Full-Time (12-week) Software Engineering Program

I attended Hackbright's prep course and then joined the full time program half way through. My coding experience was limited before hand, and I honestly didn't really know what I was getting myself into.

It was the best decision of my life. 

I spent three months surrounded by some of the most inspiring, badass group of women I had ever met as we collectively embarked on the terrifying journey of transitioning into a very difficult career. The support system from these women was a huge key to my success in landing a job at Reddit less than two months after completing the program. One of my Hackbright classmates (who just landed a job at Eventbrite) came from a co-ed bootcamp where she said the culture of sexual harassment and general sexism was rampant. When reported to the staff, the staff said they don’t get involved with interpersonal issues. At Hackbright, that wasn’t an issue. We could worry about learning the really difficult content and building the confidence to go out into the job search and kick ass without feeling objectified and talked down to by our peers.

Aside from the environment, though, there was a strategic reason that I attended an all women’s boot camp: There is a huge push for companies to hire more women, and by attending a bootcamp that specifically trains women, I figured that they’d have relationships with lots of companies worth working for. This turned out to be true.

Ultimately, you will get out of a bootcamp what you put into it, but if you are willing to do the work, Hackbright can get you where you need to be. 

Overall I learned a huge amount of valuable information at Hackbright over a short period of time, and I met so many wonderful women who also attended Hackbright who will be friends for life.  I enjoyed my time at Hackbright.  However, Hackbright has a lot of work to do before I would say that this experience is worth the hefty price tag.

First of all - the career services portion of the program is a joke.  Pay no attention to the partners page of Hackbright's website.  The alum job board right now only has 6 jobs available that are for new grads with no software development experience.  Hackbright partners are happy to hire grads... after they have at least a year of experience as a software engineer.  As far as I'm concerned, job placement is the entire value proposition of a code bootcamp, and Hackbright fails in comparison to other bootcamps that guarantee job placement or apprenticeships.

Since graduating almost 6 months ago, I have had ZERO assistance from Hackbright with job placement, despite the fact that I have asked for help numerous times.  I've tried applying to jobs through Hackbright partner companies and my success rate has been even lower than just applying blind on the company website.  Worst part - when I apply to companies through Hackbright, they don't even send me confirmation that they've sent my resume to the company.  It's like throwing my resume into a black hole.

Hackbright is graduating more women into a market flooded with bootcamp grads than they can possibly hope to place.  The staff has good intentions and cares about grads a great deal, but this doesn't change the fact that the majority of recent grads are struggling HARD to find a job.

My advice - choose a bootcamp that offers either a money back guarantee of job placement, or has an apprenticeship or internship build into their program.  

Hackbright has an extremely welcoming, inclusive environment. If you're looking for amazing support from your classmates, definitely go here. I found the other women to be intelligent and kind, which makes their network really strong. The curriculum is great for getting a complete overview of the entire web development world. I would say the biggest area that needs improvment is the mentorship program. Some of the mentors were amazing and some were not very good. It's a little hit or miss right now, but they are constantly making improvments. I also really liked the individual project method of learning. It was really hands on and was the best part of the program.

Like any bootcamp you will not leave as a Senior Software Engineer. But you will be a proficient Python/Javascript web developer. And have the tools you need to learn any programming technology.

The first five weeks you will learn Python, Javascript/jQuery, Flask web framework and Jinja (templating), HTML/CSS/Bootstrap, SQL/SQL Alchemy and other technologies you will need on the job.

The second five weeks you will work on your capstone project and present it on Demo Night, in front of prospective employers and other people. Here you will all about MVP (Minimum Viable Product), debugging, testing and researching APIs and other issues that come up when trying to meet a deadline.

The final two weeks are spent with the Career Development team. You actually work them every week thoughout the program, but the last two weeks you get them fulltime. You will go out and do white boarding and technical interviewing at tech companies in San Francisco. You will learn about networking, salary neogiation, interviewing skills and much more.

The 12-week fulltime program is expensive, tough, but rewarding. They have a great Alumae network that you can plug into and scheduled Alumni events (think networking). The women you go though the program with will be your friends/network for life. As one of the instructors said, "you will get your first job, but the women you graduate with will get up your next job."

