App Academy

It is an intense bootcamp, and you do learn a lot in 16 weeks, especially if you come into the bootcamp without prior programming experience. There are minimal breaks and you are expected to work over the weekend, and many do get burnt out towards the end, so the schedule could use a little restructuring. If you are an extremely self-motivated person, you may be able to learn the course material online by yourself, but the main benefit of the course is the wonderful team of TAs fostering a positive team environment, the constant collaboration with pair programming, and the invaluable friendships and connections you build along the way.

I attended aA from December 2019 through March 2020, doing the full stack curriculum. This curriculum teaches you how to program from scratch starting with Ruby, then SQL, Ruby on Rails, Javascript and finally React & Redux. I came into this program with prior programming experience, so the first month of so was basically review to me while most of my peers were learning the basics of programming.

I can say that I came away from this course as a better programmer, and fully equipped with the tools necessary to find a job as a software developer. The pace is very fast - you're learning something new every day. It ramps up in speed - we spent the first month working with Ruby, and at the end we went through the Javascript curriculum in only a week. The pair programming experience is great - 95% of my classmates were there to learn and were motivated. You'll be doing pair programming for 10 weeks with a new person everyday, so at the end of it you make some pretty good friends and networking connections out of it. 95% of the stuff you learn is useful; you end up using most of it for the 3 projects at the end that you are required to do. The instructors are great and all of them are there to help you succeed and do better.

I am currently in the job search curriculum portion, where I get lectures on topics such as networking, writing cover letters and resumes, and interviewing. After I graduate, I will be working with a career coach from App Academy for upwards of a year until I find a job. Once you graduate, it doesn't stop - they expect you to spend 8 hours a day, 40 hours of week working on finding a job. If you work better with imposed deadlines, then this is immensely helpful as it prevents you from procrastinating.

Overall - I think that the program is worth the value in tuition. I would recommend payment upfront rather than the deferred model, since you pay less and there's less pressure to find a job after you graduate. But if you like that sort of pressure, then maybe the second option is better for you after all. If I could do it over, I'd definitely attend App Academy again.

There's certainly a reason they call it a bootcamp. App Academy is intense. It will consume your every waking moment for a full sixteen weeks. But that's a small price to pay for the incredible gains you'll make along the way. In sixteen weeks, I went from knowing almost nothing about coding to building two full stack projects and a JavaScript project that would have seemed impossible at the beginning of the course. My career coach also helped me craft a social media presence and resume that reflect my new skills, and I formed enduring friendships with my classmates that I hope will last a lifetime.

My experience at App Academy was great! I had so much fun learning how to code and am grateful for this life-changing experience! Like many of the online sources say, it IS really challenging. In the 3 months that you dedicate to App Academy, it is essentially the only thing that you can focus on. However, it is very rewarding in the end and you gain so much knowledge in such a short amount of time. Here are some personal tips and key points that I picked up from my experience at App Academy (Please note that this is from MY experience, and people accomplish/approach things in different ways):

1. App Academy is challenging, but not INSANELY challenging. In my experience, I was able to keep up with App Academy's curriculum while maintaining some social/personal life. Other people say that they dedicate every day, every hour, every minute to App Academy (which is fine), but I felt that there was more free time than initially expected. I would be able to spend my Saturdays and sometimes Sundays doing social/personal stuff, and I honestly felt that this was needed.

2. SLEEP is important. The instructors at App Academy can't stress this enough either. I think the thing that kept my stress level low and made my experience enjoyable was the fact that I forced myself to sleep with my regular schedule (I slept at 10:30pm and woke up at 7:30am everyday). I never felt tired during the working hours and I was still able to keep up with the curriculum.

3. You have to put in the effort to maintain this healthy lifestyle. The only reason why I was able to have fun on the weekends and get 8-9 hours of sleep everyday was the fact that I worked hard during the working hours. It's just as they say - work hard, play hard. If you actually pay attention during the lectures and actually put in your effort during the projects, you'll be able to absorb the information better, especially if you're not tired or stressed. My previous advice isn't to show that App Academy is easy, it's to show that there is a way to maintain good health and a happy lifestyle while going through the rigorous curriculum.

App Academy stands out from the other NYC area bootcamps because of its tuition guarantee: your costs are forgiven if you don't secure a full time job in one year. To me, that level of confidence in the program convinced me to give them a chance, and it was well worth it.

Prepare to enter a demanding, yet nurturing environment composed of students and instructors who train you to overcome your personal hurdles and transform yourself into a competitive software engineer. There is no hand-holding here: you will be dismissed if you fail more than two assessments, and you'll need the self-discipline to keep up with the curriculum. However, your classmates will be there to cheer you on, and you'll experience the pride and joy of completing a full-stack project and a JavaScript project all by yourself.

