| | Ronnie | I received my first job offer one week after sending out my first resume, and by the time graduation day rolled around 3 weeks later, I had 6 offers in hand. After I was hired, my team went on to hire two more App Academy graduates and several of my coworkers have reached out to me for advice on App Academy and have referred their friends and family to the program. The program is not easy and there is always more to learn, there was definitely a lot of caffeine and many long nights, but the payoff for me has been huge. The course teaches you the fundamentals of coding, how to tackle large projects, how to write clean code, and how to interview– a very different skill than how to work as a engineer. I've since spent a lot of time on hiring committees and I'm amazed at the average level of preparedness compared to the prep I received going through App Academy. At the end of the day, the job search and contract negotiation advice I received at App Academy is one of the most valuable things I took from the program.
Completing App Academy opened up a lot of doors for me that would be closed to me otherwise and I have zero regrets about going through the program. |
| | John Shen | The facts--
I attended the June 2014 cohort. The rest of this review is specific to my experience. The program is constantly changing and will be different today.
Curriculum in RoR and js/Backbone (they now teach React instead)
Large time investment. Class is 9-6pm, with additional homework. Classtime is structured with a short morning lecture and going over the work from the day before (1hr - 3hr). The rest of the day is pair programming on the topics covered, typically with a complete product at the end of the day. Eg, tic tac toe, chess, a chat app that communicates over websockets.
Pair programming is overseen by TAs and instructors. (I think it was 1 TA/instructor per 7 students in my time)
Week 9 ends with the completion of a web app of your design. Week 10-12 covers the job search, doing interviews, improving your code, etc.
Pros--
Provided structure and guidance that I couldn't have gotten otherwise.
'Don't pay until you get a job' was the only way that I could afford a bootcamp (without credit card debt).
Actually makes you code instead of just teaching you code.
Pair programming is great to see different coding styles, to learn how to explain your code, and to disseminate best practices.
Made a lot of good friends/network. All of my current roommates are a/a grads.
Cons--
There is a $3k deposit, so not totally free.
I benefitted a lot from being able to live in the office. This is no longer an option.
Large initial time investment if you're starting from scratch. I had never coded before starting the application process. It took ~a month of self teaching on nights and weekends before I had the background to complete the application.
Other--
LOTS of work. There are assessments. You will be kicked out if you consistently perform poorly. ~10% of my cohort was kicked out. |
