App Academy

The title says it all. Before App Academy(a/A), I was such an lazy person, passively looking for jobs, but ever since I attended a/A, everything has changed. I entirely quit my bad hobbies. Instead, I've spent my whole day coding. I never coded this much before. I've become so productive in a very nature way. When you decide to join a/A, you should also decide that you will be giving up other things for your bigger purpose. Yes it is difficult, and even when I fortunately have coding background before, I still found it very challenging. 
An advise I would give to you is: if you don't have coding background, and you think you are not ready. DON'T force yourself to be ready because this course will be overwhelming than you would expect. If you live far away and feel unsure, you should take some more time getting yourself familiar to coding before attending. You don't want to move here and realize that you cannot make it. As you already know, it costs a lot in SF. 
However, I don't regret my decision

I came into App Academy knowing practically nothing about coding having taken a single online MIT course for Python but nothing more than that. Before starting the course I had read reviews about that stated how intense the curriculum would be, and now that I am finishing up the curriculum, I can say that it truly is a lot. The course runs you through a bunch of languages and libraries in a short amount of time but does so in a way that works for most people. That being said, you have to make sure that you are ready to work. If you do not put in the time, you will more than likely be released from the curriculum. With that being said, the entire team is there to support you as much as they can. They will sit down and provide needed explanations if you ask them to and, if you are like me, that is incredibly helpful.

I had a fantastic experience here but I must say it is not perfect. The course is 3 months total but they fit the entire learning portion of this into the first 2 months. I wish it was 4 months and we had a little extra time to learn and understand some concepts from a more foundational level, but now that responsibility falls on to the student after graduation. Also, the last month is all about getting ready for the job search and that month has you juggling what feels like a dozen different things at once and is easy to fall behind.

To sum all of that up: App Academy is a ton of fun, you learn more than some do throughout an entire college experience and you come out ready for a job. 9/10 Experience to me.

My concerns were quickly alleviated once the course began. App Academy's curriculum is rigorous and challenging. The daily work load is basically endless, and you can learn as much as you have the energy for. After completing the course, I do not believe there is any other way I could have learned so much in the same amount of time. The curriculum forces you to push yourself, and in the end, you will be a competent developer.

I am a student 9 weeks into the full-stack curriculum at the New York location.  If I remember, I will go back and edit this after going through the job search.  I have greatly enjoyed my time at App Academy so far.  Looking back, it is astounding how much ground we have covered in that time.  Myself and all my classmates have just finished our full stack web applications—and it amazes me how far we were able to take them.  I remember sitting in the classroom on the first day, apprehensive and excited to start learning… since then it has been a whirlwind of learning and doing.  You will look back and marvel at how far you have come in so little time. 

That being said, this program is hard work.  You will need to steel yourself for long nights and stressful exams and projects.  Some, of course, will have an easier time than others depending on your background and how well you’ve prepared for the bootcamp.   But at one point or another, everyone who gets through puts in a lot of time and effort to do so.

I have often been running on 5-7 hours of sleep—less on particularly intensive nights.  I estimate I’ve put in roughly 80-90 working hours a week (more if you include my commute each day).   If you want to keep up and get all the readings/activities done, expect to be spending many hours learning and coding.  Fortunately, if you’re anything like me and most of my cohort-mates, then you’ll enjoy learning software development.

By this point you’ve probably read a lot of reviews telling you App Academy is hard for many people.  This is true.  Some do not make it to the end.  About 15 people from our class failed two assessments and a retake and were asked to leave as a result. 

However, I am a firm believer that if you’ve gotten through the applications process at App Academy, you have what it takes to make it to the end.  If you end up going to App Academy, please believe in yourself, and work your ass off.  A good number of my classmates failed the first assessment (by far the easiest one), bunkered down, and killed the rest.  Do not be discouraged if you stumble. 

I’d like to close my review with some advice for prospective students.  I have done fairly well with the program thus far and think it is prudent of my to share some of my preparation and study strategies that got me to where I am.

