SPICED Academy

At the moment I am writing this it's seven months since I finished the Bootcamp. If I take a look on LinkedIn to my cohort of almost 20 people, I think there are only 2 or 3 of them who are actually working as a developer. I am not one of them. That's... Read More a very poor result for a program with a tuition fee of almost 10k. If you go for a good MBA from a top school in Europe you will pay more or less the same proportionally. But that's probably a thing shared among all the Bootcamps around. They don't add that much value to your profile for the price you have to pay. The curriculum of Spiced's Web Dev is well structured, and very fast-paced. You will learn the basics of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML in a couple of days. After that, you will start to build projects on your own with the guidance of the mentors. First very simple webs, then a little bit of DOM Manipulation with JavaScript, and after one month you have learned your first libraries like jQuery or Handlebars. In the second and third months, you are ready to learn Vue.js and React and build your own projects with these libraries/frameworks. I see two problems here. If you want to be a good developer, you need to master Javascript, not the technologies around. And Bootcamps don't cover this enough. The other problem here is that the approach to learning doesn't differ too much from following an online course in Udemy or Youtube. You will spend basically the morning learning some new concepts, coding along with your mentor, and then in the evening, you have some pieces of code to write on your own with the assistance of a teacher. In my case, almost the whole course was held remote because of Covid, and sometimes you would have to wait a long time to get help from the teachers -up to one or even two hours-, so the teacher's help is reduced to the one or two times you get help for a single bug in your code. I couldn't tell how it would be the experience on-site, probably much better. Among other things, our cohort didn't have the glue and therefore the group dynamic was very poor. You can not blame Spiced for Covid, sure, but probably is not the experience that you are looking for. Many people wouldn't even switch on the camera during the meetings, so it was basically a bunch of squares listening to the teacher. There was no communication at all between students, unfortunately. The teachers, in general, were very kind and from some of them, I really learned many things about programming. They are mostly ex-students but I don't see that as a negative thing. For me, it was actually the way around, I was impressed that people from a similar to my non-computer-science background could get to learn programming that good and it was a good reference. Worst of the Bootcamp is the job support. There is no useful job support at all and sometimes the information you get during their workshops is very misguiding. They claim to have partnerships but till now didn't get any call from the partners I applied for. In my case, I have been doing a non-paid internship for half a year. After a couple of months, I would get my first invitations to interviews, but right after the Bootcamp wouldn't get absolutely anything. Now I am still interviewing and I am confident that finally, I would land a job as a developer. The payment will be way lower than they tell you to ask after the Bootcamp. I don't really think it's possible to land a job in Berlin with a 45k gross salary right after a Bootcamp, and after talking from many people from the industry and recruiters I have been told that generally, Bootcamps tend to advise in the wrong way in order to justify the tuition fee. But it would be definitely better if they tell you "hey, just put a foot in the door, and then after a year you can ask for money". How I wish to have heard such a thing seven months ago. I think for the money you should leave the Bootcamp with way better connections and the chance to get in contact with some companies. That's rarely the case at Spiced. They claim to be working on these but I couldn't see remarkable improvements in that area. In the end, if I have learned something in the last months is that learning to code is one thing, but landing your first job is a completely different one, and way more difficult. Bootcamps should really help you during this transition with good connections with the job market. Spiced fails at this point. So I would be very careful to give away so much money in a Bootcamp. You are going to learn how to code if you want it so, for sure. And eventually, you will land a job as a developer if you put your energy into it. It's such a great help to enroll in a Bootcamp to understand how actually the whole web development works and get familiar with the technologies involved. But the question is if the price is justified. In my opinion, it's not justified at all and you can find way cheaper alternatives to a Bootcamp. You can follow online courses, take it seriously, build things on your own and probably you will be in a good shape after a couple of months. It may take longer to understand things than you do during the Bootcamp, but you will probably end up with the same skills. I have also to admit that I got lucky I didn't have to pay for the Bootcamp, because the Job Agency got my tuition fee covered. Otherwise, I would be very disappointed. Before enrolling a Bootcamp I read many of the reviews on the internet and I was always suspicious about the overenthusiasm over the output. Also after talking with other Spiced graduates, I would like to give another point of view that's shared by many Bootcamp's attendants. It can be not what you expect or read and can make a big hole in your pocket.

