| | Gina Frankel | I loved Makers Academy. I found that they really cared about their students and made a huge effort to help us learn and get a job.
Overview:
- Self-led + collaborative learning with peers
- Experiential learning through challenges and group work
- Workshops
- Coach support
- Focus on process and problem-solving
- Focus on code quality
Learning Style and support:
I really liked self-learning. But it does not suit everybody, especially if you are not used to this method. The coaches are very valuable resources, and they will spend a lot of time helping you. They will you guide you on solving a problem if you are stuck and will review your code. I found I learnt the most by getting code reviews. But you need to be pro-active and seek their support. You are also encouraged to work together with your cohort to learn. This makes learning much more fun, and also forces you to work on your communication skills.
Code Quality:
Makers has a large focus on writing code that is readable and can be changed easily. They have a large focus teach on Test Driven Development and teaching you problem-solving techniques specific to coding to ensure that that code you write is of high quality as well as best practices to use when working in an agile team. This is definitely one of the things that set makers apart from just studying yourself. Whenever I have done tutorials they have taught me how to apply technology, but they have not taught me anything about object-oriented principles, clean code, or git.
Soft Skills:
There is a large focus on soft skills such as communication and emotional intelligence. There are lots of workshops on helping you with this, and there is a wellbeing coach too who can help you if you are feeling overwhelmed. At first, I thought all this focus on wellbeing is really nice and important to me but is it actually going to help me get a job. But it turns out companies really value this.
Job Support:
There is a lot of support in helping you get a job. There are 2 career coaches who will help you write your CV and perfect your cover letter. For the first month, they offer workshops on how to write technical CV's, cover letter and use LinkedIn. Also there is an option to join group projects, which are facilitated by one of the Makers coaches. You can join these if you want to ensure you are upskilling. Makers also have companies who directly go to them. These companies range in size from startups to very large companies. They are of high quality and really understand what you as a Bootcamp student can offer and also know what they need to invest in you. From my experience, it was much easier to get an interview with these companies than applying externally. However, because of Covid, there are a lot fewer jobs, and thus a lot fewer companies going through makers. I did find though, in the last 2 months, Makers was getting a lot more companies. Again with the job support you have to be pro-active, especially after the first month and ask the job coaches to help you.
Summary:
If you are someone who is pro-active and can self-learn then Makers is perfect, as it will ensure you learn best practices and will give you a great foundation in software development. |
