iO Academy

A brilliant coding boot camp that gives you all the skills you need to become a software developer. Crucially, it focusses on replicating the professional environment as much as possible, this means 9-5 working days, sprint reviews and collaboration.... Read More Once you finish the course it's up to you what you want to do. Back end, front end or full-stack; It's your choice.

I could finish by saying that the course content has absolutely zero fat on it and is bang-on relevant but the real highlight for me has been the tuteledge from Mike and Charlie and just how much they care and the effort put into just about every aspect of the course. It is this that, for me, takes the course from being simply very good to absolutely great.

If you're looking for become a developer, I can't recommend this course enough.

To put it simply - I cannot recommend Mayden Academy highly enough.

Having researched various coding courses in London I was always put off by the expense of living in London, not working and paying for a course on top of this! I stumbled across Mayden... Read More Academy and of course, came here to find out more about the course. The reviews all seemed incredibly positive, almost too positive and I admit I found myself slightly skeptical. It gives me great pleasure to write a similarly positive review now - I am completely convinced!

I won't spend too much time on the course itself as that is covered on the Mayden Academy website. But what really made my 16-week experience so valuable was the: staff, building and job support.

Let's start with the most important thing (in my opinion), the staff. Whilst I was there Mayden Academy had two trainers, Mike and Charlie. My trainer was Mike and he has the knowledge, patience, and ability to make complex concepts understandably that sets apart good teachers. He fostered a relaxed yet focused working environment. Quite apart from this Mike, Charlie and Margaret (the Marketing Manager) were good, friendly people that are a pleasure to be around. An important quality for a 16-week intensive course...

The course takes place in the most incredible Bath townhouse (it must be five floors). It's the nicest place I have worked and will work in future in all probability. The training rooms are in the basement, but it's a very nice environment and opens straight out onto the beautiful garden and you are spoiled by sweeping views of Bath. For all you cyclists out there, there is a secure place to put your bike, a very decent shower, lots of storage for gear and a place to dry wet clothes in the basement. What a bonus!

Mike has been working in tech in the South West for many years and has established excellent connections with tech companies in Bath and Bristol. The Academy itself has a number of hiring partners who come and watch your progress during the two weekly sprint reviews. This is an excellent opportunity to get to know potential employers and for them to get to know you, take it seriously. Mayden Academy also organizes an evening to meet the hiring partners which was another useful opportunity to network. The last few weeks of the course are interspersed with job applications and interviews. Mike is continually posting relevant job opportunities so that by the end of the course 6/7 of the 15 students had confirmed job offers.

Take the Full Stack Track! If you apply yourself and take it seriously you will come out a very employable junior developer.

Mayden Academy teach you (among many other things) how to use HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and MySQL to a high standard. But much more importantly than that, they will teach you how to use these skills in a professional environment, preparing you to work... Read More in a real development team.
You will undertake a three-day course on Scrum methodology, which may be a bit alien to anyone from a non-dev background, but it gives you a great insight into some key aspects of programming and developing products in a team. Also, every block of 'theory' has a corresponding week of 'project', which will ensure that you cement in the skills you have learned by utilising them in a real world project - you'll end up making a game, an e-commerce store and a personal portfolio page to show off all of your projects.
The course does go at a brisk pace, and it may well need some hard work reading your notes or working on solo projects to really bed-in the ideas and concepts that get taught. However, the pace that both Mike and Charlie take throughout the whole course is realistic and it is truly possible to start this course without any programming knowledge at all. I would stress that in order to get the most out of the course to follow the pre-joining instructions and complete the online courses that they recommend - knowing the basics will ensure that you can reserve energy for the really hard-to-grasp concepts.
I joined the course after leaving a job in Retail, and accepted a job offer on the last day of the course. I had always written off my chances of being a developer because I lack both a degree and a technical background, but my experience is that taking a course like Mayden Academy can ensure that neither of these is an issue.
Other than preparing you for a role as a developer, Mayden Academy also help you with actually getting a job - this is done with a CV and interview prep session, professional advice on how to improve the design of your portfolio site, as well as a meet & greet evening with their ever-growing list of hiring-partners (18 at time of writing).
Going from beginner to professional-level as a programmer on your own is entirely possible, but without the expertise, knowledge and tutoring of Mike and Charlie this would have taken me many years, as opposed to the four months of the course. Taking the time to do an intensive course like this is, for me, the most time-efficient way of getting yourself those skills and that job.

