App Academy

My experience at App Academy is absolutely the most hard working time in my life. The average work time of 80 - 100 hours per week is no joke. There is new material taught to you on a daily basis and the last thing you would want is falling behind. Use your weekend to not just study for weekly assessments but also revisit materials from weekdays The purpose of the program is really for you to understand everything instead of passing the assessments. 
All the instructors are knowledgable enough to take any question you throw at them and they give awesome lectures. Take advantage of what you are paying for and ask questions if you get stuck with a problem more than 30 minutes. I personally make sure that I ask at least 5 questions a day. 
Taking the prep work seriously is crucial to your success in the program. Going over the alpha course as many times as you can will help you substantially on your understanding of 'object-oriented programming', which is a huge part of the program. This is a really intensive and demanding program so take good care of yourself!

App Academy is a great place to further your knowledge in programming and the curriculum is very rich with information that if you master them, I can say that you'll do very well as a web developer. However, this doesn't mean that you'll become proficient from just attending the course. The course will only prepare you for what a work environment will be like and the rest is up to you. Self-studying and personal projects on the side is what will help you grow after graduating. 
Here are things for people intending to attend App Academy or are already accepted: 
1. The 90+ hours of studying per week is real. You really have to study every night and do the hw to be prepared for next day's work.
2. I can't stress this enough, master the alpha course that they give you when you are accepted. A lot of people fail out because they didn't take it seriously.
3. If you really are a true beginner when it comes to coding as in you know nothing, really ask yourself: "Do I learn really quickly and if not am I really going to put in the work to make up for that? " 
I started the program after learning Ruby for 3 weeks, and I can tell you that not having a background in coding really harmed my learning experience at App Academy. I was able to survive the course, but wasn't able to absorb as much of the curriculum as I originally intended to. 
4. They are not kidding about failing 2 assessments and kicking you out. The assessments are a great way to gauge if you on track but for those who have testing-anxiety a single bug on the examine can mean life  or death. I want to say that if you studied enough, then you'll do fine but there days when you might not be able to find that bug because it's as simple as a spelling typo. 
Final advice it to just stay on top of your game, assessments are important but don't prioritize it over studying for the week's material. 

Lastly, The most important question of all: Is this really what you want to do with your whole life? Are you willing to throw everything away for a minimum of three months to get it? 

App Academy has definitely been the most rigorous academic program I ever attended. The pros for this program is the ability to learn so much information in such a short span. Most of the time you will feel like you are overwhelmed with knowledge to the point where you feel like you'll forget the material when it comes to applying it later. To my (and many other students') surprise, applying your knowledge will feel like second nature.

The biggest drawback is the assessments and the consequences of failing these assessments. People spent large sums of money, left their jobs and invested their time for App Academy. To know that you can be let go if you're at risk creates a high level of anxiety. I personally left my job and was on the brink of failing from the program. Knowing how much I sacrificed to only be let go and not have a job to go back to is a serious problem. It's great that I passed through, but my situation would have been completely different if I was kicked out for academic reasons.

App Academy is great if you are serious about learning the skills to be a software developer in the shortest humanly possible time. You will be surrounded by other motivated and smart individuals (filtered by a rigorous selection process), and if you are also motivated, you will succeed. It is quite amazing to see people come in with minimal programming experience, and come out able to make really good looking web applications using several different tech stacks. Looking back, this is definitely something that I, and probably most people wouldn’t have been able to achieve themselves within 3 months.

Pros:

The program does what it says it does, and graduates do find jobs

cons:

very stressful, intense, and will test your endurance

I checked out top 10 bootcamps and decided to go with App Academy and joined their Premium Bootcamp Prep Online and started learning JavaScript. It was really good experience. Instructors and TA’s are very supportive. The curriculum is also fine. Finally I finished the bootcamp and interviewed for full time software engineering program. First interview was technical and second non-technical. After a day I got an acceptance letter from App Academy for April 16, 2018 San Francisco cohort. The journey has just begun. 

App Academy is incredibly demanding. If programming and web development are not your passion and becoming a professional software engineer is not your dream, don't apply. If it is however, prepare yourself to dedicate your life to programming for 3 months. You will learn a ton. You will get stressed out. But if it really is your passion you will also enjoy a lot of your time at App Academy. Being surrounded by incredibly talented people all working towards the same goal can be an inspiring and productive work environment. App Academy really does seem to care about your success and while some of that is undoubtedly because of the tuition model, a lot of it is just because of the great staff. There are some flaws in the curriculum and the occasional uninspired lecture (the curriculum is always in progress). The chairs, desks and computers are also not great. But a/A seems like they're always trying to take in as much feedback as possible and improve the program. I have just entered the job search portion and will try to remember to update this review after I have found employment. *I will receive an App Academy hoodie for writing this review but that was not dependent on the score I gave*