The Tech Academy

I attended the self-paced online "Software Development" overview course with The Tech Academy. All-in-all, I believe it allowed me to establish a foundation for software development skills. The main point I want to make is that it is more important to... Read More learn "how" to learn. It is impossible to learn everything there is to know about software development (especially during a boot camp). This course helped me to be able to ask the right questions and get the right answers. Pros: -Self paced course -Access to instructors during normal business hours (very helpful and kind instructors!) -"Live Project" (A real project simulating working with an Agile dev team) -Good "basic overview" of software development principles -Technical terms are very clearly defined (at beginning and throughout course) Cons: -Some of the course materials are somewhat outdated (technology moves quickly!!) -MUST have self-discipline to stay focused on course work -MUST be able to "self-start" and seek additional information outside the curriculum -If self-paced, may have to wait for instructor's response to get help (if not working during normal business hours) -Impossible to cover everything in the boot camp time frame (there will be much more to learn after graduating. This boot camp should not be treated as a "ticket to a new job", but rather a baseline foundation for understanding principles of software development)

I am about 2 months out from finishing the course but am very happy overall, especially with the pragmatic curriculum it provides. You get at the very least two live projects where you have full simulated work days in an agile framework so uou get a good... Read More taste of the job. You somewhat work with a team on the live projects in that you can ask questions in the discord server, but teamwork overall is very minimal so if you learn best in a social setting, you may be better off with other programs. It is also outside of the projects entirely self-paced so if you want more direct supervision and accountability, yhus might also not be great for you.

Let me preface this review with my background. - I got a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts with zero programming-related classes in 2020.  - In 2022, I took Google's Data Analytics course which in hindsight gave me an extremely small taste of SQL and R knowledge.... Read More - I took a 1 week Coursera trial of the University of Michigan's "Python for Everybody Specialization" course to determine if I enjoyed programming in general, and if I felt it would be worth taking the boot camp. In a nutshell, a very small understanding of programming. - I had a sibling with a Bachelor's in Computer Science, who helped me out whenever I didn't understand concepts or ran into problems. He would never give answers, instead guiding me as he was taught in college. He was basically like one of the instructors, except he was in the other room as opposed to an email away. - Said sibling had a friend with zero programming knowledge who also enrolled in The Tech Academy, same boot camp, and got himself a job after finishing the JavaScript course. This was a big plus for me, as I indirectly knew someone who successfully landed a developer job through the skills made in this boot camp. A few points to know before you pay. - They will recommend the Software Developer boot camp as it is the complete package of courses, minus the Cyber Security and extra self-paced courses. It's a 22-week course for full-time. At the time of this review, it was $11,660 for this boot camp. - They will recommend for full-time students to work 40 hours per week, or a standard work schedule of 8 hours per day/5 days a week in order to graduate on time. I feel that my collegiate study experience gave me an edge here, as I had plenty of extra time built up halfway through the boot camp.  - You are effectively buying a subscription to use their learning system, you can buy extra weeks for extra fees if you run out. If you end with extra time leftover (very possible), you can get additional classes if you want. - You get a certificate, letter of recommendation, and 90 days of Job Assistance after you finish  - You are NOT guaranteed a job, and this is not a bad thing - it is realistic. They will not do your interviews for you.  - If you take the boot camp online, you will only interact with the instructors if you run into problems with assignments. There is no real social connection with other students, I imagine the experience is different if you go to the campus. The instructors are very nice in my experience, though, and give decent tips and helpful guidance! - I am fairly confident they give every student at least one extra week. Overview: I enrolled in The Tech Academy's Software Developer boot camp in hopes of beginning a new career as a programmer. There are a variety of boot camp packages to choose from; I chose this one specifically because I felt learning more languages would give me more experience in programming, and also give me a more impressive looking resume in the end.  The first three courses are required regardless of which boot camp you take, and they are 95% articles on concepts, videos on concepts, and quizzes on concepts, and a few assignments to ensure you understand these various topics. If you know a decent amount about computers (like me) or programming, these classes will likely bore you until something new pops up. Just power through it, take notes - the final exam will be related to what you learn. After that, though, you get to the fun part of learning new computer languages! The courses are taught with the idea that you know nothing. The difficulty of the courses increase as you go; you start out with what is basically hand-holding, to eventually being let go and having to craft entire functions or applications on your own. I'd say up to JavaScript is pretty much copying down code, and ensuring you understand what that code does - you gain good debugging practice from this. Python was when I finally felt I'd be able to make it as a programmer. Because JavaScript, Python, and C# are all object-oriented programming languages, each course could be considered a single step to further understanding object-oriented programming as opposed to mastering a single language. My experience: I personally decided to work a standard 9-5 work week to mimic that of a normal job environment. It was pretty grueling at times - some days I would take half a day off, or even a three-day-weekend to revitalize myself for the following Monday. I have been told I worked far harder in this boot camp than I would in any job as a developer, so that in itself was a kind of motivation. Once I got to HTML, I was having fun. I absolutely love learning and every day there was something new. I was slowly picking up the skills and tools to do the work, and my confidence grew along with it. Putting together websites, creating databases, small game applications, all of it was a thrill even if some days were more difficult and (usually unnecessarily) stressful than others. But I believe it was all worth it - there is nothing like finally crafting something all by yourself, spending hours debugging it until it finally all comes together and just works.  I did have my moments of skepticism and concerns in the beginning, but I kept going and once I hit Python course I felt that I could easily recommend this boot camp to anyone. I'm planning to take additional courses, as The Tech Academy does have some extra self-paced courses that aren't included, the more I know the better off I am - do note these self-paced courses do not offer certificates at the time of this review.

