When deciding on which coding bootcamp there are several key factors when need to consider, and in this review, I will explain those key factors and how LEARN Academy proved to be the best professional educational decision for my goals. - In-person vs. online: I started my LEARN Academy cohort in February 2020 and for better or worse was able to experience both the in-class and online (Zoom - remote) version of LEARN Academy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In an ideal world, one should attend the in-person experience in order to further solidify friendships within your cohort, the teamwork aspect of being able to discuss code in-person with a whiteboard, and just the general fun of being able to walk around the classroom with a Kombucha in your hand and see what your peers are code. Nonetheless halfway through my bootcamp, we pivoted to remote and we didn’t skip a beat. I feel that all aspects of the curriculum were maintained and we were even able to quickly start utilizing important digital tools more heavily (Git, Slack, VS Code Liveshare) that are fundamental for remote dev work in the future anyway. Overall “in-person” I feel is ideal for learning, but LEARN was super successful in replicating the “in-person” experience online. - Internship: The internship is a TREMENDOUS value add for choosing LEARN Academy. I had the opportunity to join a company and work alongside 5 developers at a fast-growing startup in San Diego (keep in mind I started to learn to code just 15 weeks prior). My internship was extended and I continued to work for 10 months at the same company gaining practical coding experience every day. I was hired as a contract worker with no benefits, but nonetheless, it was an invaluable experience to work on actual production code. The internship is guaranteed for 4 weeks but I would say ⅓ of my cohort was asked to extend for 1 or more months and they were also paid for their extensions and were able to put actual development work on their resumes. - Tech Stack: The tech stack I learned while at learn was React, Javascript, HTML, CSS, Ruby on Rails, and Postgresql. All of these technologies are widely used today and if you are new to the industry they serve as a solid foundation to grow from. My internship was entirely in Vue but I used my React foundational skills I learned at LEARN to rapidly learn the basics of Vue (over the weekend from when my classroom experience ended and internship began the following Monday). - Quality of teaching instruction: During my course, I had three daily instructors committed to my cohort ~6 to 1 student to teacher ratio (they pivot the number of instructors based on class size). All in all the teachers I had were able to meet me at my learning level and explain complex concepts into more easily digestible content. They were ALWAYS available to answer questions and held office hours. Like most things in life you get what you put in, so make sure you ask questions all the time and ASK for help when you need it. We also had an excellent Professional Development week, led by the Career Services Manager, and in addition, had access to other developers at several of the dev agencies that were in the same building. If my instructors didn’t immediately know the answer to my question or debug my problem they were able to get back to me with my answer in a timely manner. In addition, we had various guest speakers and panels (from the SD tech scene) which made class each week super interesting. - Prep Materials: The best resource that LEARN offers in terms of preparation for the bootcamp is their JumpStart weekend. I highly highly highly recommend you participate in that weekend as that was the defining experience that made me decide whether I liked to code and whether I had the confidence in myself to pick up skills quickly over a short period of time. I went into my cohort with about 2 weeks of prior Javascript training and the JumpStart weekend but it was really not enough. I highly recommend people begin studying at least 3 months prior to your cohort (I fully realize that is easier said than done, with life and work, but anyone who came in with prior coding knowledge in my cohort accelerated their learning 2x-5x compared to myself who just wrote my first line of code 14 days before my first day of class.) - Facilities: LEARN Academy classroom was GORGEOUS in Union Co-work near Petco Park in downtown SD. Unfortunately, I could only attend for 8 weeks due to COVID but the surrounding made you feel like a true web developer in the chic industrial glass-lined classroom. Also the free Kombucha, coffee, tea, and beer (after hours) wasn’t too bad! They also have two main classrooms so we were frequently able to do check-out (sharing what you learned) at the end of the day and learn what the other cohort who started before us was working on that day. - Community: The LEARN Academy Community is the most vibrant tech career pivoter/bootcamp community in San Diego hands-down. Pre-COVID LEARN held bi-monthly meetups in its classrooms, celebratory cohort get-togethers, project demo days, and evening guest speakers. Now the community of course has shifted remote, but the online Slack community is also super active. On Day 1 you are welcomed into the Slack group and tons of people who were in your shoes starting the bootcamp who now have fancy developer jobs in the San Diego area (and beyond) are willing to help answer your questions and refer you to positions. Once you are a LEARN alum you enter a network of tech leaders at major tech companies throughout San Diego/California and beyond. One additional thing (which I think they still do), is if you want they pair you with another LEARN grad to serve as your Mentor. To this day (Jan 2021) I still meet with my Mentor each week and he has been an invaluable resource post bootcamp for skill development, motivation, and job search help. - Growth Areas for LEARN: 1) Improvements to my experience include a more clear path of what milestones I needed to achieve in my coding skills before being ready for Day 1 of the bootcamp. I was provided resources but had no idea where to start. I believe that they are now offering propriety prep materials to new students (I just haven’t reviewed them as they were not available to me when I started) 2)Focus more curriculum time on unit testing. We learned Jest Javascript testing (for maybe 1.5 weeks) I feel like it is a critical developer skill that I personally did not pick up quickly and should be prioritized earlier. 3)Introduce earlier data structures and algorithms into the curriculum, as many technical interviews nowadays focus heavily on them. Overall at the end of the day with 12 weeks to go from 0 to junior dev I understand it is tough to squeeze it all in, regardless LOTS of personal self-study is necessary to keep up with the pace of the class if you come in with no prior coding skills. Overall, there are plenty more points to speak about when speaking about LEARN but at the end of the day after three months of classroom instruction, I was successfully contributing to an agile development team at a tech company in San Diego. The process to prepare for the bootcamp, take the bootcamp, and perform at your internship is INTENSE. The skills to learn to code is like learning a foreign language you constantly need to have a growth mindset and practice, practice, practice. 10 months after my bootcamp I am still growing and learning each day and that never changes. You must have it within yourself to persevere, be a self-starter, and make many many many personal, financial, and family sacrifices to have a chance at getting a junior developer position in 2021. With that being said LEARN is the most well-rounded and experienced resource available in the San Diego area to place your faith in to prepare you for a successful life-changing career pivot. | 