Fullstack Academy

I have never been to any other bootcamp, and I have never had any other instructors teach me software development. 

I have, however, met many different humans in my life. I can tell you without any hesitation that this organization is run by some of the best you will find anywhere. Forever curious and honestly intelligent, enthusiastic, good-willed, and optimistic. This is what makes them such good teachers and this is why I insist that I can confidently say that Fullstack Academy will be a positive investment of time, sweat, and money for anyone with an honest curiosity and inner desire to learn. 

I have attended a lot of classes in my life, and I have a very strong belief that the absolute most important thing to evaluate is the teacher. A good teacher teaches you so much more than just the material, they show you an example of what it means to have a positive and fruitful relationship with the subject, and they give you space to foster that relationship yourself. That is absolutely what I got from attending Fullstack Academy. 

I am 100% satisfied with my experience, I got everything I hoped for and more. I felt completely prepared to enter the workforce as a software engineer, I found myself able to meaningfully contribute to the work of a succesful engineering team, and I found that I had an incredible foundation from which my learning and understanding in this field has exploded. 

If you are accepted, make sure to attend with your whole heart. If you're in the immersive program, stay late into the evening whenever you can. You never know when David or Nimit will be perched on a desk at 7pm, a small huddle of students eagerly listening to their every word, relating stories, memories, and pearls of wisdom on everything and anything. These are teachers whose words you will remember.

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Enrolling in Fullstack Academy was one of the best things I have ever done. In college I dabbled in a couple CS and web design courses really enjoyed them, but for some reason never pursued web development further. Coding was always in the back of my mind while I carried on with my career in a different field in which I never felt quite at home. I heard about the emergence of coding bootcamps a couple years ago and knew instantly that this could be my chance to make a big change.   I researched and applied to a few of the immersive coding programs in NYC and was accepted to all of them, but Fullstack really stood apart from the pack from the beginning. The founders, David and Nimit, were both seasoned engineers and entrepreneurs and really knew their stuff. I also liked how Fullstack teaches the MEAN stack, which was unique from all the schools teaching Rails. During the interview process, I truly felt challenged, yet supported already – when I got stuck on some problems during the interview, Huntly was able to provide me just enough direction to help me figure it out on my own without giving anything away. I felt like I really learned something during the interview, which really impressed me. I also felt like Fullstack did a better job than other schools of gleaning my learning potential through their unique interviewing style. Also, I was able to gather from my contact during the interviews and admissions process that the people at Fullstack really cares about their students – I didn’t feel like a number like I did at some of the other, bigger schools that seem to churn people in and out.   Prior to the program we completed a month of pre-work, about 100-120 hours. This was incredibly challenging for a noob like myself, working alone while finishing up my old job. Scott, our online instructor during this period, was incredibly helpful and made himself available for live sessions to help me through any difficulties. I think it was really beneficial to complete such an intense amount of pre-work, since we all arrived with a similar knowledge base and could hit the ground running. The pre-work gave us a solid foundation in JavaScript and object-oriented programming and an intro to Node.js.   The on-site program curriculum walked us through programming and the MEAN stack from the bottom up – building upon concepts week by week to complete the stack. We received interactive lectures and then daily projects to apply our learnings in Node.js, building Express servers, MongoDB and database management, some SQL, a little HTML/CSS/SASS, AngularJS, REST APIs, and more. We crammed SO MUCH into our heads during those first 6 weeks that I sometimes couldn’t remember ever hearing about certain concepts, but amazingly, when it came time to do projects during the second half of the program, everything started coming back to me and all the concepts came together – I was amazed at how much I actually knew.   I was thoroughly impressed with the skill and passion exhibited by our instructors – Zeke, Omri, Joe, and Gabe – they all really knew their stuff and knew how to break complicated ideas down into a digestible form for the students. They all seemed to really love software engineering and, more importantly, teaching it. I sometimes felt hopelessly lost during the program, but I often had one-on-one sessions with the instructors and fellows to check in on my progress and how I was feeling, and it was reassuring to hear from them that this was normal. It was also great to be surrounded by so many other smart students from diverse backgrounds who really wanted to be there and learn.   The career support was also excellent. Shanna gave us great resume and interviewing advice, and continued to help us after we graduated and connect us with contacts wherever she could. Charlotte, the operations manager, also helped create a fun and smooth experience for everyone throughout the program with fun activities, parties, and other support as needed during the admissions process and during our time at Fullstack.   If you’re thinking about applying to Fullstack but scared to leave your current career behind, spend some time teaching yourself to code on your own (try Codecademy, Code School, and Team TreeHouse courses) to make sure it feels right before taking the plunge. It’s incredibly difficult, yet so rewarding if you dedicate the time to really learn it. Get your finances and family support system in place to help you survive those grueling 3 months before you start the program – you don’t want to have any distractions while you’re in the program.   It took me a year after when I initially applied to actually go through with quitting my job and starting at Fullstack when I was finally ready. It was terrifying to walk away from a job at a good company, with a good salary, with a boss and team I really liked – I felt like I had a lot to lose, and I was afraid of the unknown, but I’m so glad I took the chance. I was in great hands with the Fullstack team and they were devoted to helping me succeed during and after the program. Now I’m extremely happy with my new career as a software engineer, and I have Fullstack to thank for empowering me to transform myself. Read less

