Makers Academy

A brilliant experience. I would recommend this course to anyone and everyone (unless you're someone who needs a lot of structure and don't do well with self-learning)

PROS:
- Course was free (fellowship programme)
- Job guarantee (with above average salary)
- The people are awesome. Culture of respect and support
- Staff truly care about students. All staff, from admin to facilities to coaches to careers
- Coach support; if you're driven you can ask them anything
- Emphasis on industry best practices (TDD, Agile, pairing, clean code)
- Super fun environment. It really is a pleasure to be there
- Focus on health and happiness (BRILLIANT therapist on campus, Dana Svoboda, who heads meditation, yoga, and group/one-on-one therapy sessions)
- Freedom to learn what you want
- Fas...

I'll try to keep this review as honest and balanced as possible. I relied on the reviews on this site when I looked at bootcamps and I'll do my best to set realistic expectations based on my experience so far. I met with 3 UK bootcamps (We Got Coders, General Assembly and Makers). I whittled it down to We Got Coders and Makers and after attending the final projects demonstration of the latest cohort I settled on Makers.

TLDR; A great bootcamp that taught me the fundamentals of back-end and front-end web development, along with a mindset for how to create good quality, maintainable, changeable code. It has its challenges, and the learning style can feel very uncomfortable at first but worth sticking with. In the end I got 3 offers (2 x front-end and 1 x back-end) within a month of gra...

You’re reluctant to believe all the “it’s the best thing ever” reviews, I get that. But you don’t have to worry.

If you prepare, work hard, focus and are a team player; Makers really will be the career changing utopia nearly everyone is correctly reporting it to be.

The focus on how to work in a development team rather than individuals code bashing is right.
The focus on learning to learn rather than lessons on specific syntax is right.
The focus on group projects rather than individual achievement is right.

It’s OK, you can believe the hype.

I have never worked harder in my life but I enjoyed every day of my time at Makers.
The curriculum is set up to provide enough structure to guide you down the correct learning paths but also provide you with enough freedom to explore what you find interesting in your own way. The amount of new information can feel quite overwhelming at times but the coaches and other Makers staff have seen it all before and have all the tools to help keep you motivated, relaxed and happy.
The variety in the working styles from pair programming sessions, group projects and individual activities is a fantastic way to not only learn new programming languages but also simulate a more realistic professional working environment which would be impossible on your own.
Once you finish the course the careers...

Makers is definitely not a spoon feeding experience. You are thrown in at the deep end regularly, but this is what makes you grow and learn the best. And the coaching team equip you with the tools and offer any additional support you require. I now feel confident in my ability to learn and pick up anything that might be required of me in a job as a software developer.

But beyond learning to code, the emotional intelligence side of the course was life changing for me. I generally feel less anxious and calmer when faced with a challenging situation.

I also met some great people - both fellow cohort members and coaches. Overall it was a hugely fun experience and I really can’t recommend it enough!

I also got offered a great job super quickly with a great deal of help and work be...

I loved my experience at Makers. It's the kind of place that you'd read about existing in a Nordic country and think 'I wish they had something like that here in the U.K'. But it is here, in London. Makers approach to education is very progressive; the focus is on improving your skills and not comparing yourself to others. There is also an emotional intelligence aspect to the course which is very useful for keeping your head in check when faced with the different challenges that arise.

The curriculum is great. The emphasis is on learning by doing, and most of the course involves pair programming and group work, which really helps prepare you for working in a real development environment. There are also plenty of workshops that run throughout and good software development principles ...

I loved the culture of Makers from the very first day, every aspect of the course was thoroughly considered and the staff seemed so dedicated towards a cause that they seemed genuinely passionate about - training the next generation of great software developers. The fact that you don't get awarded a 'formal' qualification allows a responsive curriculum where each new cohort benefits from the feedback of those that have gone before.

Makers has a unique approach, in that rather than focussing on teaching you coding languages, you get taught you how to learn for yourself so that you can learn any language. It wasn't until I started job-hunting that I began to really appreciate how well the curriculum was designed, particularly in terms of working with others, communication and emotiona...

I believe you've heard many Makers graduate saying that they love Makers and those 12 weeks are their best time of their life ever. I heard that too from several of them before I started the course, and I could hardly ever believe it. It almost felt creepy and I rather felt rebellious and decided that I wouldn't be one of those worshippers of Makers Academy. As you could tell, I failed; I genuinely LOVE Makers Academy and I honestly recommend this school to anyone who's considering changing their career.

I was a Pastry Chef before Makers for various reasons, but I had always wanted to work on some intellectual career. I studied Python on my own for a year, but felt like it wasn't going anywhere. I couldn't decide if going to Makers was the best option even after I paid all tuition (I...

If I had the chance to go back in time to the day when I made my decision on which Bootcamp invitation I would accept, I would choose Makers Academy again. Great CV, great projects and best practices all in a friendly and welcoming environment.
Don't doubt it go for it!

I did this course last year. Totally recommend it. I've got a degree in AI and used to be a software developer years ago, but when I tried to get back into dev work it still wasn't easy. So I decided to do a boot camp. Dedicating 3 months to nothing but coding would get me back in the right frame of mind I thought as well as showing potential employers I had commitment. It would also be a start getting up to speed with the latest tech.

