App Academy

I attended app academy from July 2020 - Nov 2020, so the entire course was conducted via Zoom. The curriculum was intense and required me to essential dedicate my entire day to coding besides eating and sleeping. The teachers were helpful, but could have had a few more due to the high demand of questions amongst the students. I found a role in Feb 2021 due to a referral. Biggest tips would be to make friends and create study groups so you could rely on one another to motivate and help whenever you/others are stuck on a topic. 

I would highly recommend App Academy to anyone who is wanting to switch careers. The TA's are very helpful and in my cohort the other students were very supportive of each other. It's a difficult and stressful program, there are assessments every week or two and you need to pass them to stay in the program. It's very fast paced because there is a lot of information to cover, and there will always be more to learn, but I think one of the most important things you learn to do at App Academy is how to quickly pick up new software and start using it. This has been one of the most beneficial skills I've seen during the job search and starting this new career. If you are prepared to put in a lot of effort this is a great program, and I think it will set you up for success, but you need to be prepared to put a lot of work in. Good luck and enjoy! It is one of the hardest things I've ever done, but also one of the best.

App Academy provided me with the structure I needed to learn the foundational skills necessary to become a software engineer. Their admissions process is rigorous for a reason - they need to select great people to be a part of the bootcamp because we have to pair program everyday. I thoroughly enjoyed closely working with new people on different projects and met a lot of talented individuals who had a lot to offer. You can surely learn all of this material alone, but definitely not at the pace or efficiency that a/A forces you to. You are accountable to others and have to make sure you are well versed in the material every day, or else you take away from the others in your cohort. Overall a great experience that taught me several skills I never had 16 weeks ago.

It is a very immersive experience with exposure to different technologies and practicing what we learned through trial and error through projects. Learned a lot once we started individually doing full-stack projects, testing what we learned, and expanding our initial understanding of the topics and concepts we learned through video lessons as well as guided lectures. Personally, I learned way more and at a faster pace than I could have on my own. I really respect that they don't just teach you everything and expect you to find a job on your own, but help you build an online presence that is competitive with today's market.

App Academy was an amazing experience, a place where i grew in my knowledge of languages and experience using fullstack technologies at an insanely fast rate. This was not something i could have done alone, and the structure App Academy had allowed for me to learn new languages quickly by being hands on and not just reading theory. I think for those looking to learn practical experience in coding and learn how to actually create something to grow their experience, this is the best bootcamp out there. Only con would be that if the curriculum was taught in python instead, it would make the graduates even more easier to get the best jobs out there.

App Academy is a great starting point to coding if you need structural guidance and strict time management along your journey. But after all, it’s on you to decide how would you like to learn.
Pros:

• The well-structured curriculum consists of 11 weeks of lecture+pair programming projects, 2 weeks for a fullstack project, 1 week for a MERN group project, 1 week for a JavaScript Project, and finally 1 week of career quest lectures and pairboarding time. The goals of each week are clearly stated so you know what to expect.
• The projects are precious hands-on experience that will help you have a full picture of what software engineering is, especially the MERN group project where you have a lot of freedom and needed to collaborate with classmates.

Cons: 

• Class sizes varied and a/A claims to maintain a TA to student ratio of 1:9 - 1:10. However, in the later weeks, it took a long time for a TA to come and questions were left unanswered at the end of the day. (We were encouraged to not attempt unfinished projects after lesson time.) 
• TAs come and go throughout the bootcamp. Understandably, they would leave the TA position once they get an engineering job, but that means some new TAs would not be fully aware of the ability of some students and provide adequate support.

 After attending App Academy, I can truly say the experience was something else. App Academy is a fast paced bootcamp that teaches you several technologies and languages. Some pros and cons will be listed below

Pros: The structure of the entire course is well put  together. I believe they did an excellent job teaching Ruby, a language that reads almost like English, in order to allow students to transition into a programming mindset. Pair programming everyday allowed students to gain experience elaborating their thoughts and putting it to words. The final projects were the best idea enabling students to put in more work than before and learning how to program themselves without the extensive help of TA's.

Cons: The tests are a bit too easy. There is a clear distinction between the level of students towards the end of the course. The tests become repetitive and actually mirror some practice tests. By mirroring practice tests, students begin to memorize these not furthering their skill set.

