App Academy

Definitely a full-time commitment. Coursework really pushed you to learn a ton of new things in a short amount of time. If diving head-first into programming and making a big life change is your goal, this is a good place to learn quickly, even if it sometimes feels like being thrown into the deep end. Made a lot of good friends. Heavy emphasis on paired programming. Assessment policy is very strict and there is more to learn than there is time in the day -- expect it to feel stressful and be ok with not being able to finish everything.

I can attest that App Academy works: I went in knowing only what I dimly remembered from intro comp sci back in college, and I’m about to start my first job as a software engineer.

I’d say the greatest strengths of the program are the challenge, the support, and the accountability. The principal three-month curriculum is incredibly intense—expect 60-hour weeks at absolute minimum—but it takes you through the skills and concepts you need to know and forces you to put in the necessary work to really learn them. The instructors and TAs, though they can occasionally be overwhelmed (many are graduates of the course), are always on hand to offer helpful feedback that’s often critical to bringing together your understanding of a concept. It’s all about putting you in a structure that incentivizes you to actually put in the work, and this continues even after graduation, as you get individualized coaching and reporting tools that make sure you regularly apply to jobs and continue working on projects and coding challenges. This is especially valuable because the job search can take time—around three months in my case—and you’ll absolutely have more to learn after you graduate. Twelve weeks can’t cover every nuance of software engineering.

As far as downsides, the instruction is sometimes shaky, as I said above, though years in business have polished the curriculum to the point where you’ll usually have pre-prepared resources to help you out if worst comes to worst. Your continued participation in the course depends on you passing the regular assessments, which is a major source of stress even if you have a handle on the material and prepare well. The assessments themselves also can feel more like tests of memorization than genuine reflections of how much you’ve learned. Last but not least, despite App Academy’s stated (and admirable) goal of bringing people from more diverse backgrounds into the tech industry, most of the classes seem to be overwhelmingly male, even more so than the industry as a whole. That won’t be an issue for everybody, but it’s worth mentioning.

Still, I have no regrets. It was an extremely valuable learning experience for me and, obviously, it got me a job.

App Academy is often described as drinking from a fire hose in the sense that it gives more information than is possible to absorb. As a result, the curriculum is quite challenging and it is normal to feel lost and behind, but students rapidly learn an absurd amount.  The TAs are extremely helpful and nice, and the projects are amazing for building your portfolio and learning. However, the current assessments could be improved since a large part of passing them is just pure memorization. Furthermore, a large part of the curriculum is Ruby which isn't as relevant in the current job market as other languages such as Python.

Overall I would say I learned a lot but the assessments are rough if you come in with 0 coding experience. I had to spend over 100 hours a week studying and I feel like I barely got through the assessment material, and most students still have to spend extra time polishing their projects, doing leetcode, and learning more skills before applying for jobs. 3 months to get employed in coding starting from not knowing anything really isn't enough time to get you to employable but I would say App Academy is probably the best option for those thinking of pursuing the bootcamp option, if they can handle the stress. Our attrition rate was 16.4% which isn't too high but I felt like some of the people that got dismissed were trying their hardest and still couldn't make it through

App Academy is an intense program, especially if you are doing the in-person course. Make sure you understand what you are signing up for. You can expect to spend at least 90 hours a week there and if you take your foot off the pedal during the program, it becomes really easy to fall into a vicious cycle of doom and gloom.

That being said, I enjoyed learning not only how to code in the leading languages and frameworks out there today but also how to develop a sense for different coding cultures found in industry. I also can’t thank the instructors enough for their dedication and support. They go above and beyond to teach you the tools and mindset to succeed. I genuinely feel that everyone who makes it through the curriculum comes out with a sound foundation in all aspects of software engineering, from pair programming and debugging code to whiteboarding and solving algorithms. Not to mention that this will be the best opportunity to connect with and make lifelong friends in the industry.

One thing I do have to add is that a/A probably still has a lot of room to improve on both structuring the latter parts of the curriculum and stabilizing the volatility of the staff size from month to month. Unfortunately, our cohort had the pleasure of facing the peak of a staff shortage right as the regular curriculum ended, which I think curbed a lot of the momentum going into capstone projects.

All in all, this was undoubtedly the most rewarding learning experiences I've had. If a/A suddenly introduces an advanced-level course tomorrow, I would not hesitate to do this all again.