| | Anonymous | Hack Reactor was an exhausting but wonderful three months. I really enjoyed the semi-structured aspect of the sprints (first half) and being able to dig deeper into the things that were interesting to me. The pairing was useful as well - I frequently learned tips from my classmates and was able to reinforce my own understanding by having to talk about code. The second half was much less structured, and while I enjoyed it a little less, it was a great opportunity to practice developing in the same repo with other engineers and tackle more complex problems.
I found the interview prep that occurred throughout the program to be well aligned to interviews that I experienced in the job search. While Hack Reactor didn't teach me everything I needed to know to do my eventual job, it provided great foundational knowledge that I was able to use to learn other things, and in a shorter timeframe than I would have been able to do all by myself. The things I use most today (5 years later!) are the deep dive into JS internals and the debugging process. Instructors were super smart and were great at breaking down concepts. I'd happily take more courses from Marcus or Fred in the future. The career search staff was energetic and invested in our success, and while most of the staff from my cohort are no longer with the company, Marlene (who does alumni job support) is awesome - no-nonsense, caring, and focused. Overall, if I could go back and time and do it again, I would. |
