Makers Academy

Makers provides a fantastic introduction into being a programmer and focuses on core principles such as pair programming, TDD and agile team work that help prepare you for a career as a developer. The bootcamp promotes self-led learning and aims to set... Read More you up for learning on your own in the future.

Self-led learning was frustrating at times, as I wanted more technical teaching from the coaches, but I do now feel more confident to find answers myself as a result. This is not for everyone and requires self-discipline to get the most out of the bootcamp.

What Makers do brilliantly is provide a fantastic learning environment and bring you together with a cohort of people at the same or similar level to you. This was what really made the experience for me. Meeting other career changers, sharing the journey and learning together was a great experience.

- No prior knowledge of coding is required (other than some basic ruby achieved through codecademy).
- Provides a perfect atmosphere to meet new people, make friends and learn in a safe environment.
- Course content is engaging, challenging and rewarding... Read More providing you put the effort in.
- Ping Pong table & Yoga every Tuesday & Thursday definitely helped relieve stress & mental blocks.
- High calibre of students, everyone is eager to learn & help one another.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started Makers having not been in a learning environment for a number of years. I'm happy to say that I've really enjoyed the last 4 months. I've learnt so much in such a short space of time and been able to do so with... Read More a wonderful group of like-minded individuals. I've been taught how to test drive my code, agile methodologies and a variety of design principles, as well as a number of different languages and frameworks. The big highlight for me was the group project work - bouncing ideas off people and producing an actual working app was incredibly satisfying and has put me in good stead to start my own project work.
Obviously being in lockdown hasn't been ideal but Makers made sure that work continued as normal even if we were all remote. I was on various calls all day so there was still lots of contact time.
To be honest, I'd be happy to do it again.

I really enjoyed my Makers experience, the course is really well thought out and keeps you busy 100% of the time. Being onsite at Makers breeds a really brilliant work environment and atmosphere. The pair programming and team projects are really well... Read More thought out and its great to be able to step away from coding occasionally and play some ping pong.

Great points:
-Great atmosphere, you get to meet people, make friends etc. For someone like me, this is great.
-Course content is actually interesting AND effective! you will forget about doing udemy or udacity (both of which are low quality, although... Read More udemy is slightly better). The reason is that the course makes you... 'think', unlike these courses mentioned above where you are blindly following tutorial after tutorial, and you learn the technologies for a long time in order to get it 'handled' where you are confident for an interview. So in this aspect the course is great, as let you develop that thinking skill so you are adaptable when a situation changes. This point is by far the most overlooked when comparing bootcamps and online courses, especially when you start out.
- Great teachers in general, however you do need to be proactive in asking questions- especially for your assignments.
- High caliber of students - you have people who went to Oxford and Cambridge, and working alongside them was great.

Things to note:
- For those people who have already decided on getting a front end position, this might not be a 'direct' solution as the front end part is quite small. So you might have to take some time (1-2 months) coming out of the course to learn the front end in order to apply for front end positions. I did not pass some React technical tests because I was not fully prepared. The majority of students got back end jobs I would say.
- Which brings me to the second subject: when coming out of the course you need to have a 'strategy', and this point had not been stressed as much as I would like, mainly because everyone's strategy, interests, and goals are different. But I still think there should be some talk about what the 'market' wants. There are a couple of strategies, such as learning a new language that you like, learning front end, etc. When you see openings on the web, there are about 50% front end positions and 50% back end positions, but there are less back end positions that fit if you are just coming out of the course. This is due to the fact that:
1) There are lot of 'old' back end jobs (PHP for example), which require a bit more study time
2) Some companies in the UK (and around the world) are a bit reluctant to hire juniors for back end positions (you might be dealing with important databases, etc), and many are not aware of what bootcamps do and the quality they provide.
3) People are more willing to let people do the front end and it can be regarded as an 'easy route in'.
A couple of strategies (depending on what your interests are):
- learn React (for 1 month) and get it 'sorted', apply for React positions at startups. Pro: there are a lot of demand, and you will get a job.
- learn another back end language which you like
- 'red sea' strategy: learn python and compete with every other guy and his dog who are learning python these days. Why? because you love it.
- if not under too much time pressure, take a step back, and do some interviews, see what sort of stuff you like, and learn that technology well. Generally if its early stage startups, there is more demand for front end.

Supportive staff who want you to succeed. A fast paced course to introduce you with some of the needed skills to get a job as a dev. Lots of focus on wellbeing and becoming a better and more rounded person. Would be better if there were staff available... Read More to help in the afternoon as sometimes in projects you can become stuck and could help to move forwards quicker.

Fast paced and lots of learning so be ready for that, but importantly they facilitate this with a productive and positive environment.
Good coaching, you get out what you put in.
Great careers advice, again take advantage of the services and their advice... Read More and you'll get a job no problem.

I am a Makers graduate and I can say Makers has been such a great experience for me and I would definitely do it again if I could; I highly recommend this course to anyone who is willing to change their life and begin to learn code. If you put in the... Read More effort, you will succeed, especially with their job offer guarantee. There is no prior knowledge needed, as I had minimal knowledge in coding beforehand and I thought the course went at a good pace. The partnerships team really make the difference, the companies they partner with are such great companies to work for. Overall, an amazing course which I highly recommend to anyone willing put in the effort!

I finished Makers in January 2020 and it took me just over 6 weeks to get a job thanks to the post-course careers support and careers team/partnership team.

The journey to get here has been an intense and sometimes frustrating experience. But overall the... Read More experience I had at Makers was extremely rewarding and definitely set me up for life-long learning. The course really does do a great job at giving you a well-rounded foundation to become a junior developer. The focus is not on learning fancy frameworks or languages, instead opting to build foundational knowledge of things such as Test Driven Development, SOLID software principles and agile working. These principles can be applied to any language and really help solidify core concepts. I found starting in Ruby and then moving on to JavaScript, I was able to translate these fundamentals into other languages when the time came. I have accepted a job working in C#(something that we didn't cover) but the concepts and ideas learnt transfer across.

This course is very much self-lead learning. At first this can seem quite intimidating and you can feel a little lost in the first week. The only downside was it did take a few weeks for good self-lead learning techniques to kick in. This could maybe be address in the pre-course instead of you having to find them out as well as tackle new material in the first week. Once you get on top of this though the knowledge really sticks and stays with you. I am continuing to use these techniques now and will continue to use them. Don't expect to be given the answers if you want help though. Feedback can also take a while to get(if you ask for it that is) and it does not come unless you ask for it.

Overall a fantastic experience, where I met and worked with some very talented people. The course teaches you what you need to know, what you need to work on, how to learn and how to continue learning and developing. I would recommend it if you are serious about changing career and have a decent level of self-discipline. You do only get out what you put in.

Having had limited tech experience before Makers, I found the interview and the pre-course really helped prepare me for the course. While it is a lot of work, the coaches, projects and reviews help prepare us for what it's like working in the tech field.... Read More

I had a truly fantastic experience at Makers. The support from staff from getting on the course all the way to finding a job made a huge impact on my time here. For anyone who can put in the time and make the commitment I think it's a fantastic opportunity but it is important to keep in mind that it is a self-lead journey and you get out what you put in.

For anyone looking to make the career change into software I would definitely recommend this course!