Craft Academy

This is an excellent Bootcamp.

I went from an accountant to a web developer in 12 weeks with absolutely no coding experience since before.

The course started with a 1-month long prep-course going through basics as HTML, CSS,  Ruby, and Javascript which laid the foundation for the rest of the Bootcamp.

The Bootcamp focuses heavily on Ruby on Rails and the coaches are relentless that one should follow good coding practices, pair programming, and TDD.

Although many of our projects were only made specifically for the course our final project was made for a real external client and is used to simplify their business.

You shouldn't enter this program with the expectation that you'll have free time a day over the run of the course. The course is tough and mentally demanding. The material is challenging, but there's a friendship that forms in the cohort as you're struggling along with others to achieve the same goal. There is a colossal time investment, and it is punishing if you fall behind.

I recommend this course very highly.

I have been a CraftAcademy student from June to September 2016, followed their PrepCourse from April and enjoyed every minute of it.

It is a very intense course that takes all your time, energy and attention, but it is well worth all of it.

I came in as a Molecular Biologist and after only 12 weeks I could scaffold and deploy my own web applications, search for solutions indipendently and succesfully but I have also learned how to work in group, pair and ask for help in effective ways.

After the bootcamp I have dedicated my time to following some open source projects while searching for a job, and after only 2 months I got 2 job offers as QA Engineer (test automation) and Front End Developer (using mainly JavaScript), but I am sure I could have managed to find a position as a Full Stack or Back End Developer if I only were interested.

The possibility to actually become an interesting candidate for these kinds of jobs was my biggest concern when I began the bootcamp, but even if there are no job guarantees, the knowledge acquired during those weeks is enough to be conidered valuable assets in the IT world and I am a living proof of it.

During the course I've worked with people coming from very different bakgrounds and some of them proved to be able to outsmart me in many ways, others were slower than me, others were just simply naturals at coding, but that never put me down. It gave me more motivation to keep going because I knew the bootcamp was a place for everybody, the only thing that is required is your absolute commitment and a full load of passion for what you re doing.

You are never left alone, the teachers and your classmates are always online and available for you, to get you unblocked on your challenges and give support, but you can choose the level of indipendency you want to get. No one pushes help on you if you don't want it but you are constantly followed by the teachers and your progresses are shown in a well furnished GitHub account you will have at the end of the course.

I have searched for a good job in Gothenburg for a couple of years without ever being satisfied, now I can finally start something I really love in a rich, full of stimuli and always changing environment.

I would do it over and over again.

I took part of Craft Academy with the January 2018 cohort, what a ride!

I moved from Italy to Sweden just for attending this course and I can state it's been the best investment I could have made on myself as a person and my career. 

I definitely reccommend this Bootcamp, coaches support is outstanding, since the preparation course before the actual beginning of the Bootcamp itself. I remember I was still in Italy at that time and they got in touch with me on a daily basis, whenever I had a problem or questions they were efficient and supportive, that was awesome because when I started I felt like I knew them already and that facilitated the beginning of the bootcamp and reduced the initial "shock".

My group was amazing too and we had a lot of fun together, CA Team makes always sure you feel comfortable with the others, providing you with a professional life coach support (who could speak also Italian so I felt even more at my ease, great!), to help you go through this tough and intense experience. The office in Gothenburg is central and easy to get to, it is very cosy and welcoming too, with wide windows and two fantastic couches where to chill from one coding session to another.

I had no coding experience at all before but after 3 months I can say with no doubts that I feel confident enough to apply for positions that require a Degree level education, and I am also getting response from employers regardless I don't have a degree in Software development, this is encouraging and proves that what we build during the bootcamp is remarkable and rich in terms of technologies used. My skill set is not just about technical skills, but also soft ones, I learnt the agile method to actually approach problems and eventually solve them, it can be applied in any life situation, this is extremely valuable. The course is stressful, tiring, challenging, tasks are increasingly more and more difficult during the path, but if you are committed, driven and strongly passionate, you will do it and beautifuly make it to the end!