I do wish that the curriculum had taught a different tech stack when I attended (Ruby on Rails isn't very hip these days), and the school's connections to the tech industry could be a little better. The school is improving itself though, and I credit it for helping me land a very good software engineering job.

What I respect the most about AppAcademy is that the curriculum is continuously being developed, and it is teaching me new materials even after graduation. The instructions are easy to read, and the projects are aimed to teach. It is a hard program where everyone was sleep-deprived and pushed to do better all the time. But by the end of the course, we were eating and breathing codes. Now when you graduate, don't expect the companies to come to your door with offers. You will need to write and keep updating your cover letter and work on your website and projects. Send many many applications every day and embrace the rejections. There will be back to back interviews that bear no fruit. But just like the course, you will be able to get through with the support from your cohort and App Academy career coaches. Good luck!

App Academy is known as one of the top coding bootcamps in the country and for good reason. The curriculum is stringent and top-notch. It is a very selective process to even get into the program and when you do the intensity only increases from there. It is a bootcamp after all. This bootcamp is probably the equivalent of the Navy Seals or Green Berets bootcamp but for your programming skills (and your mental capacity).
Most of the stress comes from having to pass 6 assessments in order to stay in the program. They range from topics like basic sort and search algos in Ruby and JS to SQL queries and Rails backend basics. I liked the intensity and learned a lot from the weekend study sessions and nightly homework. I cannot imagine another bootcamp having better, more informed, and brilliant Technical Assistants (teachers) than AA.
Finally, once you struggle through your final projects (building a full-stack application) and learn a ton from this process, you enter the job search curriculum. App Academy is just as stocked with good strategies for landing a well-paying job. Despite me not having the best projects and it being the Christmas / New year holidays, I managed to get some good traction with recruiters and hiring managers to land some interviews and ultimately get a job offer early in the new year. If you can make it through the 3 months of intense technical curriculum, then getting a job is relatively easy, especially in a market like NYC. If you don't mind being uncomfortable in order to grow and be pushed to your limits, this is the place for you.
I would highly suggest this bootcamp for anyone thinking of doing this type of thing.

I am incredibly grateful to have gone through App Academy. I went from almost no knowledge of coding to being able to build a full web app within a matter of months. Here are some key takeaways:
- The 40 hours per week of class-time can seem daunting at first, but they do a good job of splitting the time between lecture and pair programming. You usually see people saying it takes 80-100 hours commitment per week, but I'd say 70 hours per week is more accurate if you are good at managing your time and staying focused
- I think a lot of students have mixed feelings about the amount of pair programming we do. Although it is definitely not the most efficient way to code, it really teaches you how to communicate your thought process well and learn to be open to others' ideas
- The student to TA ratio is fantastic. If you aren't too proud to ask for help, you have all the resources you need to succeed
- My main criticism is the breakdown of time spent learning different languages. We spent 4 weeks learning Ruby, but had only 1-2 weeks of instruction on any other language or framework. During our final projects we were expected to learn a new framework over the course of a weekend with minimal to no guidance from the instructors. Of course, you can't learn everything there is to know about coding in only 4 months, so they tend to focus more on practical application rather than theoretical knowledge or deeper understanding of the material

The good : 
There is an established culture of cooperation, empathy, and inclusion. The curriculum includes materials on issues such as discrimination and monoculture, which was unexpected and welcome.

You will meet interesting people from a variety of backgrounds and the pair coding establishes genuine connections quickly.

Curriculum feedback is listened to and I found the instructors truly care and try to adjust their teaching styles to accommodate different students.

The bad :
Assessments require a lot of memorization, so you have to choose whether to study to understand or to burn all the time you have doing repetitions.

A lot of lectures are done via project coding demo in a lecture hall, but devices aren't allowed so you cannot code along or put notes where you don't understand something. Once you're lost it's all a blur.

When the formal instruction curriculum is finished, you're pretty much on your own. The instructors do their best, but they are vastly outnumbered. The size of the classes has exploded since we got here. There are several of them for 150+ students, it can take ~4 hours to get a question answered.

The handoff from formal instruction to career search and projects felt discombobulated- weeks in limbo without knowing when coaches would be assigned, confusion about who to talk to for scheduling medical appointments, etc. It may be they are short-staffed, as well.

Individual experience notes : 
Ask for monitor risers or ergonomic equipment when you need it. It's many many long days and your neck and shoulders and wrists are important. Monitor yourself for burnout, especially when you start coding 70+ hours a week.