Hackbright is an inclusive and genuinely supportive environment. Career services is invested in your success and happiness both while in the program and as an alum (so grateful to have the career services team and resources available to me during the job search process). The course is challenging, but the skills, enthusiasm, commitment and support of the education team does an incredible job of bolstering confidence and helping you develop your technical skill-set and passions (the course has allowed me to believe in my abilities in ways I never would have considered possible). In just 12 weeks you will have the technical prowess to build a fully functioning web application completely on your own and from scratch, and develop some of the most meaningful and supportive friendships.

The program is intense and challenging, but a lot of fun. The space is safe and supportive and encourages and allows you to be vulnerable, opinionated and humble during a whirlwind period filled with an immense amount of learning and growth.

My 12 weeks at hackbright were some of the most infuriating, exhilarating and rewarding weeks of my life. I would 100% do it over again, and absolutely recommend it to any woman that is seriously considering a career as a software engineer!

Before I found Hackbright, I never considered being a software engineer. That option was never offered to me in high school or college, and by the time I decided to study it on my own, I immediately regretted not starting sooner and taking CS classes in college. Luckily, Hackbright quickly entered the scene and showed me that my chance wasn't over. By taking me on and feeding my desire to enter a technical field, Hackbright ignited a fire in me that I doubt will ever go out. I learned so much in my 12-week program, and I haven't stopped seeking out new things to learn since.

To give more specifics...

Things I found that Hackbright excelled in:

Teaching a tech stack that is growing in the industry. In my current position, I use Python every day and I love it! Not to mention, Hackbright was the first to teach me how a computer works in the first place. :)
Structuring our time together efficiently. Given the mountain of material we learned in 3 months, I was constantly impressed that I never felt overwhelmed. Lectures always contained the right level of depth into each subject, and the corresponding lab sessions were perfectly tuned to train us in the concepts we had just learned. The program leaders clearly listen to past cohorts (taking surveys after every lecture and checking in every week), and implement changes to the structure that greatly benefit the students.
Kickstarting our professional network with a mentorship program. Each student was paired with 2-3 local working professionals in the industry. These mentors were volunteers, drawn to Hackbright's mentor program with desires to guide the next generation of engineers! I was given 3 completely awesome mentors who continued to help me well into my job search.
Nurturing a safe, fun, encouraging environment. Weekly check-ins and evening socials provided time for both students and staff to relax and get to know one another. Unfriendly competition was never welcome in our cohort, as was evident by our frequent pair programming sessions and supportive demo-night practices. The bonds we created allowed us to flourish in our time there, and we frequently reconnect and remain a strong network of support.
Providing tools and techniques to help with the job search. Weeks 11-12 were entirely devoted to career services, and I felt well-equipped for my job search. Most of the benefits I received came later, however. Hackbright offers discounts for its alumni to use a variety of study tools, and I took advantage of several that really made a difference in my job search. In particular, my cohort was given beta access to Interviewing.io, a platform that conducts technical phone interviews between anonymized participants. It was a fantastic opportunity to get interview practice in a low-stakes environment, and potentially make new contacts!

Things I think Hackbright could approach better:

Project guidance. At the culmination of 10 weeks, each of us had built a coding project that was entirely her own, and Demo Night was a chance for us to show it to enthusiastic representitives from leading Bay Area tech companies. Planning for that project began around week 3, and each project idea had to be approved by one's appointed project advisor. However, I feel that the project I chose, while interesting and fun, didn't allow me to showcase all of the tools I learned at Hackbright. I didn't know this at week 3, but by week 10 I had a few regrets. I wish I had been advised to change my project concept a bit earlier on.
Being a better representative to partner companies. At several points in my job search, I found a favorable job listing at a company that was in partnership with Hackbright. I sent a request to our Career Services for a formal introduction to the company (as is procedure), but each time, there was a holdup—either Hackbright had since lost their contact at the company, or Career Services advised me to approach the company myself. I felt unsupported and didn't end up getting any facetime with those companies.

After experiencing Hackbright, I was ready to face the industry with staff, company partners, and 600+ alumni at my disposal. But regardless of the resources I was given, I am still most grateful to Hackbright for taking a chance on me and nurturing my curiosity into the behemoth it is today. Now I know that I will never stop learning, and I never want to!