I began Fullstack right after graduating from Columbia with only an introductory CS course and some online tutorials under my belt. I had majored in Religion and was looking for a course that would accelerate my fledgling interest in programming to professional capability. It's an understatement to say that I found so much more at Fullstack.

As many of my fellow peers have said in their reviews, the community at Fullstack is truly unbeatable. The instructors are by far some of the best teachers I have ever had in any subject. That we were able to learn as much as we did in 13 weeks is a testament to their skills both as programmers and teachers. And my cohort was simply ... an amazingly talented and beautiful bunch of people. In a field like programming, where so much depends on teamwork and collaboration, who you work with is vital to the quality and depth of your learning. Fullstack did everything possible to foster this kind of exchange at every step in the curriculum, and I walked out learning more from one day of working with a fellow Fullstacker than I had in months of online courses. 

The curriculum itself is one of the most comprehensive, well-thought out and rigorous that I've ever gone through. If you want to master the MEAN stack, you undoubtedly will by the end of the course. Of course, it's impossible to learn everything there is to know about Javascript and fullstack development in 3 months, but Fullstack preps you to the point that picking up additional skills afterwards becomes intuitive and easy. I personally taught myself React in a couple days after graduating, and know that my fellow fullstackers have applied for jobs working in PHP, Python, Go, etc. Fullstack gives you the best possible foundation, after which you will have the confidence and agility to keep building on your skillset.

Finally, David and Nimit are reason enough to attend Fullstack. They are incredible founders, and I would encourage anyone who is interested in startups and entrepreneurship to learn from them. I shared an idea I had for an e-commerce company with them early on in my Fullstack journey, and both David and Nimit encouraged me to the point that I went off and launched the company right after finishing Fullstack. They gave me advice, introduced me to some amazing mentors in the field, guided me both from a technical and business perspective, and generally have been my biggest supporters till date. They also allowed me to find the first two developers on my team... fellow fullstackers from my cohort :). Although David and Nimit always emphasize that Fullstack is not a start-up incubator (people are there truly for the love of code!), it's no exaggeration to say that attending pushed me to pursue a dream I never could have otherwise. I am forever grateful.

In sum, Fullstack is the best thing that ever happened to me. I don't know a single person, either in my cohort or any other, that felt differently about their time there. If you want to spend 3 months learning an empowering skillset that will either enhance or change your career, Fullstack is, from my experience, the best choice you could make.

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"Everyone here is special" -Nimit Maru, Fullstack Academy of Code cofounder

Not every special person goes to Fullstack, obviously, but this remains a true statement.

If you have been accepted to Fullstack Academy and are hungry to learn web development and are reading this review to figure out which program to choose, congrats, you are on a great path!

I believe Fullstack Academy is among the top coding programs, as it focuses on computer science fundamentals, follows an academically rigorous Javascript curriculum, and continues to add to the already high-quality leadership team, instructors, and staff (including former students) with an endless supply of positivity and humility!

