Awesome Inc U

Awesome Inc U Web Development Bootcamp was everything that was promised, and more than I had imagined. While I didn't go into the experience thinking it would be easy, I couldn't have imagined the rigors of taking on such an endeavor. It was well worth the time and financial investment. More importantly, it helped me learn in a way that was conducive to being prepared for the position I took in Quality Assurance/Development with a local tech company in Lexington. Could I have continued teaching myself in my free time and eventually gotten to a position of enough preparedness to begin a career in development? I believe so, but the bootcamp got me to that point much faster. It did so not only by accelerating my learning, pushing my limits, and getting me out of my comfort zone, but it did so by putting me in a more real-world scenario through encouragement of teamwork as well as providing guidance in obtaining my first position in tech. The instructors were very knowledgeable and capable in their positions. They provided guidance when necessary but encouraged self-reliance over taking the easy way out. All that to say I am very satisfied with the experience I had at Awesome Inc and would recommend anyone looking to pursue a career in tech to their bootcamp.

I went through the Awesome Inc U coding boot camp in the fall of 2016.  It was the first camp that they ran.

I had an excellent experience.  The curriculum at that time was Django + AngularJS.   It was 8 am - 5 pm every day.  I tended to stay until 7+ every night and then do 8+ hours on the weekend.  My feeling was that I was paying a lot and needed to get a lot out of it.  

I was hired immediately out of the camp so I didn't have any issues with job placement.  Then or since.  I worked with that company for 2 years and then was offered a higher position and moved to my current job.  I've also had a number of ongoing freelance jobs over the years.  

I came out of the camp with a lot of holes in my knowledge.  You should expect that.  You can't learn all of CS in a few months.  Or a few decades.  But the camp gave me a firm enough grounding in the basics that I've been able to flourish on the job.  And honestly, comparing my class with CS grads right out of college, I've been impressed with how functional our abilities were.  

Awesome Inc is a great company.  They are earnest in their desire for everyone to do well.  They approached everything from that direction - they clearly understand that if the students do well then their company will do well.  They are very engaged. 

This was a good career change for me.  Highly recommended. 

If you are contemplating a career change to web developer, look no further. Awesome Inc U's Web Developer Bootcamp will give you the skills you need to land that web dev job. I was hired before bootcamp was even over!

And by "skills" I mean the really important ones: learning how to learn... where to find help when you are lost... how to know if your code is "finished"... There are a million programming languages, frameworks, and technologies, but these skills will transfer to any web developer job (and many non-web-developer jobs!).

Classroom instruction began with a period of coding "warm-ups" where we tried to solve a problem in code. But the bulk of the day was spent in "lecture" —which should more properly have been called "playground" — where the instructor led us through the topic for the day. Instead of dispensing information during lecture, the instructor modeled the real web dev workflow. "Can we get this text centered? Let's try this..." "Hmm... that broke. Let's see if Google can help us."

We did, of course, start with the basics: HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Then we explored the frontend framework VueJS. On the backend, we learned SQL, PostreSQL, and Laravel (with PHP). Bootcamp culminated in a final project that brought all these technologies together.

But perhaps the most valuable part of my experience was the friendships and connections made. I had been a teacher for 10 years before deciding to switch to web development, and so I didn't know very many web developers or technology companies. I had a very small network going in. But now I have a small group of good friends (the other bootcampers), several mentors (the instructors and administrators)—and I got to meet numerous community business leaders who gave presentations throughout the bootcamp. I will certainly lean on this expanded network as I dive into my new job and beyond!

tldr: Worth every penny just for the friends and connections made.

The Web Developer Bootcamp is a 3 month, full-time training program for aspiring web developers. The curriculum was designed in collaboration with local technology employers to prepare individuals to dive into a career in web development. The intense training program is designed to take students from the basics of programming to competency in building modern web applications. It includes over 500 hours of hands-on-training, gaining experience while building 10+ software projects in an Agile environment, using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Laravel, MySQL, React, Google Cloud, GitHub, and more.

Overall Experience

Awesome Inc's Bootcamp was an intensive, extremly challenging and rewarding program for me. I was able to go from no coding experience to having a job in the three month course.

Even though I look back and realize how little I actually knew after the completion of the bootcamp in terms of real world knowledge, the base/foundation of knowledge couldn't have prepared me any better. Learning how to figure out problems in the coding world is likely the best thing I took away from the course. It was nice to work in an environment, too, that was like real world work experience (8 to 5 working on projects). 

Instructors

We had two instructors from two completely different backgrounds, and for me, both were extremely helpful and did a great job with my learning style. While I don't think a few of the others in my class related to their teaching style, I enjoyed it very much.

Cirriculum

Not sure what to expect for Cirriculum but getting experience with one frontend language and framework, as well as another language and framework for the backend was very typical of the work I do these days. Very relatable to the work I'm still doing, even if I haven't actually use the frameworks we learned during the course. The projects were great and also transferred well over to the things I'm still doing.

Job Assistance

In theory the job assistance was set up for you to succeed, but I can't really speak to that. I was hired on the last day of class by APAX SOFTWARE a sister company of Awesome Inc U.

Before the bootcamp I worked two part-time jobs which offered little chance to be creative or solve real problems. Since graduating I have been able to work as a full-stack web developer where every day offers a new and interesting problems to solve, as well as new skills to learn. What we learned in the bootcamp was only the beginning, but it is a solid foundation.

Overall:

Awesome Inc. is just a great place to spend 3 months, regardless of what brought you here. there are so many great people working out of this space, just being a part of the community fir a short time is a benefit to the program.

During the bootcamp I was able to: learn the necessary skills to be hired; gain a confidence for learning in general (even for subjects outside of development); make friends, and gain mentors.

 

Instructors:

During our bootcamp our instructor was great. She had over a decade of experience in the field which gave her the ability to offer realistic advice to us when we ere stuck on a problem. Her skills as an instuctor were weaker at the beginning but she was very dedicated to becoming a better instructor and most of us could tell the difference in her teaching by the end of the semester. The assistant instructor had gone through a bootcamp himself and was very relatable. He was able to easily empathize with our frustrations and roadblocks.

 

Curriculum:

The course was structured in such a way that each week built upon the last. This meant that what we learned week 2 or 3, we continued to use and practice through to week 12. They did a great job of emphasizing core skills and not letting us get off into the weeds of web dev tools and languages.

Just to note, some of the frameworks and languages we learned, I have not used since; but exerting the effort to learn these were intrumental in growing my aptitude for taking on new things and working well with unknowns.

 

Job Assistance:

I am not able to really rank job assistance as I was hired by the sister company to Awesome Inc. (APAX Software). I will say that, before I was hired, I interviewed and search for jobs heavily. YOU ONLY GET OUT OF THIS WHAT YOU PUT IN. Awesome Inc. is truly invested in their graduates getting hired and committed to keeping you pointed in the right direction but they do not get the job for you. You have to put in the work during AND after the bootcamp to make this happen.