App Academy

 TLDR: Of course it's hard. But the payoff is greaaaaaat! :D If you're thinking of what bootcamp, just apply to App Academy. 

Pros: - Amazing experience - You can ask for help aaaaaaaaaall the time - Lots of resources - Relevant course materials - Software salaries are QUITE high - You learn 2 languages, a frontend framework, 3 projects (2 solo, 1 group), and a bunch of other stuff 

Cons: - Sooooooooooo much work (your routine will be: Coffee, Lecture, Lunch, Work, Work, Dinner, Work, Sleep, Repeat for 16-weeks) 

Not TLDR: Hello World! - the beginning of your journey; if in fact you are new to this stuff like I was. Before App Academy, I had been a Host and a Server in the restaurant business for four years. When the pandemic hit I was out of a job and had to look for options. I live in San Francisco and a ton of people here are in tech and so I thought I'd check it out and see if it was for me. I took a two-week Jumpstart program with App Academy and there I learned Ruby - a cool language that flows like plain English; mostly. I was never great at math but have always been interested in languages. Learning to code is like learning a language. If you like that, try it out. When you're coding you're solving problems and trying to get stuff to work. It can be very gratifying! Jumpstart was a lot of fun for me and so I applied to App Academy. On my first try I hadn't practiced my skills enough but on the second try I did great! From the first day at App Academy know that you are in for a lot of work. In the morning, I think it was ~9-12:30 for me, you will have lectures with 1-2 5-10 minute breaks in-between. In the afternoon, ~1:30-5, you will be paired up with a fellow classmate to solve a bunch of problems mostly related to your morning lectures. The lectures will be based on your previous evenings material. Expect about 4-6 hours of studying every evening - I wish that were a joke but you've got a lot to learn in 16-weeks. You will do your partner and yourself the most good if you do your homework. Please, please, please, do your homework. When I graduated, it took me about 2-3 more weeks to finish up my final projects. After that you go into job search and you will continue to do tons of work so that one day, you will land an awesome job in software!! :) 

I attended App Academy in 2020, and had an overall positive experience. The main things that I got out of App Academy would have to be computer science principles, a strong and large network, and the confidence to go out and learn on my own. I am currently in the midst of my job search and I can largely attribute the attention that I am getting and what I know thanks to App Academy. Some things that can be worked on would just to make sure the curriculum is constantly being reviewed so that the most relevant and helpful material are being taught, or possibly having multiple curriculums with different tracks. I personally wished that the program did last a little bit longer, just because I found myself doing a lot of additional learning after my cohort ended, and felt like I could have learned those things more quickly under a controlled classroom environment. Overall, App Academy is one of the few good bootcamps out there. The amount of knowledge I have gained in just 4 months is quite remarkable,  and I have seen a lot of positive results in terms of getting interviews and jobs personally and amongst my peers.

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.