The Tech Academy instructors are there to review my work any time of day, even late at night when I do most of my studying. I appreciate the full-time support and being able to see that my work is complete and valid even when I submit it at 3 in the morning.... Read More

Bottom line here is that the Tech Academy provided enough schooling for me to get my first job in the tech industry. I was able to fly through the program quickly with more than a month to spare with my little bit of previous coding experience. Many of... Read More the resources provided by The Tech Academy were very good. Most were simply fine, some were outdated (as confirmed by instructors at the tech academy) or poorly put together. The biggest disappointment with The Tech Academy's Software Developer Bootcamp was the instructors. I want to be perfectly clear that the instructors were extremely kind, helpful, engaged, and I had almost exclusively good experiences with them. However, their only experience was having graduated from The Tech Academy. The Academy tried to spin this in a positive light "Our instructors know exactly what you're working on because they've done it themselves" but realistically it just means the people meant to teach us had barely more experience than we had. This was frustrating when I came across problems that I could not solve and that they could not help me with because of their own lack of experience. The Live Projects at the end of the Python and C# courses were decent examples of working for a company during a sprint using agile and scrum methodologies. The aspect that was missing was working with other students. Although you were technically working on the same project with other students you were each working in separate areas which meant that coordinating between and working with other students was unnecessary and unproductive to finishing your own course work (especially if you had limited time to work on your own code or were slow/falling behind). The academy again said "You could have worked with other students, you just had to reach out" but there is more incentive to not reach out to other students so that you can be sure to complete your own work. Job Support: The job support provided by the tech academy is good information for those who have been off the job market for many years, or haven't applied to jobs before (e.g. high schoolers). Good resources for building resumes and cover letters specific to the tech industry. Not a ton of new content here if you are someone that has applied to jobs in the last few years, you will know most of the information already. I wished there was more support and practice for interviews. The only interview practice we did was what would amount to a screening call for an actual job. Since the technical interview is one of the most difficult aspects of jumping into the tech industry, I would have preferred to have that as practice. The main person who does practice for interview questions weekly is very kind, and does a great job with finding questions to ask, but has never done an actual interview for a technical role so there is a lack of experience and meaningful feedback that you can get from those interactions. Other boot camps: Since I finished my boot camp early I was able to jump into the cyber security boot camp. I was extremely disappointed that this course was mostly made up of Pluralsight courses that you had to pay a fee for IN ADDITION to the fee for the Tech Academy Course. I was told that this was the same for the videogame dev boot camp as well.

I am a bit over half-way through my Software Developer Bootcamp and I am so unbelievably impressed with everything! I did a bootcamp a couple years ago at a different school and it was a nightmare! I didn't learn ANYTHING! I wish I would have found TTA... Read More before them! I came in with no knowledge of coding, not even HTML. I'm only a little bit over half-way through the course and I've learned the basics of coding, HTML, CSS, C#, and SQL! The instructors and support team are amazing! They are so great! They are patient, make it easy to understand, (they don't just speak developer language) and they are always happy to help. Support is available via email, phone and screen sharing. I thought the school was a bit pricey, but goodness it is so very much worth it! These are skills that pretty much everyone in the tech industry will eventually need. You may not use it currently, but most likely, you will down the road.

The instructors were very supportive and knowledgeable, and I loved the flexibility of being able to come onto campus when I wanted and stay home other days. I think the courses could have been a little more hands on -- more exercises and drills, though... Read More the projects were quite fun. The job assistance part was really just about getting you prepped for your interview, polishing up your resume, and applying to a few jobs you find on your own.

I loved my time enrolled here! The instructors are attentive and always happy to help, the curriculum is well rounded and everyday there's always a new challenge! This bootcamp also offers job support and will even help you build a resume! You even have... Read More the option to study completely remote or on campus(if you live near one)

Great bootcamp recommend to everyone 10/10. Loved the experience I’ve had in this program they make everything easy to understand so you don’t need experience in the area and everytime you don’t understand something or and assignment there’s always someone... Read More willing to help you!

My time at the tech academy was an amazing rush of fun and knowledge. They start you off with the complete basics. Then you dive into it rather fast, BUT, it's structured so well that it's easy to learn as you go. I did it online, full time, while working... Read More and raising kids. If I'm able to graduate, you can too! Pros: Structured Job Support ( These guys are crazy awesome. Sending you applications as well as resume advice) Staff Cons: I did my ISA through Leif, and honestly I'd much rather have just paid in full.