In my opinion, for the intense nature of the course , I would recommend it to not-too-young individuals with some work and life experience that presumably have a structure in the workflow, know how to behave in a professional environment and who also know and are ready to commit themselves 100% to the bootcamp.

Craft Academy was more than getting a Diploma and add it to my CV to me, it was a life changing experience, a turning point in my career and life, I'm grateful and very satisfied with the results I have achieved and the help I had during this incredible journey. Keep up the good work!

This bootcamp is a great first, second and third step in to the world of coding.

Trying to learn to code on your own is a daunting task. What should I learn? Where should I start? Why doesn't this work? What if what I'm learning is redundant?

At Craft Academy the coaches are genuinely invested in your future, as long as you are. You will get back multiples of what of what you put in. But do not go in to this thinking it's going to be easy, this WILL be your life for 12 weeks.

There are no nice GUI's here, there is no Dreamweaver. This is real, this is Notepad (well, not Notepad, check your Windows at the door and get a real OS).

The prep course is CRITICAL. I have seen a few people not take it seriously, and by the end of the first week of the bootcamp you can see the fear and regret on their faces. Do not float through it either, learn it, understand it, this is how you will get the most out of the bootcamp.

It took a while to get used to the discomfort of trusting in what I was doing without fully understanding how it was working but believing that it would eventually become clear as other pieces fell in to place (which it did), but when I did it was like a weight off my shoulders and my progess increased dramatically. I felt this was another key, PLOUGH ON, don't worry about the understanding all of the intermediacies of where you are, they become clear eventually through continuous immersion, not through static concerntration.

The other piece of advice I would offer is "Always be coding". I would be in the office for 8-10 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, then I would get home and work on my own projects using my new skills for a couple more hours most evenings. By the time the final project came around, I had learnt some things outside of the camp that I was able to integrate in to it to solve complex issues quickly. Always be coding.

Oh, and do not be afraid of failure, failure isn't failing, it's just giving you a direction of what to do next.

The coaching staff are A+, Thomas, Raoul, Andy, Rodrigo, they are always, always there to help. Often I could pose a question on a weekend or a rediculous time of the night, and I would always get an answer back as soon as someone was online. After the conclusion of the bootcamp, you are a part of the family, you can continue to ask for help whenever you need, and you too can start to offer help to those just starting on their path.

This was and continues to be a great experience. I would fully and absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for a coding bootcamp in Sweden or South Africa.

Craft Academy's twelve-week program was arguably the most stressful and challenging three months of my entire life. The coding was great fun and it's always exciting and rewarding to grow a skillset. My major challenges were with the "soft skills" taught in the course - collaboration, working with remote colleagues / teachers, implementing planning tools and techniques. But the fact of the matter is no one can build anything of worth sitting alone in their basement with their laptop. I'm very grateful to the coaches at Craft Academy for forcing us to learn to work like "real world" developers - the kind who have to work in teams and who have to pair program and who are required to submit their code for review.

My background is pretty diverse - from entrepreneurship to non-profit management to the arts - but coding had always been something I'd thought about doing. I had spent a few years trying to teach myself to code in Java / Android, without a great deal of success. I know for myself that three months of 100% dedication and someone to hold me accountable is worth years of self-study and the best online, free resources in the world. Not everyone feels this way and if you are great at self-study and have the wherewithal to find communities to connect with online, that would surely be a cheaper option. For me, the investment is well worth the reward.

The first six weeks of the camp are about building basic skillsets - working with Ruby, Javascript, HTML/CSS and the Sinatra and Rails frameworks. The second half of the course is all about building projects - one after the other, increasing in complexity. I very much enjoyed this approach, though I felt there was a bit too much hand-holding during most of the first half. Some people appreciated that. I often found myself working on side projects during these weeks (and highly recommend that anyone doing a bootcamp do so with whatever free time you can scrape together).