I looked at the options and chose this course carefully. It's exceptionally well thought out. In many respects it's the most helpful training I've ever done - even more so than my degree. If wondering what's the most useful stuff you can cram into just 3 months, this is it. If you're a complete newbie then by the end of it you still won't know very muc...

Makers Academy was undeniably the best educational experience I've ever had. That's coming from someone who has a degree, MSc and an ACA qualification. This is due to a huge number of reasons but I have tried to mention the most pertinent ones for me below.

1.) The coaches are genuine and authentic. They really want you to learn and are driven to improving not only you but themselves. Feedback is taken seriously and if someone makes a comment like 'that was really helpful' the coaches will jump on it, they want to understand why what and how and they use that to constantly better themselves. This is what makes them so good.

2.) The coaches inspire you to solve your own problems. If you get stuck and call a coach over they won't just tell you the answer. Instead, they will reframe...

Makers is not only a great coding school with a well-thought curriculum. It's also a place, where you learn how to cooperate with others, plan your projects and talk about your challenges and successes. I took a big risk in coming to Makers, but now I think it was the best possible decision. The job support is also great - me as well as many friends of mine got a few offers. Most of my cohort found a job within a month after graduation.

If you wan't to be a Software Developer, Makers Academy is your place to be. The course is tough, but the principles, the methodologies, the techniques you learn, are in the highest demand on the market. You don't only learn to write code in Ruby or JavaScript, most importantly you learn how to learn. So when a company you apply for is working with C# for example, you put your 'Makers learning to learn' smile on your face and start writing your first lines of code with C#, without any hard feelings. After finishing the course, I've been writing code in Java and PHP for my upcoming interviews and for the sake of trying it out and thanks to Makers I was enjoying it even tho' it is always hard.
The people you meet at Makers are all and again, they are all amazing. The people I've met duri...

PROS - Learn the best coding practices from the best in the business.
- Increase confidence week on week by building on what you learned the previous weeks.
- Learn how to solve big coding problems in a scientific manner, starting by breaking the problem down then tackling the smaller pieces. This approach means you will amaze yourself with the complexity of what you are able to do by the end of the course.
- Learn to work in pairs and on group projects. In this way you'll develop the soft-skills that are becoming increasingly important in the industry, as well as using version control and git workflows to build your projects in a similar way to 'real-world' projects.
- Coaches are always on hand to help guide you and make sure you are asking the right questions.
- Excellent works...

- Really felt like I came out the course learning something.
- The course gave me confidence in the skills that I had learnt and I was sure that I could meet the job specifications for the jobs that I was applying for.
- Had a lot of fun playing about with different technologies.
- Improved my table tennis skills.
- GOT A JOB!! :)

Back in September 2017, after learning to code by myself for some time and getting nowhere, I have decided to do a boot camp course in software development. During my research, Makers Academy has always appeared on the top of the list for the top boot camp courses in London. I came to their demo day and I have been amazed by the web/phone apps every group has been able to build in such a short amount of time (the last two weeks of the course). I have decided to apply to Makers Academy and from the beginning, I liked how organised they were/are. You don't just apply and get a place. You have to prepare yourself for the interview and pass it, after studying all the materials they give you, in order to secure a place on the course. I actually didn't pass my first interview and have been as...

I took the Makers course in November 2017 and would thoroughly recommend it as a way of (i) learning the basics of software development and the standards expected in the industry, and (ii) "learn how to learn" new things fast and effectively.

The course is very much a hands-on experience, structured around pair programming and weekly challenges as opposed to formal lessons. I found it exhilarating and extremely effective but also very hard work. The atmosphere was incredible and support was also very good on both the technical side with the passionate coaches, as well as the human side with Dana being a superb joy officer looking our mental and physical wellbeing.

Finally the post-course assistance with job hunting was first class and just what I needed as a new developer

I may have stolen the review title from them, but it could not be more true. My passion for technology has reached a whole new level, and it is pretty much due to this amazing organisation. The whole system works pretty well. You need to be prepared to be challenged and to become a problem-solver. Luckily, you will have a lot of support from coaches and other fellow students, so the same is expected from you when others need it: to be able to help out.

It is a really intense experience, but it is totally worth-it!

The Curriculum:
-Workshops that have been improved with student-feedback for years
-Chances to focus on learning a stack you are into and build your own project with it
-A 'learn-to-learn' -focussed curriculum. This sounds like a cliché, but Makers Academy really teaches you how to approach learning a new language or framework.

The coaches:
-They are there to help you solve your problems, and by that I mean point you in the right direction so that it's you yourself who solves the problem.
-They take every single piece of feedback into account and are constantly updating and trying out new ideas for the curriculum

I think you need to be cautiously optimistic about the fact if i do this course i can get a job straight after. Whilst that did happen to a lot of the folk on my cohort, and my mentor struck up a job literally a day after completing the course! It did not for me. I am also profoundly deaf, so my learning process was slower and my job search even slower! I was still able to obtain a job within 5 months after completing the course! And on top of that I got to move up Yorkshire as a result! Makers teaches you how to code yes, but they were also huge preachers of self learning, self research and pair programming. I found pairing hard at first because of communication issues, however my coach was able to devise new innovative ways to expand on this such as 'silent pairing'. Silent pairing w...