"If you build one thing really well, I can imagine how you could build another great thing. If you build 10 average or half-complete things, all I can imagine is an 11th average or half-complete thing.” -Fullstack Academy of Code cofounder David Yang (https://www.quora.com/profile/David-Yang)

To be successful in this field, one must develop and maintain a deep hunger for learning and problem solving—read a ton of articles, watch a bunch of videos, and ask a million questions!

Curriculum Overview:

Foundations (pre-work): 4 weeks of teaching yourself Javascript & acclimating to a developer environment

Academy: 13 weeks of immersion; during this time you are advised to only:

1. Learn

2. Write Code

3. Teach ("A short-circuit in the learning process" -David and Nimit)

4. Take care of your health

Fellowship (optional): 13 weeks of a less intense version of the above 1-4

Flight: ?? weeks of however much you want to keep learning and job hunting

This is the portion of the education where the school you choose is most important! 

Will you be well-prepared for the lifetime learning aspect of becoming a successful web developer/ programmer/ coder?

Attending Fullstack Academy of Code will give you access to the highest quality resources; what you do with them is up to you!

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Wesley is a Success Engineer at segment.com, where he helps developers, engineers and business-minded folks integrate Segment’s analytics and data platform into their products—complex, intelligent software in countless configurations of common development environments, leveraging many different languages and a host of tools.

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In Short
This is the top coding bootcamp in NYC. The school itself has an amazing track record of churning out high quality engineers regardless of previous experience or background.

The Reason
The people. I am not just referring to the co-founders or instructors but the larger community that makes up Fullstack Academy. FS does a great job of selecting motivated and intelligent individuals all of whom are passionate about learning what it takes to become a full stack software engineer. As a part of the community for about 8 months I can attest to the willingness of former students, current students, instructors and co-founders to respond to and ask questions, post pertinent links to educational readings, and work at the forefront of the software engineering world. There is truly a strong community of talented and dedicated individuals willing to share, all you need to do is ask.

My Experience
I want to keep this review short as you can reference other responses to get a deeper delve into the specifics. While my story is mostly anecdotal evidence of the experience, I believe that these personal stories do the job of representing what is possible as long as you work hard, dedicate yourself to the experience, and take advantage of being in this high-leverage environment.

First just so you know, prior to applying to FS, I already held a CS minor and worked for about a year an a half as a front-end developer. This granted me a slightly more well-rounded foundation compared with some of the other students.

The first half of the course is fairly straightforward - getting up to speed on CS concepts, big O notation, getting to learn the ins and outs of JS and your development environment. You do a lot of pair programming during the first half. Something that I can't stress enough is how important pair programming is. Not only does it allow you to meet new people but you are opened up to opportunities to teach people and are often exposed to new ways of approaching problem sets.

Things got really interesting during the second half. I was able to build two projects that were extremely in line with my interests. One being a MIDI enabled web synthesizer, and the other, my final project, being a digital audio workstation where people could record short clips of audio and use the loops to build their own songs. I was lucky enough to be interviewed by Fox 5 News for the final project which was a feature on the news that day.

At the end of the course FS has a Hiring Day in which they invite representatives from companies to see the presentation of your final project and interview a number of students as potential employees. One of the companies there took great interest in the product my group and I created. Thanks to that final product (and my interviewing skills of course), I was offered a job which I accepted only 2 weeks after graduating from FS.

I now work with a fellow Fullstack classmate from my cohort. We remain in contact with David and Nimit as well as our instructors through multiple channels. At anytime they are willing to assist with technical, personal, and industry questions via email, slack, or in person. Both of us have returned to campus both as participants on alumni panel as well as to continue learning as FS has held a number of alumni events. Why? We are eager to contribute to the environment that afforded us the skills and abilities that we now posses. Doesn't that sound like something you want to be a part of?

In Summation
Saying that it was the best career choice I have made thus far in life would be an understatement. I have made some great friends, contacts in the engineering field, and more importantly made myself a much more valuable engineer. However (if you choose to attend) your level of success is entirely dependent upon the amount of work you put in. The resources are all there you just need to make sure you take full advantage of the best learning environment I personally have ever experienced.