1. If you’re looking for introductory materials, I definitely recommend the MIT eDX course, ‘Introduction to Programming in Python’
2. Do as much preparation as possible.  Of particular help to me was training fundamentals in Ruby on codewars.  Aside from that, do what interests you from the options below:
   1. Learn HTML5 and CSS3 at least to a basic level.  In particular, learn the basic input types for html and how to use flex in CSS (look up flexbox froggy).  If you can, try and recreate static versions of popular webpages from pure html and css.
   2. Learn SQL.  We did this is about half a week, but it was pretty rough for some.  If you’re dedicated, you can do the same and not have to stress about it during the course.
   3. Learn about the Model, View, Controller design pattern and its advantages/tradeoffs.  Research ruby/rails or some other framework and see if you can learn the basics of app development.  I would not recommend doing this before having a solid grounding in all the fundamentals though.
   4. For the mathematically inclined with time before the course begins, go follow along with an algorithms course online.  Learn big-O notation and algorithmic analysis.  I personally followed along with the free MIT OCW lectures and assignments for 6.042J with Tom Leighton and 6.006 with Srini Devadas.  If you already feel comfortable with basic programming and want to be ahead of the game for the job search, this is a good option for you. 
   5. If you really want to go the extra mile like me, go ahead and read a design patterns book (I used Head First Design Patterns, but Gang of Four is the canonical work to reference)
3. During the course, hit the ground running and do all the readings you can.  Definitely drop all other responsibilities (or as many as possible).  You don’t want to be dealing with anything else while tackling the curriculum.  If you have a decent commute, it will be fairly impossible to do anything else.  Speaking of the commute, preload the readings and download the videos they give you so you can watch them offline on your way there/back.  If you can, study in the office around others where you can ask your classmates questions.  If the homework is taking you too long, just send it up and put it away—you will be going over the material in greater detail tomorrow. 
4. Lastly, and most importantly:  Make friends!  You have the opportunity to study alongside many with similar motivations and career goals.  Your classmates will be among your greatest resources during the course and moving forward.  The people who are thriving in my cohort are largely those who made an effort to be social work with their classmates.  Coming in to week 9, I can count a number of my them as good friends who I can expect to keep in contact with for years to come.  For that reason alone, it was worth it to me to attend App Academy, and they’ve made my time here feel so nice. 

Good luck to all applicants and soon-to-be students! 

App Academy (NYC) was the best investment I've ever made. If you're willing to put in the time, you will come out having learned more than you thought possible. Make no mistake, it is a big time commitment. You should be fully prepared to spend a month doing prep work, then 9 weeks of 80+ hours per week. However, the staff on hand is amazing. All of the TAs are extremely helpful and responsive. There is always someone around to answer your questions. For me, the best part is coming out having actually made some really cool projects. The structure really helps reinforce topics: you watch videos and do readings as well as a short hw at night, then have a lecture on that material the next day and spend the rest of the day working through problems. Another great aspect of App Academy is the curriculum. You touch on everything you have to learn to be successful, and by the time your done it will be easy to adapt to new tools and technologies.

I am approaching the end of the main  curriculum as part of the 12 week full stack web development course in NYC and my experience thus far has been very positive. It is an extremely rigorous course, it is no exaggeration that it will require your total attention 10+ hours a day every single day for 3 months straight. That said, I feel I have learned more in that short period of time than at any other time in my life. I would highly recommend it for anyone looking to make a career change that is able to stay focused and is self motivated enough to stick with it

I have not yet started the 3 week job search curriculum, so I can't comment on that yet though I know people who have had positive experiences and outcomes with it

The App Academy curriculum is filled with a ton of good material that I wasn't always able to cover because of how fast the course went. That said, I definitely learned more than I would have at any other institution or on my own.  The fullstack, JavaScript, and flex project are the three projects we work on during the curriculum and really  shape our portfolios. The JavaScript and flex projects are  part of the job search curriculum which I feel should be structured a little better in regards to the schedule. The JavaScript and  Flex projects are crucial to our portfolios but we only get a week for each  while having to attend multiple lectures throughout the day but I suppose that's why it's called a boot camp. The TA's for the first part of the course were amazing and are the highlight of App Academy--the job search TAs are amazing as well but they seem slightly understaffed.