In the last half of the camp, we built some applications that impressed the crap out of our friends: a simple social network, an online marketplace for placing food orders, an interactive "pub quiz" app that pushes out questions in real time to players, and receives their answers back. I'm really proud of what we built during those last six weeks.

I also want to note that some of my colleagues struggled quite a bit with the materials. The goal of the bootcamp is to struggle - to be pushed up to and perhaps beyond your limits, and certainly out of your comfort zone. Still, many of my colleagues didn't take the prep course seriously and they suffered throughout the bootcamp because of this, and because of an attitude that prevented them from acknowledging their faults and working to fix them. If you decide to take this or any bootcamp, it is very important to bring *humility* to the table. Acknowledge how little you know, and work as hard as you can to change that. Try to be a sponge soaking up knowledge. If a coach does something that puzzles you, ask her why she's doing it! If you just follow the instructions, you'll never get there. And if you fail to follow the instructions, you'll never develop good habits.

So all of that said, I did, in fact, love this bootcamp. I felt the coaches were actually invested in my education - really wanted me to succeed - and were fighting for me the whole way. I feel like a developer and can make all kinds of things - much more complex than I would have thought going in. While job hunting, it seemed there were *lots* of opportunities for me and having attended a handful of networking events, I can say without question that there is a strong demand for junior developers here in Sweden, and likely throughout the world.

I know it's a hard decision to spend the money, but if you thrive in this kind of environment, Craft Academy is a great place to become a web developer.

Full disclosure: Since graduating, I have begun work at Craft Academy. I tried to be as honest as possible and write a review that would actually help people decide whether or not this bootcamp is right for them.

This course is one of the best things I´ve done in a long time. It is really intense and you really have to devote yourself to the course. They teach you the best practices when it comes to programming these days. The coaches are really devoted to the craft of coding and I noticed that the first day to the last and that´s extremely important when it comes to teaching. I haven´t been much for school before but this is an entirely different way of learning that I like a lot. 
The last project of the course was a group project where the whole cohort produced an app and web-based service that was really good and we did it in only two weeks, which is cool and impressive both from the cohort and the coaches. No matter who you are I would definately recommend you to do this course. 

I was bored of my job and life in Iceland, after a short google search about how to become a developer I found Craft Academy and decided to go for it! Left my job and home in Reykjavik and moved to Gothenburg to pursue my dreams.

This journey was definitely not easy, the first weeks were very tough and I felt so stupid for not getting it instantly. The pressure was high and it’s an emotional journey, the second week of the bootcamp I felt so stupid that I broke down in tears and told Thomas that I was giving up and would leave the bootcamp. That was  probably the best thing that has happened to me because we had a really good talk and he inspired me to keep on going and that I could do this. At that point I could really feel that he cared and everybody at this school supported each other through thick and thin. Emotion will run high as the pressure builds up, but the team sticks together. Together as a team we will make it!

My dream to become a developer has already come true. . I got a job as a junior developer before I graduated and started to work the day after graduation. As for landing that job one of the most important factors my employer saw in my experience was good coding habits, to work well under pressure and in a team. My employer is very impressed by how much you can learn in 12 weeks of this bootcamp.

Thank you so much Thomas, Raoul, Gustav, Faraz, Hanne, my cohort and everyone at Craft Academy!

Best investment I have made in my life.

Best Regards

Ólöf

This is a ‘bootcamp’ in every sense. It is intense. You are really immersed for 12 weeks. You have to be focused and determined. Do not expect to have a social life outside of your cohort. Do not expect to spend much time on other hobbies. Do not think you will have time over - specifically don't think it’s a perfect time to get a puppy (unless the whole family can support when you are bashing away at the computer). I did get a puppy, I don't regret it because the puppy is turning out to be an awesome dog -- but I would not do it again at the same time as the bootcamp.

