Prior to starting the Software Engineering Immersive Remote (SEIR) programing at General Assembly, I didn't know what to expect. When you google bootcamp reviews the results coming back tend to be all over the place from reviews that are very bad to reviews that are nothing but outstanding. Through my experience, I'll provide an unbiased review highlighting the aspects I enjoyed and what I think needs improvement. General Assembly wasn't the first school I reached out to and in fact I had a very poor experience speaking with the admissions department at a GA competitor who didn't want to give me more than 20 her time. Speaking with Zack in admissions from GA was a completely different experience in the best way possible. Zack took his time answering all my questions to ensure I was making the correct decision. He was in constant communication with me throughout the entire application process so that there was no question as to what happened next. One thing to note is that General Assembly offers the choice learning Ruby/Ruby on Rails or Python as the backend language and framework. I was speaking to a few of my classmates a couple weeks into the program and they didn't realize they had the option of learning a different backend because no one mentioned it. The class pre-work was well written and the program they use was quite good however, I don't feel like the pre-work prepared me for the class in any way, shape, or form. I feel like the pre-work is written for someone who has previous experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; rather than who's learning about it for the first time. Now the teaching platform used is extremely well written and easy to use but I think the prep should have been based more on the foundations and fundamentals of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The Software Engineering Immersive Remote course is a full stack software engineering program that teaches the MERN stack and the course is broke up into 5 units. Everything is taught by two main instructors and two instructor assistants. Coursework is heavy and moves at a very fast pace. Class is a mix of lectures, code along, and lab but the lecture isn't the boring type like you might think. The amount of information you take in on a daily basis and the amount of information you're expected to retain is probably more than you're used to. It wasn't till half way through my first project that I actually felt like I knew what was going on and I felt like I was trying to keep up with everything till that point. You're going to have days and weeks where you feel like you can't keep your head above water. I constantly felt behind. And before you know it, you're turning in the final project. Instructor assistants were quite helpful after school and on the weekends when they host office hours. My instructors helped when they could but both taught multiple classes each day. My instructors both referenced their real life work experience with what they were teaching and that was awesome to know. Now for what I think can be improved. First and foremost the pre-work should be focused towards fundamentals and foundation building. I would add an additional week to the first four units, extending the course by an entire month. This would slow the pace of the course down enough to where retaining information learned becomes much easier and the student will be more comfortable with what they're learning. I had two great instructors but they were vastly different in how they approached teaching and some days I feel like they didn't know what the other instructor taught the previous day. Communication could have been better between the instructors. The full stack course does teach the backend but it's definitely front end heavy. At this point, I wouldn't hesitate to take a job as a frontend or full stack developer however; I wouldn't be confident taking a job as a backend developer after taking this course. Outcomes is what General Assembly calls their career support so far it's been quite helpful. They offer mock interviews, Linked In, and resume building. I've only been with outcomes for a couple weeks but they've been quite helpful so far. Overall I had a solid experience and learned a TON of information in a short amount of time. I wouldn't hesitate to take another course through General Assembly in the future and honestly, I may go take the UX/UI course down the road. | 