I've written a post on Hackbright's blog with more information on my experience and my current position as an engineer. If you have any questions for me, please reach out on LinkedIn—I'd love to help! Cheers, and good luck!

I'm happy I chose Hackbright and impressed with the program. It's a very supportive learning environment that has a great alumnae network. They keep a tight schedule that definitely felt stressful at times, but it prepared me for my current position.

Hackbright's biggest downfall is that it is a bootcamp. Sounds strange, but it was hard to find a job after graduation in the Bay Area. There is a stigma attached to bootcamp grads and many companies won't even consider you knowing that "you're from a bootcamp." I rated Hackbright 4-stars (vs. 5) because I wish they provided a bigger/better network of Hackbright partner companies willing to hire recent grads. Hackbright's job placement team is great!

My advice to people considering bootcamps: find the best bootcamp that works for you and then budget extra time, finances, etc. to the post-boot camp job search.

I graduated from Hackbright in November of 2017 and I started work as a full-time software engineer at a startup in the city the same month! I had a long and successful career in tech in a non-technical role prior to taking the leap to Hackbright and I have no regrets. It was scary to quit my job and go for it, and I was wary of attending a for-profit institution at first, but for me it paid off. The educational experience was fine-tuned, worked for my learning style, and is very job relevant. Hackbright tailors the curriculum based on student feedback and industry feedback, to make sure they are teaching material that will be most useful in the workplace. Each lecture has a survey, and for the first five weeks you have an opportunity right after lecture to practice what you learned in lab. For anyone currently working and unsure about making the leap, don't be afraid to go for it! In case it helps you, this is the TED talk that finally helped me to make my decision and go for it. If you don't yet have any experience in tech, Hackbright also does a really good job of setting up field trips to tech companies, creating opportunities to connect with industry, and preparing you for the job search through weekly group check-ins and 1:1 meetings with a career coach. Even for someone with tech experience like me, I learned a lot more about start-ups through Hackbright. One aspect of Hackbright that was challenging for me was the schedule. After week five, there is only one lecture a day and you're just working on your project the rest of the time. Initially I treated it like a job, making sure to show up and be present each day while also optimizing for my own productivity - leaving a bit early if I was at a stopping spot or if I wanted to take a break and study later in the evening. Hackbright doesn't look well on this and really expects you to be there everyday until 6pm. I know for many in my cohort, especially those with children at home, long commutes, or other work or family obligations, this was a hurdle on the path to success. My hope is that Hackbright can work towards slightly more inclusive (and similar to the workplace) scheduling in the future! Overall, Hackbright changed my life and enabled me to career change with a top-notch curriculum and incredibly supportive culture. If anyone has doubts about which bootcamp to choose, if you're looking for excellent, structured curriculum that prepares you for work, with the additional opportunity to build a big project independently, with career help and tech exposure thrown in, all as part of a really supportive and friendly culture - then Hackbright is for you!

I attended Hackbright Academy this summer, graduating in the fall. I really loved the experience!

I came into Hackbright with programming experience from being self-taught and building complex Flash applications for my job. I had written vanilla JavaScript for about two years prior to starting. I was lucky to come in with that experience, as it made the whole bootcamp process a lot easier. I had some applied experience to draw on and it made it easier to digest the material. I had never done anything with the backend and had never done any web app development prior to starting the course. If you don't have any programming experience, I would suggest taking their prep course to get your feet wet or you will likely feel really underwater once the coursework gets going. Even if you have experience, keep practicing up until you start - you won't regret it!

There is no way I could have learned everything I did in 12 weeks on my own! It was great to fully immerse myself in programming instead of continuting to try and learn it on the side. The staff is incredibly knowledgable, helpful, and supportive. They will answer a question three different ways if it means you understand. No question is too simple and they foster an environment where everyone can be heard. It kind of feels like going to a really nerdy summer camp. I can't stress enough what a unique opportunity an all-female program offers. There are few great aspects of the program I can't envision working in a co-ed space. The best way to sum up the environment is, there is no winning at Hackbright. No one is crowned the best Hackbrighter. Everyone is learning their own way with their own goals and supporting one another on their path.