This is not a course you can pass by cutting and pasting your way through assignments. This is a course where you will and have to really learn how to get things done, and get them done the right way - follow the best practices taught by the coaches. You’ll be creating real apps that do real things. You’ll do it with test-driven development and learn why Agile is important.

I was not a complete noob - I joined Craft Academy with some familiarity in development. I work with customer support and with social media, and have done websites from scratch as well as used a various amount of CMS systems. Also I was pretty good at front-end design (not test driven, though).

At work I liaise with developers who has created some of the systems we use at work (translate what the company wants to developer-language and vice versa). I wanted to learn how to do more than just frontend. I wanted to understand why our developers' estimates for implementing some things seemed to be unreasonably many hours. Now, after the bootcamp, I get it. I also now understand how you could make changes rather quickly while still keeping your standards high and best practices intact.

Now I really know why test-driven development (TDD) is so important, and I can also explain it to other people. I also understand how Agile can keep you on track, and can help make sure the quality of what you develop is high. I went from being able to basically read some types of code, to being able to make changes to existing code, to being able to write my own code from scratch (TDD).

The Craft Academy bootcamp is, like mentioned above, tough and intense. But it’s with a purpose: they are focused on making sure you know how to do things well and do things right. They cover a lot of ground so that you have a lot of knowledge and tools. And they’re focused on getting you up to the level where you really can get a job (including having some real projects to show when you interview). If I missed anything in regards to content it was the 'devops' parts. But the bootcamp is aimed at getting you a job so you can work as a hired developer, where others take care of the devops.

I’m now (thanks to Craft Academy) working with a small agile team on a live Ruby on Rails project. The team is distributed around the world, for example Ashley in Seattle (west USA) and Patrick in or outside Boston (east USA). I use what I learned in the bootcamp every day doing code-reviews or writing my own code.

To summarize: It's an experience that makes you grow as a person and teaches you coding with good standards and best practies. I am thankful that I went through it and for all the support given, before and after.

12 weeks of high-paced, overwhelming challenges and I loved every second of it!

A coding bootcamp is not for everyone, it takes a certain kind of dedication to endure the constant feeling of "crap, I don't know anything" or "how is it even possible to do ALL this in 12 weeks???". But, guess what, it is doable and managable, and no matter how hard it feels it is worth it.

As for Craft Academy, amazing coaches!!! They are dedicated and available almost 24h a day to help, or to yell at you, whichever the case may be... They are supportive but they do not spoon-feed you, you are expected to take responsibility for your own learning. The simple truth of any bootcamp is that you have to put in the work to reap the reward, but if you do it than the CA coaches will do everything in their power to help you succeed.

The 12 weeks I invested in the bootcamp was the best investment I have ever made into my own personal development and thanks to Craft Academy I can now fulfill my dream of coding for a living.

If you want to learn to code in just 12 weeks this is the course for you. This course has change my life and give me a whole new carrier path to focus on. 

The 12 week coding boot camp will test every emotional part of your being but let me promise you this, you will come out a junior coder with the best skills to take you forward in your carrier, but you have to stay focused, committed and keep pushing through no matter what.

The highly skilled instructors will take you through every step to getting you on track to become a junior full stack developer including preparing you for future job applications and interviews.

I would highly recommend this course, you won't regret it, I don't!

Bootcamp indeed. If you are looking to develop as a person not only personally but educationally and professional too this is the course for you. This is intensive 12 weeks that will definetely change your whole lifestyle. 

You will push yourself to the limit and learn stuff you never thought was able to understand. A great course, with super helpful coaches and a good approach. You will learn all basics and even more in Ruby on Rails, JavScript and a bunch of other frameworks, front-end languages such as HTML and CSS as well as GitHub, databases and text editors. 

Basically you will be a ready developed full-stack junior developer by the end of these 12 weeks. However, depending on how much time and energy you put into the course, the further you will get. So get ready!