We all get that this is NOT a university program, this is a bootcamp where people with previous degree/ or comparative experience should be allowed, it should be clear from the beginning that you won't learn to code in 3 months.
Unfortunately everybody... Read More can get in and the course is even sold as appropriate (the cost is almost 10k) for unexperienced/ starters coders which is very close to a scam......
Once started you jump on a high speed train and there is no support at all/ no time to catch up with your colleagues/ teachers, which turns up to be very demotivating for your learning process. Totally not recommended if you want to learn to code

Attending SPICED Academy was one of the best decisions I have made. Since I was moving from the US to Berlin for this course, I did a substantial amount of research in order to find the right school for me and I ultimately chose SPICED. I applied in March... Read More 2018 to start in the October 2018 cohort and during that time I completed the prep course work several times to get a good grasp on the concepts. I joined the bootcamp as a complete beginner and once I finished the course, I was amazed at the incredible progress I made, how much I learned, and the applications I was able to build. The teachers are incredibly helpful and always willing to help you work through a problem but also ensure you understand why that problem occurred in the first place.

That being said, this course is also incredibly demanding - it is a bootcamp after all! I spent an average of 10-12 hours every day at school for 6 days of the week. This is a fast-paced learning environment where you are challenged on a daily basis and expected to learn by doing. One of the first things I learned at SPICED was getting comfortable with certain parts of your application not working and how to patiently troubleshoot and work with your peers to figure things out together. This is all part of the learning process! There were times when I was incredibly frustrated and other times when I was overjoyed because I made something work on my own.

In all, I absolutely recommend SPICED for anyone interested in making a commitment to learning programming. It was a gratifying experience that provided me with the skills necessary to apply to the workplace as a junior developer. You just have to be willing to put in the work in order to truly see progress in your abilities and get the most out of this course.

Graduating from SPICED Academy is truly a life-changing experience. You will learn an insane amount of things in encouranging and motivating atmosphere, you will master soft skills as well as tech skills necessary to land a job, you will always find support... Read More from the staff and you will work really really hard -- and in the end it's all gonna be worth it. You will get everything you need to get an entry level job -- provided you are willing to work hard and be proactive. Even after graduation you can always ask for help.

Every day I went there with excitement and joy about what I'm going to learn and build today. I was never bored and always challenged. I absolutely loved it and had no trouble finding a junior position.

I recommend preparing beyond the prep course they provide you with though and mess with a code a bit beforehand -- it will make your life much easier.

Stuff to improve: more teachers and including more materials on git, testing and production environment.

Based on my experience I can tell you - if your goal is to get nice job as a developer then this bootcamp is for you.

From this bootcamp you will get 3 most important things:
1. Self-confidence as a developer;
2. Up to date coding skills;
3. Your dream job.... Read More

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When I first entered Spiced Academy, I had almost zero knowledge of web developement. With spiced Academy, I got the necessary backgrounds to become web developer. Courses are well structured and teachers very professionals. The ambiance in general is... Read More also very sympathic.

I also attended the first Data Science cohort and I can fully support the positive comments made below by Konstantin. The course at SPICED was very valuable and intensive likewise. We got more than just a brief hands-on introduction on each topic as often... Read More seen before in online courses. Kristian was awesome at teaching and he fostered our abilites to code steadily. He always took into consideration what the participants were interested in and set the focus within the main topics variable and very encouraging. The curriculum was very concise and Kristian was always capable of making a clear connection between the topics covered and the tech stack used.

After graduation we now know a lot more about clean, well-structured and object-oriented coding in Python and respective frameworks, and about getting a project from development to employment. We have also got a profound understanding of the underlying theories of both supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques, when to use them and how to evaluate them in the right manner. All in all, it has been the course I was looking for. I got everything at hand I need to know to dive deeper in any Data Science related topic and I feel well prepared for future work. Beside the course itself I think that it`s been a nice working environment with plenty of pleasant people to talk with and to share experiences.

I just finished the first ever Data Science course at SPICED and I couldn‘t be happier about the whole experience.

The curriculum is great and well thught out. Every week we covered a new topic, which can be summarized like this: In the first 4 weeks we... Read More covered the basics of coding/data science (python/pandas/numpy/scikit-learn/Machine Learning theory), then in the next 4 weeks we focused on deep learning (Tensorflow/Keras) and all kinds of different neural networks, and finally in the last 4 weeks we looked at topics like distributed computing, databases, deploying of python projects and of course worked on our final project.

Kristian, the head teacher, is just amazing. He knows everything about Python and Data Science, and - maybe even more importantly - you can see that he really enjoys teaching. This makes for a very special combination! He is great at explaining difficult topics in a simple manner, so you can pick them up quickly. Also, he is always trying to make the curriculum as interesting for the students as possible. So for example, each week he asked us what areas of that week’s topic are of special interest to us, so he could adjust the topics/material according to our interests. I think he is what makes this data science program really special. In addition, the whole environment (employees/fellow students/equipment/facilities etc) at SPICED is very pleasant and makes for a great learning atmosphere.

All in all, I’m very happy I decided to take this course. I had a great time at SPICED and learned a great deal! I would definately do it again.