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If you're sold on the idea of being a software engineer, there really isn’t more of a decision to make. Fullstack javascript is, in my opinion, the best way to learn web development, and no one does it better than Fullstack. FS gave me the opportunity to work at my dream job, and at the end of my cohort, they had to (gently) force me out because I really didn’t want to leave. It was home for 13 weeks. The people are amazing, and I wouldn't trade in my experience for anything.   Before FS, I was a McGill engineering dropout on the run from adulthood, convinced that pursuing one of those career things would guarantee me a long life of disappointment. Eventually, though, I had to do something, and I decided a 3 month bootcamp might be the least terrible / most doable path to a tolerable life.   In the weeks leading up to my cohort, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up after 2.5 years of hanging around and being out of school. I heard that FS would be a really intensive 13 weeks; the stress of university had been too much for me so I wondered how I’d manage the full time gig of FS.   To my surprise, I was able to totally and completely immerse myself in the community and curriculum while staying 100% stress-free. I never worried about falling behind because the instructors are so good at what they do. I never felt overwhelmed or burnt out, even being on campus for 10-13 hours per day, because I always wanted to be there. As FS equips you with the means to learn and build more and more, you really do get the urge to keep iterating on what they teach / whatever project you’re hacking together.   The point of FS is not just to learn a particular stack but to learn how to learn. FS grads are very well prepared to learn new technologies and jump into unfamiliar stacks at whatever job they might accept.    All of the glowing reviews here are so spot on. FS is the most special place, and it’s reborn so many lives. If you’re skeptical, that’s fair. It’s a major investment of time and money. But trust me (and everyone else) - the ROI is ten-fold. If you choose FS, you will not regret it. Read less

This review is long overdue, but I will say that when I was first deciding what sort of bootcamp I should attend over the summer before my senior year of college, I was looking at this very site - Course Report. Hopefully my review here helps others make their big decision as to which coding bootcamp to attend as well (there’s so many now!).

What appealed to me most about Fullstack in the beginning was how nice they were during the admissions process. It was clear they were focused not just on my technical abilities, but also on my character. They also happened to be hosting their first ever Summer of Code program this past summer which was designed explicitly for college students such as myself who wanted to get a leg up with web development. This turned out to be a great aspect of the program later on since I could relate more with the other college kids in the program (we were teamed up in groups towards the end for projects).

If I had to describe the bulk of the program in one word, it would be “rigorous”. This kind of program requires a lot of energy given you’re going to be primarily coding and learning how to code all day long Monday through Friday for roughly 11 weeks. It is not for the weak minded. Be prepared to invest all your time and effort into the program unless you’re some super human living off Soylent, which in that case, that’s just bloody crazy.

In my first week of Fullstack, I described it as a full out marathon and I consider myself more of a short distance runner.

However, this doesn’t mean the whole program was so tiring that I wasn’t having fun. In fact, I made sure to explore quite a bit of New York City during my time there (i.e. one Saturday, I randomly decided to roam around the Met by myself). The instructors were lively and always trying to make sure we (the noobs) understood the new material that was introduced every day.

There were fun activities Fullstack planned out some weeks too. One in particular that was pretty splendid was when the juniors and seniors were grouped up into teams and sent off to the American Museum of Natural History for a “coding scavenger hunt” of sorts. Then again, I also consider learning fun in general (especially if it relates to web dev) and there was no doubt I was being challenged all the time which to people like me is also indeed fun but in a more “arghhh” kind of way.

Let’s put it this way: you’re not going to be bored.

The project phase (or “senior” phase) was even more exciting (yet also tiring) than the learning phase (or “junior” phase) since this is where our actual knowledge would be put to the test and our work open to judgement.

My favorite project was the Capstone (or the final one), which is where I worked with only one other person (Joanna) to create this internal LinkedIn of sorts for Fullstack called Hiredot. Joanna and I described Hiredot as this virtual portal for students and interested companies to explore projects and hackathons as well as create their own profiles and set up hiring event preferences using the stable marriage algorithm/MEAN stack. Granted, Hiredot wasn’t even the first of it’s kind, but I’m proud of what we were able to pull off in such a short amount of time.

