| | Anonymous | I recently completed the Front-End Engineering course at the St Pete/Tampa location and I cannot recommend The Iron Yard enough. Within 6 weeks of graduating I was employed, and honestly, in my opinion, that is the best way to judge a coding bootcamp. I think about half my cohort was employed within 2 months, and almost everyone within 3. I know my college didn't even have that kind of job placement success rate--and it was super tiny.
That said, it is a lot of work, so you need to make sure that you are willing to work your butt off. I describe it to people like you are treading water and little by little bits of word float toward you. You hold on to one piece of wood, the another. You tie those bits of wood together into a makeshift raft. You keep adding to it, and by the end you have a boat. It won't be the best boat, probably
This isn't like high school, or even some college courses, this is an intensive program to teach you things that take many others years to learn. If you expect things to be spoon fed to you, or to come away knowing everything, you will be sorely mistaken. While the instruction was language specific, it is also focused on teaching you how to teach yourself--a valuable skill that not everyone has naturally.
Programming is constantly evolving, so even if you came out being a javascript and react expert, in a year the language would evolve and the frameworks would change. You will constantly need to learn new things, and that is what I liked about The Iron Yard, that it focuses on helping you to keep learning after the program. However, the instructors are on hand to help answer your questions and guide you through the process. You could learn programming on your own, but the major benefit of The Iron Yard is having top notch instructors available to help you. However, you must be willing to help yourself. If you are giving the program your all, the instructors and staff will go out of their way to help you during this stressful time--and it will be stressful. My background is in academia, so I have spent many sleepless months trying to get papers and dissertations finished. Stress wise, TIY is pretty similar, but completely manageable. It's about 12 weeks of tons of stress, but the relief of getting your first job and paycheck afterwards is totally worth it!
I learned Javascript at TIY, but my job is actually a full-stack position, involving ruby and C#. There was a big learning curve for this job, but I felt prepared and capable of tackling it because of TIY. I also have been able to reach out to the instructors when I've been completely stuck. I remember a former student visited during the cohort. He had just gotten a job in C# and the .Net instructor voluntarily worked with him for a day to teach him the language. That instructor hadn't even been in Florida when that graduate attended The Iron Yard, but he was just as invested in this graduate as he was his current students. That's something I feel that really sets TIY a part from a lot of other programs.
I recommend TIY to all my friends who are interested and willing to work hard. Anyone can do it, even if you have no experience. Just do your prework, get some sleep, and (if you are in Tampa), listen to Toni (the campus director), she will be your biggest advocate and will help you get that job! Opt in to all career support counseling! |