Python should be taught instead of Ruby. Ruby is great for new people entering the world of programming but Python is similar to Ruby and is used more throughout the industry. I know it's hard to switch curriculums and is very time consuming but it would be beneficial to students. 

This curriculum will teach you how to code. Succeeding is up to you.

What you do with the knowledge App Academy teaches is up to you. Your projects and what you learn while building them will be more important than the fundamentals that they teach during the curriculum. Learning how to teach yourself and correctly identifying errors and bugs something you will learn App Academy and will be something that will be important in your professional career. 

Overall the App Academy curriculum is great and there are instructors who are there every step of the way. Once you finish the program, the training wheels fall off and you have to keep yourself regimented to keep learning & coding. 

I had a great time learning Software Engineering at A/a!! The best part of my personal experience was definitely the TA's. App Academy does a great job of finding the best TA's around to teach CS with a full understanding. You always feel that they want you to succeed at every step, and are always there when you need them. My fellow App Academy students added to the overall environment as well, always optimistic and rooting each other to do better and learn more. But how much you enjoy and learn from App Academy is going to be up to you, if you go in with a positive outlook and strong goals you are going be very happy that you chose A/a!!!

This is bootcamp is very intense.  If you have a wife and kids, be ready to spend some time away from them.  It's true what others have said.  You need to dedicate 12+ hrs/ day, including weekends, to succeed.  The world of programming is huge so there is a lot to learn and you will feel overwhelmed from information overload while taking the course.   You will need to keep learning after graduation!!!  

Final notes,  I joined app academy for their job search support/placement.  I ran into some family issues and needed a "pause" from this so I can take of business.  My career coach has been very understanding and supportive;  I will be applying to jobs soon so I will update.

App Academy lived up to my expectations for the most part. I knew it would be fast paced and that there would be missing spots in my learning. I am a 'career transitioner' that had a little nest of cash stored, so I took that opportunity to move to tech. I came in with knowledge of the basics of HTML & CSS from creating a Wordpress blog a few years prior and doing some FCC and Codecademy training. At the time, I was considering multiple coding bootcamps and had never even heard of a/A, but once they were on my radar, the reviews made me confident that I would be pushed to my limit, which in my head translated to becoming a very capable software engineer through intense studies. Personally, my time was solely dedicated to 32 Weeks of a/A, so if you are unable to  give your entire days to them, your process will be quite trying. 10-7, take a break for dinner/family, and then a few hours of homework/study afterwards. To be transparent, I haven't found my first role yet, and I am 3 months into the job search. I have a Bachelor's and Master's.  It takes time, and the expectation given down to us is 400 - 600 applications at 25 minimum apps placed a week. I believe I'm somewhere between 225 and 250 applications thus far. Please prep for this.

Important Things To Note
* Marketing - Take the marketing material for what it is. Yes, you can get a job making 100K in San Francisco or NY, but this is significantly harder for the online cohorts due to everyone being disbursed throughout the world. I can only speak from my experience, and my experience also tells me to let you know that you will be in the market looking for role for months if you are unwilling to move to hot spots, and many time if you are, it won't be for 100K. 100K is a lot of money if you didn't know, and companies expect a lot of those that are making the big bucks. Just frame your goals properly and know what you are signing up for.

* Deferrals - I started right before Covid hit, so we were given additional opportunities to defer to later cohorts simply because of how much was going on at the time. To put it plain, once shutdowns were instated, no one was solely focused on school, family arrangements were different, and things just changed. Typically, I think you are given 3 deferrals, but 1 was added for us, making it a total of 4. I have seen people defer for medical reasons and family issues, but the most common is not passing assessments. There were around 14-15 assessments. Understand that deferrals is not a scare tactic. You will be removed from a/A and will also be required to pay a prorated amount if you end up not making it through the entire program. Read your agreements, please. For me personally, I deferred twice, making my total time in a/A 32 weeks compared to 24 weeks. That's an additional 2 months. There are weeks where 0 people defer, and then on the harder weeks, you will see double digits defer. Don't let it deter you too much. You will move to the cohort immediately behind you. There is 1 new cohort a month, so it places you 4 weeks back. On the positive side, this gives you the opportunity to reinforce concepts that didn't stick. It was well stated in my cohort(s) during our graduation that potential deferments induced more anxiety than anything else. That is where the stress lies due to you not knowing what the assessments could potentially have on them. Pressure makes diamonds, but pressure also busts pipes.