I like the way the course is structured. The first half you will be focusing on labs building up your foundational skills. The second half is called "Project Season" and you will be building an app from scratch. It is an incredibly exciting experience to see something complex come together. You learn so much in those four weeks! You get to pick and choose what web services you want to use, what libraries of tools to implement, and you get to see your idea come to life. In the end, I was able to build something even better than I could have imagined when I started. Start thinking of ideas now!

All of that said, there is still a lot to learn once the program is complete. The program doesn't have time to expand on some of the core computer science topics that you will need to know for interviews, so prepare to spend some more time studying once the course is over. That is true of any bootcamp - but just something that you should know up front! Hackbright will teach you how to learn a language, so ideally you can find a role even if you don't know the languages the company uses.

I am really happy with my decision to attend Hackbright. I was able to lock down a job about a month after graduation. That said, the job market has changed and there are a lot of bootcampers out there right now and only so many junior roles. I was lucky to have some programming job experience, which helped in my search. So be prepared financially for your job search to take 3-6 months. I would also recommend going to meetups (PyLadies has a lot of HB alum) and tech events to start networking as early as possible, don't wait until you have graduated. It is the best way to get your foot in the door after a bootcamp! I ended up getting my job thanks to a referral from a woman in my cohort! There is a great alumni network and most people are happy to help another Hackbright woman! 

The main stack you learn is Python | Flask | JavaScript (they just switched to ES6) | PostgreSQL 

I really enjoyed my time at Hackbright. I picked Hackbright specifically because it fosters a supportive and encouraging community, and I felt I needed that to learn & grow in my career. I strongly feel that you get out what you put into this program. You should come prepared, you should do all the homework, and you should ask as many questions as possible. For me, the most valuable part of the program was access to the instructors--I was previously self-taught and the hardest thing for me was figuring out what to learn next, and what I had taught myself wrong.

The program is geared toward almost complete beginners, and it is not a substitute for a compsci degree, so you shouldn't go in expecting a compsci program. Some days might be review for you, in which case you should seek out new challenges and broaden your knowledge. If no days are review for you, you might need to work harder to establish a foundation pf knowledge that you can build on for the rest of the program.

Towards the end of the program, Hackbright will start teaching you algorithms and whiteboarding and preparing you for job interviews. I just want to say that interviewing for software engineering jobs is ROUGH. It is much harder than the bootcamp, and although there is a career services team that will try to help you, Hackbright cannot get you a job, you have to do that yourself, and it might take a while. You should look at their Outcomes report to get a good sense of the average first salary and time to get that first job, and be prepared for the long slog.

Also good to mention: you will come out of this with good friends. And after a year or two, those friends will be a solid professional network.

I began at Hackbright as a prep course student.  The course did an excellent job teaching the fundamentals of programming in Python.  We learned about data structures, conditionals, for and while loops, and APIs, among other things.  At the end of the course, we were asked to create a small project that ran on the command line in Python.  I was impressed by how far all the women had come -- Hackbright had done an excellent job teaching us and the women had done an excellent job learning and applying the material and going the extra mile!  By the end of the prep course, Hackbright encouraged us to apply to its full-time fellowship program.  I was at first hesitant, nervous about the coding challenge and interviews.  But, as I saw the confident and excited women around me who were part of the full-time fellowship (sometimes we would bump into them right before our prep class), I knew I wanted to be where they were at -- with the knowledge and skills to call themselves software engineers.  The project had made more confident in my abilities as a prep-course-level engineer, and Hackbright made it easier for those in the prep course to apply (we did not have to re-do the application form bit).  The coding challenge and the interviews were still challenging, but it was worth the pain to get the news that I had gotten in!  The twelve weeks in the fellowship were definintely taxing, but worth it as well.  We learned the foundational concepts and knowledge needed to build a web application, and learned fundamental computer science concepts as well.  I am now in the job search process and am proud of the project I had completed in the fellowship, showing my skills, and am thankful I have so much material I can still review to make me more ready for interviews.  Had I not pushed myself to transition from the prep program to the application process for the fellowship, I wouldn't be where I am, a junior software engineer!  If you are wondering whether you should take that leap, do it!  You can apply to Hackbright a few times, if the first time does not go well.  And you will not regret looking to the horizon toward your dreams, motivated to run the race it takes to reach that horizon.

Coming from a nursing background, I had zero coding experience prior to attending Hackbright's prep course (and onto the fellowship). After talking to tech recruiters regarding what bootcamp to attend, they all unanimously pointed towards Hackbright.