My learning team mentor Jimmy Farrell (no, not Jimmy Fallon thankfully) was also especially helpful during this phase and I can truly say he contributed to a large part of my success and happiness while at Fullstack. You da the man, Jimmy!

At the end of the day, I’m just genuinely grateful I was able to enjoy everything Fullstack Academy has to offer, from Ladies Lunches, my learning team laughs, eye-opening pair programming sessions, and the amazingly bright people.

The experience was exactly how others have described it here before… it was like drinking water out of a firehose. BUT since I’m more of a sweet iced tea kind of gal, I’d describe my personal experience as drinking iced tea out of a firehose. And yeah, it was pretty sweet.

p.s. I, for one, feel it’s great that Fullstack is also now branching out to other sectors, like with their new Grace Hopper Academy which has no upfront tuition and is appropriately targeting women who want to enter the tech scene.

p.s.s. If you’re interested in hearing more about my experience at Fullstack, I blogged about my experience every week of the program, so there’s that.

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I was a student in Fullstack Academy’s first Flex Immersive course (Jan 2015 - July 2015) which spans over 24 weeks, 3 days a week, 6:30pm to 9:30pm on Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday and 10am to 6:30pm on Saturdays. It is basically designed to cover the exact same material as their full time course, but in a part time schedule that allows you to keep your day job in the process.

This was very appealing to me for many reasons:

• Taking 13+ weeks off of work to pursue a whole new career just isn't feasible for many people. Due to financial reasons, school or family dependencies, leaving your job just might not be an option.

• Many people might not be 100% ready to fully commit to web development as a career. Taking the Flex Immersive course can be a way get the bootcamp immersive experience in a more risk averse format.

• Having class only 3 days a week allows for more personal study time on your days off. Having more time to better absorb the material before moving on to the next topic can be more your style of learning as the momentum of the full time course can be too fast for many people.

Thier Flex Immersive program was ultimately the deciding factor for me when choosing which bootcamp I wanted to attend. There was no other bootcamp in NY that offered their full time immersive curriculum in a part time format (and I believe that is still the case). The class sizes in the Flex program are much smaller than in the full time cohort (13 compared to 25) meaning a better student to instructor ratio. And in general, the Fullstack Academy bootcamp is no doubt one of the better accredited bootcamps in NYC.

Now of course I should say that bootcamps are not for everyone. Immersive bootcamps are very fast paced and even though the Flex course is twice as long at half the speed, it can be just as intensive as taking the full-time program because you’re forced to spend all of your evenings and weekends outside of work learning to code. Some people might just prefer to learn all of this solo; I definitely thought about doing that. But for me, the pros of attending this bootcamp ended up being very much worth it. Following a curriculum of the current web development frameworks and technologies was much easier and faster than trying to figure out what’s worth and not worth learning. Having instructors direct you across common pitfalls in the fraction of the time it would have taken for you to figure it out yourself was valuable in itself. There is just no possible way I could have learned all of this material by myself at the speed that I did.

Definitely do your research when deciding which bootcamp you want to attend, or whether you want to attend a bootcamp at all. But overall, I would highly recommend Fullstack’s Flex program as a feasible way to get the learning experience of their full time course but in a part time format.

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My Background:  Undergraduate degree in Economics, MBA in Finance.  Left my job as a Management Consultant within the Financial Services industry to attend Fullstack Academy.  I had very little prior coding experience. 

Founders: David and Nimit are great guys.  Both extremely knowledgable about coding and the industry in general.  No matter how well the program seemed to be running, they were always looking for feedback and ways to improve the program.  Fullstack Academy will just continue to get better over time with them in charge. 

Curriculum: Overall very well structured and always improving.  First half of the course typically consisted of instructor led lessons, followed by paired programming exercises.  Throughout all exercises instructors were available to provide guidance. The second half of the curriculum consisted of two team projects, a 3 day Hackathon, and hiring day.  There was also time spent during the second half of the course to help prepare for interviews.  