Mayden is a fantastic experience. Up to the minute content that I found was fully job-relevant. I had a stream of recruiters after me from the content on my CV, and when I started a job I found myself really well prepared, not just technically but also... Read More in terms of good practices, from git to coding standards to scrum. Left with a great community of graduates that still helps each other on Slack. Beside the great teaching and practice, there was brilliant mentoring. Could not recommend more

This is an intensive course that will definitely require work in your own time. It's tiring but worth it. Make the most of each weekend to get plenty of rest...

It focuses on what businesses look for - practical hands on experience that's relevant to employment.... Read More The skills learned build on each other so projects get gradually more advanced during the course. It's great to be able to look back over what we built and see the dramatic advancement.

I couldn't have asked for more supportive and patient trainers. Very encouraging of questions and taking the time to make sure everyone has a good understanding of each topic.

I particularly liked the alternating approach of a week of theory followed by a week of putting it into practice working on a project. The projects really helped me identify things I didn't yet understand fully from the previous week, and embedded the theory more firmly.

I am very impressed with such a well chosen group of students - varied skills and interests but all very capable and all worked really well together. I thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with them, and we're likely to meet up and collaborate on one off Saturday projects in future. The excellent judgement in choosing students stands out as one of the most important aspects to me.

The knowledge and experience gained (particularly working as part of a team) gave me much increased confidence which really helped in applying for a job.

If you're wondering whether this is for you, this is what I would say based on my personal experience: Given enough time, it's perfectly possible to learn software development by teaching yourself at home, but learning with feedback from someone who knows what is important is so much faster and will avoid years studying things you just don't need. Also, half the knowledge is how to develop software effectively with a team in person, which you don't get from learning at home. I also learned just how much more can be done with a deadline to work to...

Such a great course, I really enjoyed my time learning at the academy with great trainers and lovely students. I developed valuable skills both technical and for working in a team. It has given me a really strong base of skills to launch from and an idea... Read More of how I could learn and develop more in the future.

It is a very well supported intensive course that will give you all the skills you need to go straight into a junior developer role. The trainers are encouraging, friendly and always willing to help you learn.

Really great trainers, appreciative of how to cater to different learning styles. Great at teaching structured content and practical exercises.

I really enjoyed the Node and Framework’s module because it contained so much content that was completely new to me and was exciting even if it was difficult.

Mike was the most patient teacher I had my whole life so far and I learned more in 16 weeks that in any other course or study I had so far. I cannot emphasis enough the value of the good teamwork and the proper approach into study coding languages and... Read More practices that Mayden Academy provides.

You won`t get better education anywhere else. The value you get from the time/money invested cannot be achieved anywhere else.

Having left school at 18 and wanting to persue a career in software development, I knew university was not the best option. Mayden Academy has fast tracked my career and helped me get a job that I wouldn't have been able to get without a degree, 3 years... Read More faster and far cheaper than University could.

The most valuable things I learnt were, project estimations / planning, teamwork, many new technologies and above all the industry standard way of doing things.

About teachers:

Mike and Charlie are really great and supportive, every time anyone stuck or can't understand something Mike or Charlie explain in a very simple way so you can understand not just repeat.
The material is great and the course is quite balanced,... Read More so you never feel missed somewhere behind. This course can help you to become a full stack, but for me, I think we spent more time on Backend part, anyway, a month before I found a job as a Frontend developer.

Originally I am from Ukraine and moved to Bath for this course. And it was very important not just get new skills, but be supported by people when I am settling, and I got the best support that I haven't expected. All people from Mayden are team players and very supportive, and I really appreciate it.

Recommendations:

If you want to take advantage of this course(actually it is true for any course) you should be prepared. Learn HTML, CSS, JS, and some PHP depends on who you want to be. Take Freecodecamp, Codecadamy etc. try to build some simple projects(freecodecamp can help you with it) so when you will be in academy all your knowledge become structured and expands drastically. As I mentioned above, I found the job a month before the course was ended, but it just because I have started my job hunting in the middle of the course(in the end of the second month). Don't be scared of it as it cost you nothing, but it helps you to be hired immediately.

I definitely recommend this school to everyone.

To be short and snappy: I gained my ZCE qualification!

In just 5 days, Mike was able to deliver a huge amount of content covering most parts of the PHP knowledge required for the ZCE exam which I had taken in the following week, which was considered rather... Read More daunting as the PHP codebase is rather large. I was also able to tackle a practice exam as part of this module in preparation for the main exam to get a feel for what sort of questions could come up and how to answer them. Having completed this, I now feel much more confident in my ability to work with PHP as part of my placement year here at Mayden as a software developer. The ZCE qualification is an invaluable addition to my CV and should help me on as I begin a career after completing my degree at University following this year.