There are 4 dinstinct qualities about Hackbright that make it stand out from the rest: the transparency, continuous passion for improvement, support system, and alumnae network.

Transparency - They held info sessions for prospective students, were timely with email exchanges, and are part of a 3rd party outcomes report. Just looking at the website, you know exactly what you're getting into, up to the day-to-day schedule of the program.

Continuous passion for improvement: During the prep and fellowship program, every lecture was paired with a feedback survey, as well as the TA writing notes in the back for potential powerpoint typos, areas of clarifications, etc. They also restructure the curriculum from time to time to keep up with the latest versions of programming languages / if a certain technology is starting to be prevalent in the job market.

Support system: When you're attending a lecture and look back, seeing all the other instructors/TAs literally attending the lecture WITH you, you know you are in the right place. What an amazing staff. I never once felt insecure about asking a question, and never once had no one available to ask the question to.

Alumnae network: Hackbright continously hosts events where alum and students connect with one another, as well as the career services team being more than happy to introduce you to previous graduates. It's by far the strongest community I've seen. We are all proud Hackbrighters, easily spotted in the city with our red jackets.

My only room of improvement would be the tech stack they teach. It's a carefully curated one, intended for pedagogical reasons. However, in terms of the job market and what's prevalent out there, it does not exactly align. But, this bootcamp above all else taught me HOW to learn new frameworks/languages in a short amount of time, which is absolutely the most important skill you can have going into the tech industry.

During the Hackbright Fellowship, the amount of learning that occurs on a daily basis is enormous. Their formula of teach, practice, review, assess provides a great scaffold for engaging multiple ways with the material and retaining information. 

As a mother the time requirement initially felt undoable however, with support from my family and some adjustments in schedule, I was able to be successful with the required stduying and maintaining a balance of family/work. It was expressed to me several times that HB is aware of the challenges of being a student/mother and working toward making sure the fellowship is a viable option. It is not easy, but can be done!

The instructors have a variety of teaching and support styles. Not everyone felt that they were matched well with their advisors. I valued the different styles and knew when to ask a question to whom based on what I wanted back from them. Many of the instructors have backgrounds in education and their pedagogical knowledge was apparent in their instruction. 

I am currently in the job hunt phase. The Career Services team is very supportive and the opportunities to engage with industry people to learn about interviewing is invaluable. 

I attended Hackbright 2016. I can say my time there was a complete loss, if you're looking for a coding bootcamp, I'd recommend looking elsewhere. Inexperienced instructors, disorganized curriculum, and lack of job support after graduation.

I graduated at Hackbright Academy last May 2017. Hackbright provided a very supportive learning environment enabling me to not fear failure as there were many times where my programs didn't work.  I learned how to troubleshoot and ask for help sooner rather than later!  This was the first time I was ever in an immersive environment and it was indeed very intense as I felt like I was drinking from a firehose every day.  What I loved about Hackbright is that they go out of their way to provide an environment where I can learn from my classmates, teachers, and experienced engineers who are working in the industry.  And the support continues even as I graduated.  Hackbright gave me a strong foundation in software engineering that I can build on for the rest of my life.  Thank you!

I began my coding journey by following along MIT's introduction to programming course and various Codecademy courses here and there. A few weeks later, I decided to check out Hackbright's fellowship application. It was a day before the deadline for the next cohort, so I stopped halfway through the application. I figured that there's no way I could complete the whole process in one day. Then I got a call from Victoria from Admissions, who encouraged me to submit my application since the deadline had moved back by 2 weeks. I got accepted within the month, and it's surreal how much my life has changed. 

I absolutely loved the program. A drawback I read online before was that an all-women bootcamp doesn't prepare you for a male-dominated workplace. I can say that that is untrue. The environment simply provided the women with a safe place to focus on learning. 

Pros (+):

- Energetic staff and knowledgeable instructors who revamp the curriculum based on feedback

- Study/life balance for student's ability to decide how to spend time after 6pm

- Exposure to full-stack webapp development. The individual projects are so each student can fully own her idea/execution

- Mentorship program is careful curated - I had three mentors: a frontend engineer at mid-sized startup, an engineer at a small VC, and a backend engineer at a large-sized company. They all used different languages and were available for support on project and whiteboarding. 