Instructors: I was very impressed by the professionalism and knowledge of the instructors.  Every instructor clearly had a passion for coding/teaching (one even described working at Fullstack as his “dream job”.  When smart people are doing something they are passionate about, they do an amazing job.   

Students:  The only commonality was everyones passion to code.  Incredibility eclectic group of individuals who were all amazing in different ways.  One day you would be working with someone who used to be an Investment Banker, and the next day you were working with someone who was a past stunt actor for the Call of Duty video game (those are factual backgrounds).  You will make great friends and you will be surrounded by people who are all working together to help each other succeed.  

Outcome:   I accepted a full-time Software Engineering position about a month after graduating.    I went on a number of interviews (some direct outcomes from hiring day some not).  Overall, I received excellent feedback on my coding challenges as part of the interview process at various companies and I always felt as if I was well prepared.     

Summary:  Exactly as advertised.  You come into a great program with awesome people (instructors and students) and you leave with an in-demand skill that allows you to do something you love. 

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I had such a great experience at Fullstack that I just had to leave a comment.

Before Fullstack
Like many students that went through Fullstack, I came from an entirely different career path (Civil Engineering) non-related to programming. After mustering the courage to make a career change, I did my research on how I could best transition to a new career in programming and came across programming bootcamps. 

I was very skeptical at first because these bootcamps offered short programs (ranging between 3-6 months) for a substantial amount of money (~$12000 - $15000). Furthermore, there were also a lot of bootcamps available, so it was tough deciding which one was right for me. I dug deeper and reached out to graduates from many bootcamps such as Fullstack Academy, Flatiron School and DEV Bootcamp. To me, I found the most responsive people were the ones from Fullstack. Some of the major questions that I asked them were:

1.    How quickly were they able to find jobs after graduating?
2.    Did they feel like they were ready for the workforce after completing the program?
3.    Did they feel like their experience was worth the time and money?

I've received very positive feedback. The students I've spoken with had many interviews lined up the week after Fullstack and most found jobs ranging between 2 weeks to 2 months. Even more surprisingly, they all stated that they loved their experience at Fullstack and some have even mentioned that "it was the best career decision they've made in their life".

During Fullstack
As the program is split into 3 parts: 6 weeks of lectures/workshops (Junior Phase), 1 week for break, and 6 weeks for project phase (Senior Phase). 

In the first 6 weeks, we had our work cut out for us. Although the workload was heavy, I felt that Fullstack did a great job scheduling and planning it in a way where the material didn't seem too rushed. We spent a lot of our time learning from JavaScript Fundamentals, Data Structures and Algorithms, Server Side JS (Node, Express), databases (MongoDB, some SQL), Front End Js (Angular), Promises, OAUTH and the list continues... What I loved most about my experience in the junior phase was that all the workshops were done in pairs. This taught me how to adapt to other people's coding styles, which will be very common in the work force. It also taught me how to code as part of a team, which can be very different than if you were to code individually. By the end of the junior phase I would have worked with most people at least once, which made it very comfortable working in groups leading into the Senior Phase.

In the last 6 weeks, this was entirely project based. There was a lot less hand holding from the teaching staff, which gave teams the freedom of how to complete their projects and divide up their work. It was in this phase where I learned the most because I started to see how the entire tech stack fell in place, and what I learned from the first 6 weeks started to make a lot more sense. However, this only came through hours of hard work and debugging which is the learning process all students inevitably will go through. The teaching staff and teaching assistants (Fellows) were very quick in providing help when you are completely stuck with a problem, and did a great job in guiding you towards a solution rather than just simply telling you what to do. Also during this phase, Fullstack helps with your career preparation such as resume building, cleaning up your LinkedIn and Github Profile, interview preparation, whiteboarding sessions, as well as providing a hiring day where many companies come out to see your capstone projects and interview with you. Shanna, who led all this career preparation, has been extremely approachable for career-related questions or advice that I had.  

