking on my first technical role with technologies that are relevant. The trainers were absolutely brilliant - patient, helpful and all round good eggs, and didn’t mind answering all my very basic questions. I generally felt incredibly supported and like being part of a really close-knit team. The on-going support after the course has been wonderful as well, with help offered searching for jobs, getting in touch with recruiters and keeping up practicing skills. Overall, I could not recommend iO Academy enough. It was a great experience and I now have a whole new career ahead of me with skills that I had never even heard of 4 months ago! Can’t be bad.

The course material is excellent, the trainers are beyond excellent -- knowledgeable, experienced, encouraging, helpful -- and the job support (and general support), during and after the course, is tremendously helpful. Can't recommend enough for anyone... Read More looking to get into web development, whether you're retraining or fresh out of school.

I left my job in Sept 2020 (in the middle of Covid... perhaps not the soundest decision but it turned out very well!) to attend iO (or Mayden Academy, as it was named at that point. The name changed, nothing else!). Before iO: I did some research on coding... Read More generally, some short courses on Codecademy, some of the free tester sessions you can find online. I wanted to be as sure as I could be that I actually would *like* coding - nothing I saw put me off, so I started researching bootcamps in my area. I was optimistic that I would be able to find one I could attend in person (at this point we were in between lockdowns, it was summer and it sort of felt like that would be feasible... yeah, I know). Anyway I did a lot of reading reviews, lots of digging into old blogs and so on, and I interviewed at two bootcamps. I already had iO pegged as my favourite and the interview confirmed it. There was also an entrance "test" - I got really hung up on this beforehand but would reassure anyone reading not to get too worried. It's not the kind of test you can revise for, and if you're the kind of nerd who's considering a coding bootcamp, you're probably going to find it fun. I took it online, in my own time, and had my face-to-face informal interview later. During iO: We did actually start in person, which was really nice. We were masked and behind plexiglass, but still. We moved to remote working in week 4, I think. I was worried about it but honestly it was actually really easy, and working in pairs over zoom is actually much more intuitive than working in pairs through plexiglass..! So if your cohort look like they're going to be fully remote, don't worry. The course is intense. It is fast, and if you've been out of education for a while, like I had been, it might take some getting used to! I would advise you to do any and all of the prep work you get sent beforehand (I did it for about half an hour an evening for a month or so beforehand, just to get to grips with things). You do a week or two of theory, followed by a project week. The first couple of projects are solo (you can obviously ask for help and so on, but what you make is personal to you), and then the rest are group based. Programming in a group was probably the biggest learning curve for me; it was so not what I was used to, but by the end our final project was something none of us could have achieved by ourselves, and we were all really proud. There are well-timed talks throughout the course from people in industry; these range from broad overviews of how certain companies work to fairly in-depth looks at how certain software works. Lots of the speakers are ex-students and it's really nice to see them and how happy they are in their work. After iO: Well, I'm only just after iO now, and I start my new job in two days! I had a few interviews during the final couple of weeks and the role I have accepted is a Masters degree apprenticeship - I do not have a computer science degree, I have a very doddery Film & Media degree from the dark ages, but in a couple of years I will be a software engineer with a masters degree! It would have been unthinkable to me this time last year, I'm thrilled. iO have lots of hiring partners within Bath / Bristol, and they will introduce you to whoever is hiring at the time you graduate. We graduated at Christmas, during covid lockdown, during a time when it is really hard to get work, and still had a handful of partners keen to interview us. Other notes? There were eight people in my class. We were all totally different in terms of learning styles; and all of us were accomodated. The size of the team means you get to know each other well and you get to learn how to work effectively with people who have different styles to you. It also means your tutor can take the time to give you each the individual support you need.

I never write reviews, but IO genuinely deserve all the fantastic reviews they continuously get, so I wanted to add mine.
I joined the course without any prior coding experience, just a genuine interest and desire to learn. Everyone there is so supportive,... Read More and genuinely wants you to succeed. Even after graduating and securing my first developer role, IO are still very much there for their alumni. Class sized are kept small, and set up like real dev teams, so even from day 1 they are preparing you for a career in tech. They alternate theory and project weeks, so you really get to practice what you learn and consolidate your knowledge, rather than feeling like you've rushed over content.
The curriculum and teaching is done in a way that gives you a strong foundation to build your career on, rather than feeling like you've just had a brief introduction on things. I've really felt this going into my first developer role, for example when my team are discussing OOP concepts, and I can contribute! My advice to anyone thinking of taking the Full-Stack Track at IO is take the 100% do it! It's one of the best decisions I ever made.

The Mayden Academy course is more than just a coding bootcamp, It's one of the best things I've done and I would recommend it to anyone considering a career in tech! It was a friendly, fun, and supportive environment and during my time there I felt that... Read More the trainers and everyone involved in running the course wanted the students to do well. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience: the wonderful trainers; the team of students; the course content; the structure of the course (love the alternating project and theory weeks as it helps you solidify the concepts and build up a great portfolio); the small class sizes; and the great place you get to study. Overall I really enjoyed everything I learnt and made some great friends; and even though I attended having barely written any code before and from a totally different career path it prepared my for my first developer job - thanks to the number of hiring partners the academy put you in touch with! Thank you Mayden Academy :)

I had a really good time attending Mayden Academy's Full Stack Track. The content is excellent, the staff and students friendly, and the course is structured in such a way that you get a good idea of what it is really like to work in a dev job. The general... Read More principles of programming are covered, so you won't have to fear learning other programming languages to increase your skills.