Cons (-): 

- Pace was slower than I would have liked, but in a way it forced me to absorb the information deeper

- Algorithm is taught mostly with whiteboarding, but I think it's important to instill the importance of logic & algorithms early on. I studied algorithms on my own time after class ended for the day.

Overall, I met really great people and found my job ( which I love ) within two weeks of graduating. I would recommend this program to anyone who wants to change industries and needs a structured path. 

I truly loved my time at Hackbright. My cohort was a group of incredibly smart, passionate weirdos and I could never have pushed myself as hard without them. The instructors were amazing - I had an amazing relationship with my advisor. I loved one of my external mentors and I learned a lot from that experience. I would highly recommend. 

I graduated from Hackbright's software engineering fellowship about a month ago. The program far exceeded my expectations and prepared me very well to obtain a job as a software engineer.

Instruction: I think Hackbright's instruction is really top-notch. The instructors are incredibly knowledgeable about software and very passionate about teaching. I think this is a large differentiator between hackbright and other bootcamps I've seen where recent grads from the program are serving as instructors. Many of Hackbright's instructors have graduate degrees in CS or related disciplines. 

Curriculum: I was surprised by how well tuned the curriculum was. In 10 weeks you will learn how to build a full-stack web application as well as the fundamental CS concepts you would get from a year of college coursework. Hackbright's curriculum is split up with lab-work and pair programming during the first half and individual project work during the second half. Not all bootcamps have you work on individual projects. I found that in interviews it was really important to say that I had built a web app by myself from the ground up, and be able to discuss the challenges along the way.

Hackbright asks for feedback constantly, and they consistently update their curriculum and program to best meet the needs of their students and teach the most relevant tools. Hackbright is great for giving you some scaffolding to start your career. Now, I feel confident that I can teach myself new skills or concepts in my next and future jobs.

Career services: The career services at Hackbright are wonderful. My career coach met with me throughout the program to help plan my future career path and connect me with people in the Hackbright network. Hackbright has a very strong network of alumni and partner companies. Now, this doesn't mean that you will get handed a job upon graduation. Networking is really hard - you have to do a lot of work to put yourself out there. Depending on your existing network and previous career/educational background this experience will vary. But from Hackbright's end, I think they do everything they can to support you. You are matched with three industry mentors during the program. After you graduate, career services stays in touch on a weekly basis and there are weekly events to help you practice technical interviews. 

Culture: Overall Hackbright was a really great environment to learn in. It is collaborative rather than competitive. The women in my cohort were from pretty diverse backgrounds (age, previous careers, culturally), but everyone was very driven and committed to entering a new career. Some people are drawn to Hackbright because they prefer to learn in a female-only environment or want to build up a network with other female engineers. The fact that Hackbright is all-women was not a big selling point for me, but I do think the mission of the organization - to change the ratio - fosters a really supportive and committed learning environment. 

Cost: Hackbright is expensive. For me, the amount was a very worthwhile investment. I would not have the same job opportunities I have now without Hackbright. However, if you don't have means of supporting yourself during the bootcamp and for 1-6 months after during the job search phase, it is not that accessible. There are a few scholarships, but they are pretty small compared to the overall cost of the program. Searching and studying for a software engineering job is a full-time job. Don't expect to go back to your regular job after Hackbright and casually search for software jobs on the side. You need to be prepared to fully jump in and commit. 

I had a positive experience at Hackbright Academy. Hackbright was a supportive and positive environment for me to learn how to code and prepare for the job search.

First of all, I was super impressed with the collaboration environment among the students. It did not feel like a competition where there is a sole "winner" of Hackbright. I feel like we ALL came out as winners at the end and we all helped each other in our own way, whether it was emotional support or help and ideas technically. I definitely got that "these are my people" feeling!

There was a lot of support and encouragement from the educational staff and career services team as well. The quality of my instructors was excellent as well as the TA's and lab instructor. The instructors were great about checking in with the students making sure we were understanding the material and encouraged us to ask questions. They were also very good about requesting feedback after each lecture. A school that takes feedback seriously is a good sign in my opinion!

