Makers Academy

I did the Makers Apprenticeship in 2019 and after more than 3 years I can honestly say that it has changed my life. The bootcamp is demanding, and you will find that there is no easy answer to any problem. What you learn at Makers on top of basic coding... Read More skills is how to approach these problems, break them down and deal with them as best as you can. Don't expect to be taught how to do everything but rather you'll learn how to pick up new skills quickly and put them to use. The coaches were super helpful, they are knowledgeable and they support you to find answers yourself. After working in the industry for over 3 years, I find that I still use the tools I was given at Makers to learn about new tech in my day to day job. After the 3 months bootcamp I started working as a software engineer as part of the apprenticeship program and completed my level 4 software developer certification within a year with the support of my placement coach. This bootcamp and preparing the assignments for the level 4 certification while working was probably one of the most challenging things in my life but it was 100% worth it.

I decided to change career after moving to the UK, after doing some researches I decided to go for tech with Makers. I will start with the pros. Pros: - Pair-programming: we did pair-programming almost every day. It gave us the opportunity to learn from... Read More each other. It also allow me to get used to working with other people. - good cirriculum structure: It saved me a lot of time trying to figure out what to learn first. It allowed me to learn step by step and progress with a good speed - 3 group projects: we worked with Agile, which gave me some taste of working in a team with high speed. I was surprised how the group projects helped me grow as a developer. - demanding workload: yes, I do think it is a pro. We had weekend challenges at the second half of the course, so expect to work really hard even on weekends. But it helped me to learn quick. Cons: - Full time and expensive. It's actually quite expensive, adding the fact that you have to study full time, you need to be sure tech is really what you want before joining. - Sometimes it is quite self-paced, so nobody can promise you that you are able to learn everything fully by the end of the course. You still need to pay a lot of effort to really absorb everything. Overall: Yes, the course is demanding. It provides a good structured cirriculum. You can get prepared to join the tech industry in a relatively short time - if you are willing to work very hard.

I was always skeptical about doing a Bootcamp, as coding has such a wide and deep range of free material that's readily available and free! However, the most valuable skills I learned at makers were not ones that could ever have been picked up through... Read More an online course. Not only do they teach you to code, but they also teach you how to work in a professional development environment and how to think as one! would highly recommend to anyone seriouse about taking up a carrer in software.

Had a great time at Makers. The coaches are knowledgeable and make it a point to always be available for feedback or review. The pace of the course is rigorous but it echoes the sort of problem solving under tight time frames that will occur on the job.... Read More There is a lot of emphasis on EQ learning and the job support after completion is incredible.

Pro's: - Met some amazing people who are great to be with, and having the web of contacts is almost as valuable as the course itself. - I really liked the coaches, I learnt a lot in a short space of time. - Learnt to code!!! - A great way to kick off... Read More a career. Cons: - I felt a bit out of my depth at times. I felt when I embarked on the course I wasn't quite ready, and it was so easy to get on the course I didn't think hard enough about how intense it might be. It was worth it in the end but it was a bit like: if you can write a line of code, you're in. A good idea would be to introduce an opt-out at the end of the precourse - because when I did the course I had to pay the fees and commit by the start of the precourse, which I felt a bit pressurised by.

Makers is intensive and will take over your life for the 12 weeks you're there. You have the support of a peer group, both online and in person social events and EQ sessions to balance out the wealth of technical learning. The coaches are supportive and... Read More will make time to help you if you're stuck, although you shouldn't expect to be fed solutions as there is a heavy focus on learning how to work things out and where to look for the answers. If you aren't willing to throw yourself into it and try then I don't think you will get much out of this course and may be better off choosing something with a more guided approach. I felt really drained and burnt out at the end of the course, and honestly couldn't have imagined anything worse than having to start job applications, but the careers team had so much energy it raised me up. In a month of finishing I've got my first tech job. I would definitely recommend Makers, it's a brilliant course and a well recognised one. Knowing what I know now about my experience, I would choose Makers again.

It's a good idea if you want to change careers and don't know where to start. At makers, you learn fundamental programming concepts with Ruby, and in the second half of the course, you learn Javascript. You learn how to become a good developer and good... Read More practices within programming. Works in groups and pairs. And most importantly, always maintain your mental health with daily meditation. There you learn not only to program but also to develop your soft skills. All coaches are attentive and willing to help you until you understand a concept.

Applying for Makers was the best decision I could ever have made for a successful career change. I had been working as a product manager for many years so I had no doubt that becoming an engineer was something I wanted to do. I have spent time doing online... Read More courses which really helped me be a better product person whilst confirming coding was something that made me truly happy, but I wanted something with more structure and would give me all the tools and skills that would make me 'market ready' at the end of it. By this I mean that this is not just a programming course. You'll be a dev and start coding from day one, learn how to work in an agile environment, pair with your cohort peers every day in the weekly challenges, have self organised team projects where you'll be building applications that you can show on your CV at the end, tutors there to guide and support you (but not spoon feed you the answer!), testing frameworks and the importance of TDD, fundamental concepts of software engineering etc... And a team at the end ready to guide you and give you support on finding your new dream job :) It is hard work though and not for the faint hearted! The course is based on self learning so be prepared for that as this is not a 'hand holding' course at all and it goes at speed and when you least expected it's demo day and you're presenting your new project to the outside world and can't believe it's "over"! But believe me it's going to be amazing and you'll love every second (ok maybe not when that test is not passing and you can't see why!) and you won't regret it! So yes, applying for Makers was a no brainer as I had been following them and their course for years and knew they were the best bootcamp around and the better fit for me and the fact that I could do it remotely was perfect! Finally, I also got my shinny first software engineer job with an amazing Makers partner within about a month of beginning my job search and started it with a friend from the same cohort! I had code in production before the end of the first week - that's how well prepared we came out of Makers! I really could not have asked for more :)

Makers has an incredible focus on teaching you what you need to be successful in working in software development, as opposed to just teaching you how to code. They have a fantastic set of coaches to teach you during the course with an added emphasis on... Read More EQ learning. Once you've completed the course, the support in helping you find a job is amazing, from guiding you on how to write your CV / the perfect application, to having great deals with companies who will have job offerings exclusive to Makers.

I would 100% recommend this course to anyone interested in moving into the software engineering/developing industry. Gave me to opportunity to just throw myself in the immersive experience, and learn how to self-learn, lots of different technologies,... Read More work in agile and meet lots of great people doing the same thing as me! So definitely not alone. The coaches were supportive and worked in a way in order to encourage you to find your own answers, and we very supportive at the job searching stage.