Flatiron School

I attended the Flatiron immersive in NYC(07/16 cohort) - the experience exceeded my expectations in every way.  

Flatiron has fantastic instructors who are invested in students' success, a great lesson delivery platform called Learn, and most importantly an enormous sense of community within each cohort/school. I think it's important to emphasize that you can come from any background and make it as a software developer. If you're driven and enjoy challenges, you'll feel right at home here. While 60+ hour weeks were a pretty common occurence, the 3 months flew by in one giant ball of excitement and energy. There was definitely room for some non-coding fun along the way too.

Career services at Flatiron is top notch. Flatiron has a whole team of people working on developing relationships with companies interested in being introduced to Flatiron grads. I cannot stress enough how useful these introductions are to someone looking to transition into a new field. The team also provides general career coaching/support throughout the entire job seeking process. 

It's crazy to think that less than a year ago I was in your shoes reading coding bootcamp reviews online. Hindsight being 20/20, I wouldn't change a thing. Flatiron was one of the best decisions I've made. 

If not for Flatiron School, I would not have a meaningful career in software development. I am 4 years into my second career in which I get infinite more satisfaction from then my previous 5 years in sales.

As part of the first Flatiron School cohort, I did not know what to expect during or after completing the 13 week course. After many weeks of intense immersion, challenged beyond what I could imagine, I did not leave Flatiron School with the belief that I was a production ready engineer. I left with an opportunity to grow into a role and the confidence to learn my way out of any situation I encountered. Through several years of hard work since leaving Flatiron School in 2012, I find myself in a stable, flexible career that I get immense satisfaction from. It is because of the technical foundation, personal relationships, and guidance I received from my 3 months at the Flatiron School that I am able to say this.

I learned a tremendous amount in my web development course. The curriculum gave me the opportunity to learn many aspects of Ruby on Rails web development and build several web applications. In my class with Jeff we did a major project in the middle and at the end of the course, and that experience was invaluable. It made me confident that I could contribute my knowledge and skills to a team of developers. Having 2 projects meant I had plenty of ways to demonstrate my competencies and willingness to learn to potential employers. The Flatiron community is very supportive as well. Overall, my experience at Flatiron absolutely prepared my for my first role as a junior developer.

I was a member of the first class back in 2012. I had pretty limited experience, essentially what I was able to pick up from books in my free time. Flatiron was tremendously helpful in getting me from a complete beginner to a hireable developer. I learned a ton both in class and in the assignments worked on at home, and the students I worked with were passionate about learning and helping each other. 

More importantly that learning Ruby, Flatiron gave me skills to learn how to learn. In my current role I use a different programming language and had to learn a lot of new technologies. Everything I learned at Flatiron helped me get comfortable in the unknown, and I really feel like more than just a programmer who knows enough to write code, but really a developer who understands the ins and outs of the technology I use. I'm really grateful to Flatiron for the opportunity.

I was part of the first Flatiron School cohort back in 2012. Right from the beginning I was impressed by how good the teachers were. They understood different learning styles and patiently worked with everyone, in groups as well as one on one to ensure that everyone understood the material.

In addition to having exceptional teachers, at Flatiron you’re surrounded by an amazing group of students. When you enroll in Flatiron as a student, you’re there to learn as well as help others learn. Mentoring fellow students when you understand a concept and reaching out for help when you don’t, help create a safe and comfortable atmosphere to learn in. Flatiron’s high admissions standards ensure that you’re around a great group of people.

From the very beginning Flatiron has stressed the importance of quality teachers and great students. These values make Flatiron an amazing place to learn and start your career. I would highly recommend this course to anyone considering a bootcamp.

Regardless how much programming you know, if you want to jump on the app making bandwagon, I highly recommend taking this iOS course. It's worth spending the money on the course rather than trying to learn on your own through books or videos, because it's a lot more effective and fun to learn under an instructor, who you can fall on whenever you get stuck, and with other students, who are going through the same journey as you. Once you get through the course, your journey won't be over, if anything it would have just begun, but you will have the right skill set and connections to keep learning and honing your skills on your own. This skill set is specially handy with iOS because Apple comes up with new stuff every year, so it's more important to know how to learn than to know everything, because it's very possible that whatever it is being used now, it might get dumped tomorrow, like Objective-C being replaced eventually by Swift. Oh yeah, it's also nice that employers appreciate this skill set, and will be willing to invest on it, so if you are lucky you'll get to continue your journey to become a great programmer while getting paid!