Hackbright tries hard to set you up for success, already connecting each student with 3 mentors that work in the tech industry. All three of my mentors were helpful and involved. I still communicate and meet with them even though the fellowship is over. I have a much bigger network now than I did before Hackbright!

Career services were also strong. Very organized and thought out material. The last two weeks of the fellowship was career services focused, bringing in people from the industry to talk to us and give us a wealth of advice for the job search.

Of course, make sure to put in the hard work, time, and dedication to make the most of Hackbright! 

Reviewing the full-time bootcamp, not the night classes that people also review.

What drew me to Hackbright was partly the curriculum (I love Python but I was glad to see we'd get such an all-around introduction), but also the promise of career support, and I was not disappointed.  Not only did we have two weeks of all kinds of meeting people and making connections, but we also had an hour during the first ten, to ramp up to that.  As someone who is good at school settings and less good at navigating business, I needed that practical support and those initial connections made for me.   Plus, they really are still there for you afterwards, and I think they've acted on advice from other alumnae on how best to support recent graduates.

Although only a few students get jobs from companies that send representatives to our career night (where we demonstrate our projects), it's definitely common to get interviews--I think all of my classmates who followed up with thank-you emails got interviews at at least one company, several have done well, and some companies are moving more slowly.  Some of the companies were clearly there just to prove that they "wanted to hire women",  but most really are hiring.

While learning and especially while preparing for job-seeking, I've also found my classmates to be great resources.  We all have different enough career experiences and skillsets that there's a lot to learn, and the environment was surprisingly supportive.  I mean, Hackbright clearly intended to make sure we supported each other but I was skeptical that would work, yet it did.  I really like my classmates, even though we have different interests.

For the curriculum, Hackbright doesn't lie.  You can see on their website what they teach, and that's what we learned.  I think they structured it very well, lots of pair-programming in the first half, ramping us up to building a web application, then while we started out our individual projects, introducing us to other tools we may want to use.  Then while we were "finishing" our projects, i.e. getting them ready to demo, we went over core CS topics, and immediately after career night we started whiteboarding practice.  Even though I wish more of the core CS topics were at the beginning, we did have some really great lectures near the beginning, such as comparing and constrasting memory management in Python and C.  I think each of the topics they taught us, with the exception of the two weeks of "extra developer tools", were a solid foundation.  I feel so empowered to make things now!

I was concerned when I started based on other reviews, about the quality of instructors.  Having recently finished, I now see where those reviews were coming from but I don't have the same concerns.  Our two main instructors, lab assistant, and occasional guest lecturer are all very experienced and with skillsets in different areas.  Both in terms of tech stack (all of them know and like Python, but two have even more background in SQL, one in Javascript, one in nitty-gritty details of Python, and our lab assistant taught us about Bootstrap/CSS) and in teaching skills (of our two main instructors, one is great at catching people up when they're struggling with concepts, as well as helping with difficult bugs; the other is great at exploring tangents in Python and technical questions; both are good overall lecturers).  Although I think our cohort struck lucky in instructors, I do think Hackbright requires its instructors know what they're doing.  That's much better than I hear about some other places where it depends so heavily on the instructor; and even at Hackbright the standards applied for full-time instructors are also higher than for the introductory night classes in my opinion.

What's going on with the "inexperienced instructors" is that teaching assistants, who advise students, give code reviews, run labs and contribute to curriculum planning, but never lecture (well, hardly ever), are Hackbright alumnae and junior TAs are usually hired right after bootcamp.  This means they know the curriculum well, and have done their own project, but don't know as much about how to support a new student's project without looking things up.

Also, in independent project time, I found the "help queue" good for the first two-week sprint, but the instructors were busier during second sprint, so not everyone was available, which was unfortunate for a lot of us.  We had put off some of the more complicated features to second sprint and then couldn't get enough dedicated time from the educational staff to help us implement them.  However I did mention this concern, and Hackbright is always collecting feedback and making adjustments based on it.  It gets easy to just click through a survey in ten seconds, but if we leave written comments in the surveys they actually act on them!  For example after some of started writing "I wish they rotated instructors in the study halls" a couple of times, that happened. (Although I personally regretted it I know others were happy.)

I would say: this is expensive.  If you can't afford it, don't do it; I think it's really worth it if you can, but everyone either had savings or a safety net.  I hope Hackbright makes more full scholarships available in the future.