* Finances - Plan accordingly. I was one who bet on myself and believed I could make it straight through without any deferrals, meaning, I chose not to do the contract and instead paid a portion up front. Well, I deferred twice. If I wouldn't have budgeted correctly, that extra two months out of work could have had long lasting implications and could have really hurt me. Be smart.

* Skill Level - For the most part, a/A tests for the correct personality types in the pre-work/interview stage, but on day 1, you will soon realize that some people are just naturally gifted, have a little more experience, and there is really nothing you can do about it. They look for ambitious and driven personalities, but that isn't all that matters. Don't let this get you down. Those that are answering all of the questions and know alot more when you pair with them is great, but if you're not that person, it's not a death sentence either. We all learn in different ways and different speeds.

* Technical Mentors  & Teaching Assistants Matter - Like college, I believe who is teaching you is equally as important as what you are learning. Speaking for myself, I didn't feel that I had the right mix of teachers until I made it into my last cohort. I felt like the mentors and ta's really fought for us when assessments were just unfair(timing or not good questions), and it genuinely felt like I had met my tribe. This has nothing to do with my previous cohorts, but honestly speaking, I didn't get that same feeling or attention. It made me regret starting when I did, meaning I came in halfway through a cohort once relationships had already been established and additionally, I had learned things in ways that were taught much better in the new cohort, etc... My cohort mates just seemed to be fundamentally stronger than I was at times, and I believe it was due to the culture that the TM and TA's created for the group.

* Post Covid a/A Experience Is Different - Put simply, you're prone to be more of just a number. The pre-covid groups were small. Jan graduated ~11 , Feb graduated ~6, March graduated ~12, April graduated ~17, May graduated ~18.... Numbers ballooned severely after this. People are out of work and taking the opportunity to transition to new careers. The cohorts are now starting with 75+ students, leading them to have to change the way instruction is given as well. In my estimation, from those 75-90 students in a cohort, each graduation will now be anywhere from 30 - 40 students graduating. Just be aware that the small circles and having the little school experience is no longer there.

* Students with kids under 5 - If your kids are at home during the day and you are the sole person responsible for them, I can't imagine how you will survive the curriculum. This is not extremely common, but there are some. In my case, I saw 3 different cases. Those 3 are no longer enrolled at a/A. This is not a scare tactic, but owing a company thousands of dollars is not a bright outcome, so make sure you have a daycare or someone to care for them.

* Diversity - Simply put, not a ton of women and not a ton of color. For a graduation class of 17, 2 were black and 1 woman.Scholarships and marketing material(Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Instagram Ads) should be geared towards both of those communities. Slack channels for subsets of individuals is respectable and an attempt, but it's not enough. There also needs to be some diversity in the C-Suite roles. You can't understand people that you have no exposure to.

* Curriculum - Pretty decent. I can only speak from the perspective that I never worked with most of the languages before doing it, so I can only compare it against FreeCodeCamp and Codecademy. From that lens, it was pretty good. There were weaker sections, but I also understand how tough it is to make changes, getting approval, and everything  that comes with that process. Bottom Line: Don't expect too much when you are literally learning a new subject/concept pretty much every week. A personal frustration is that a lot of the projects were centered around building a game such as Tic-Tac-Toe, King's Travail,  recreating Pokedex and things like that. So, I'm not a gamer, and though many coders are, it was tough at times to keep my attention. Most of us aren't going into game development, so diversifying the selection of projects should be considered. E-Commerce sites, internal banking applications, you know, things that are actively being built in the market. Just a thought.

* CareerQuest/Job Support - If you are opening up an online portion, naturally I believe a global partnerships team should also be rolled out. You have students across the world, but most opportunities presented are for NY and SF. Career Coaches are doing what they can I believe and have a lot on their plates. Overall, I'm still going through this process, so my entire outlook is dependent on the first role I acquire. Let it be known that the student does the work though, the coaches are just their to hold you accountable. Trust, you can also get kicked out while searching for a job as well. There are still meetings you are required to attend weekly and the pressure lessens, but doesn't stop.