Claim Academy

I had the opportunity to attend Claim Academy for Full Stack C# .NET 3/2019 - 5/2019. It is full time M-F 45 hours a week for 12 weeks. You will learn a lot if you put in the effort. I was initially hesitant to attend, but I am glad I did. I quit my stable social work career to do this. Praneeth was a great instructor and Eric helped a lot the last few weeks. I was fortunate enough to receive a job offer in my 10th week to start my new career. The Claim staff are really invested in helping you land a job. Beyond learning technical skills, they will help with soft skills. There was ample opportunity for mock interviews and mock presentations. Can you learn this stuff on your own? Sure, but it would probably be tougher and take longer. Claim provides an environment of structure and support that you can't get elsewhere.

My Time At Claim Academy Landed me the job of my dreams at MasterCard!

It's because of my experience learning full-stack Java at Claim Academy St. Louis that I was able to get a job at MasterCard as a Test Engineer in Quality Engineering as an Automation Tester.

To top it all off, the people at Claim Academy are top-notch. Including all the instructors, faculty, and your classmates.

During my time at Claim Academy I've grown so much, and I learned so much from my classmates and instructors.

Sahara, Lamar, Praneeth, Amanda, and Ola are all amazing mentors.

I cannot reccommend attending Claim Academy enough if you are looking to change up your career or if you want to get your foot in the door at a great company working in IT as a software engineer.

My experience at Claim Academy has been one of the best in my life. While at claim I gained a world class experience in computer programming. We worked on many small assignments that lead to a capstone project. I had access to great teachers and resources. We had time with our instructors but we also had downtime to do research on our own and learn on our own time. We were challenged daily. It was not easy to do all the projects and finish them on time. I had to do a lot of work at home after class. In addition to learning the front end and back end of programming we also learned soft skills and how to present ourselves to companies. We had a well rounded education. I would recommend Claim to anyone who is ready to be challenged and succeed in computer programming. Also we had access to many companies ready to hire throughout our time there.

Deciding to take the leap and join Claim Academy has been one of the best decisions I made for my career.  The instructor and mentor led sessions kept me on track with my learning and working with the rest of my classmates allowed me to gain insight into different ways of accomplishing things and expanding my capabilities.

I came in with very limited knowledge of coding, but a high level of desire to learn and work hard which I think was the best factor to my success.  Make no qualms about it, this is hard work.  You are expected to learn a great deal of material in a very short period of time, so staying on top of your work and not falling behind is of the upmost importance.

Luckily, when you do struggle (and you will) there are the resources of your classmates as well as the instructor/mentor staff who want you to succeed in every way possible.

As with any environment with many people, there are always differences in capabilities and the best way to learn how to learn.  Understanding that the way you learn best may not be the same for everyone is critically important, and understanding that sometimes you will be the best at something, but other times you will be lagging behind.  That is the time when having your classmates around benefits you the most.  There is always someone who is able to help you when you feel you aren't grasping something, just as they may rely on you as well when they are feeling insecure.

Throughout the coursework, one of the most beneficial things for me has been the alumni speaking series, where we got to meet/hear from a Claim Academy graduate about their experience in class as well as outside the classroom in their full time job.  Aside from the inspiration inherent in their stories, it was a constant affirmation that they also went through the same process we did and they succeeded in the end.  It honestly is refreshing to hear them say that they struggled and had the same thoughts of inadequacy
that everyone feels at some point throughout the course.  When you continue to see examples of people who felt the same way you do right now and see their success is easy to make you keep trusting the system and start believing that you can succeed as well.

If you think that the world of "coding" is something you might like, Claim Academy provides lots of free opportunities to gauge if this is something for you.  Come down and check out the free classes or take the pre-course work to get your feet wet.  

3 months ago, I honestly didn't have any idea what an impact this time would have on my career, but as I leave Claim Academy, I leave with a job offer in a totally new career field that would not have been possible in any other way.  I can't extend enough thanks to Claim Academy for the opportunity and everything I have learned.

I just completed the 12-week Java bootcamp at Claim Academy. It was probably one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, but also one of the most rewording things I have ever done. I learned a lot, not only about software development, but also  soft skills and how to present myself to employers. I got interviews before I even completed the program. They won’t give up on you, and they’ll make sure you are ready to compete as a full stack developer, or whatever you decide to do with your new skills. You really can change your career in just 12 weeks, and Claim Academy is where to do it.

I was very excited when I first heard about Claim Academy. I believed this provided me the best opportunity to become a Software Developer but my expectations were not fully met and at some point I was very disappointed too. Without going into details.....(because it may disappoint some people).
I have to admit that Travis helped me a lot to find a program I could go through to be able to attend the Java Developer course(Cohort). Also, Sahara and Lamar are very knowledgeable instructors at Claim Academy who helped us(students) a lot to understand programming. The program itself is somewhat intensive and you will have a chance to work on many hands on project(mostly on your own by using Google and YouTube).

If you are planning to attend this program, expect to see a lot of surprises such as not getting your "Certificate" after completing the course and so on. Yes you didn't misread it, we(all students) have been told that we will not get our Certificates until we leave a nice review for Claim Academy. I had to escalate the case to my program case manager(not a Claim Academy person), only after his involvement did I obtain my Certificate without further issues and surprises. But most of my classmates had no other choice but to leave a nice review to get their certificate which they worked for so hard during the past 3 months.

I was already in possession of an Associate of Applied Science degree in Software Development, which certainly put me at an advantage.  However, Claim Academy provided me the opportunity to expand my skillset, introducing me to several new technologies I hadn't worked with before.  I also was provided one-on-one instruction which I did not have previously when I was pursuing the aforementioned AAS degree.  Even more importantly, I have been given more direction in the path towards finding employment.  I was beginning to think I would need to go back to college for another two years to obtain an Bachelor's degree in IT, but doing Claim Academy has given me a leg up in only 12-weeks.