Before starting at Flatiron I had dabbled in some of the free courses that are offered such as codeacademy. I was learning a lot but I didn't have enough direction on the skills I needed to actually work and be successful as a web developer. I considered going to an in-person bootcamp but there weren't any that were close to me at the Time(Tampa, FL). I looked at the online courses that were available and Flatiron was one of the cheapest and had a money back guarantee that I would get a job at the end of the program. I completed the program in just under 6 months and was employed less than 3 months after graduation. I know I would have been hired sooner if I was in a more saturated market (currently Athens, GA). The curriculum, chat support, and community at Flatiron drove me to learn and be better at what I do. I am now happily employed locally and know I wouldn't have been able to get this far without Flatiron School!

I was a student in the immersive Web Development program and graduated about a year back. Disclaimer - I have worked for the school as an instructor for the online program, which is a stellar, stellar course in it of itself -- But I will speak to my (perhaps less biased) experience as a student at the immersive:

The environment was one of collaboration and caring. From instructors to students there was an aura of support, which is a hugely important factor in so ambitious of a journey. The curriculum is thorough, challenging, and well-written, and has a sensational ground up building approach that gradually takes you through lower level steps building on each other to give you a much greater depth of understanding. 

I always felt that the instructors -senior and TAs- were there for us, and had insightful answers to difficult questions, and much patience!

The projects and application development throughout the course were immensely helpful in applying what we'd learned and collaborating and designing production software.

The careers team is superb. Devoted in a highly efficient manner, I definitely felt attended to, and had several intros and interviews directly through the school, before accepting their own offer for an instructor position.

All in all most highly recommended for anyone dedicated and passionate enough to put in the work and effort to capitalize on the program to the fullest extent. it's certainly not easy and truly requires a ton of work on your part, but a program like this offers the support, environment and academic tooling to really get it done right. Personally, getting a behind the scenes look at the idealism, pragmatic smarts, and passion of the team there has only added to my tremendous admiration for The Flatiron School.

I was a student early on in Flatiron's iOS immersive program back when it was still taught in Objective-C. Currently, I'm a mobile developer at a major lifestyle media corporation in Manhattan. While anyone can teach him/herself iOS development, this program is an opportunity to accelerate that development to an extent that seems almost impossible. While the prospect of devoting 3 months of your life and a fairly substantial sum of money to studying development is daunting, I'm in a position of responsibility only 2 years after having graduated. I was given the fundamentals I needed to prepare myself to enter the workforce and brought along my own enthusiasm. 

I trust the curriculum of this program completely, but the take away is that becoming a computer scientist in 3 months is not possible. What this program offers you is an awesome opportunity to break into the field and grants you the skills necessary to continue developing on your own after graduating. Flatiron will give you a basis to build your skills that normally takes years of effort and studying if done entirely on your own. Anyone who goes into this program resolved to work and study harder than they ever have before will come out a functional, employable junior developer. 

By the same token, things move quickly. If your motivation is flaky and you aren't entirely committed, you will certainly miss out. There is a lot of structure and discipline required to make the most of the time you're given, but if you are all-in on becoming a developer and fairly self-reliant, the tools you need are all available here along with a community to support you.

Regarding placement after the program, Flatiron in my experience is fairly successful at making introductions and giving you the opportunity to practice and prepare for interviews. That being said, being a junior without a degree offers very little leverage when it comes to job hunting. A lot of the placement process is going to come down to your own hard work and interview performance as well as your personality. Don't expect to be handed an $80k mid-level position on a platter upon graduating, but if you're realistic and doing the legwork (which they explicitly prescribe) you will find yourself in a position sooner rather than later. 

I recommend this program highly – to the extent that I have sent my best friend and boyfriend through it to study iOS as well. If you are an intelligent, motivated person who truly wants to learn to code, this is the way to go. 

Curriculum:
The training program they've designed is not only well structured in content, but also well realized inside of a digital interface that helps you keep track of your progress, automatically track errors and partial completions, get a sense of your progress in comparison to others (for the competitive types), and communicate with instructors remotely. I went from knowing little to nothing about programming, to being confident in building my own app.

Culture:
It's been nearly two years since I graduated, and I'm still friends with many of my cohort and instructors. Flatiron seems to screen for personality, passion, and kindness. So while my classmates came from all different backgrounds, from finance to jazz music, we all vibed together over the shared joy of learning to build meaningful ideas and just embracing geekiness.

Return on Investment:
You definitely get what you put into it. Flatiron does everything it can to provide resources and attention to anyone who needs help, but it also promotes autonomous self-help. Learn to Google problems yourself. Teach other classmates to cement your own learnings. And don't be afraid to ask questions. I came in with nearly zero coding knowledge and left with multiple offers from great companies. The job placement team is absolutely amazing (especially if Jackie is still there). They really care about each individual, and sometimes break rules to connect you with the right company.