After Fullstack
After graduating, I was fortunate enough to land many interviews within my first week out, some of which came from the hiring day event. Even more fortunately, I accepted a job offer within 3 weeks of graduating. A large part of this success I owe to Fullstack's continued help in which they called "Fullstack Flight". Shanna was integral in helping us by providing us resources for preparing for interviews with coding challenges, and questions, networking and job application advice, and being accessible whenever we had any questions, even when it came down to salary negotiation! 

As a side note, Fullstack does an excellent job creating a friendly, personal and down-to-Earth environment from planning weekly events for people to mingle, mentor groups and more. From the Fullstack staff to students, everyone was extremely friendly and open to conversation. I never had any difficulty reaching out to anyone for coding help, not even David or Nimit given their busy schedule managing Fullstack. I personally feel that it was because of this aspect of Fullstack that turned it from a good experience to an amazing one. A million thanks to the entire Fullstack team!

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I was part of the very first cohort at Fullstack. David and Nimit are amazingly knowledgable and passionate instructors who believed in me before I believed in myself. Almost two years later, I can confidently say that going to Fullstack was the best decison I've ever made.

Coding is not for everyone, but if you have tried coding on the job/on the side and enjoyed it I highly encourage you to apply to Fullstack.  

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In short: one of the best decisions you can make for your career (with a few caveats)

Pros: World-Class instructors, great workspace, in NYC, good amount of personalized attention, GREAT quality of fellow classmates,  High Job Placement rate 97% (I, myself, have found a job as a developer with a higher salary than I ever thought possible), and an average salary that is quite high at 70-80k

Cons: The only major con I can think of would be cons at all bootcamps...There is generally such a wide array of programming abilities coming in that it is difficult for the courseload to be appropriate for all of the students.  We had students come in with five years of work experience, students with Computer Science degrees from Princeton, and students who have been programming since they were very young.  On the other hand, individuals like myself came in with virtually no programming background.  When catering to a class of 20+ students, it is difficult to teach the course at a speed that is appropriate for the majority.  Essentially, I felt like this course was like drinking water from a firehose, whereas some students felt that the curriculum was moving a little bit too slowly.  The only con that pertains to Fullstack Academy alone is the fact that the majority of the jobs that you will be qualified for at the end of the bootcamp are going to be FRONT-end roles. The irony that Fullstack Academy places the majority of their engineers in non Fullstack roles is not lost on me.

 

THINGS TO KNOW :

To be adequately prepared for the bootcamp I reccommend that you do the following before you even APPLY: finish codecademy's course on JavaScript, API Calls, and jQuery; read eloquent javascript cover to cover; finish the codeschool AngularJS course; and get to a level where you can complete difficult programming problems that include recursion etc.....this will accomplish two things, first it will solidify that programming is really the type of thing that you want for a career, and it will get you to a point where you feel comfortable with the ins and outs of programming.

Finally, after the course is over, you are going to have to put in A LOT of work on your own.  Bootcamps really only get you to a solid starting point.  Read various JavaScript PDFs and take supplementary courses online.  After a month or two, you will definitely be at the point where you can interview for Developer roles.

Next, the career counseling is definitely improving, but the majority of the work is going to be done on your own.  A few students do get opportunities from Fullstack Academy's hiring day...and others through reccommendations from Fullstack staff... but the majority need to go out, network, attend career days, attend information sessions, and generally work their butts off to get a job.

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As opposed to the majority of students who attended Fullstack Academy; I arrived with a CS degree and a couple of years work experience under my belt.  Even so, Fullstack was a great decision for me.  The greatest assets were definitely the people and the environment.  

  First of all, the lead instructors David and Nimit are the smartest engineers I have ever met.  They were not only capable of solving any issue that I encountered but were also entirely able to communicate the issue and solution to me in ways that I could understand.  While this means that I was able to complete projects with extremely experienced mentors, it also meant that students with more experience were able to gain just as much if not more from Fullstack than the students entering with less knowledge.   Second, with all of the students arriving eager to learn, there is an environment of curiosity and exploration that doesn't exist almost anywhere else.  The students are gaining the technical skills necessary to understand and use some of the newest and coolest technologies while at the same time, they have yet to become jaded and dismissive of emerging technologies.     Fullstack increased my value to prospective companies and made me a better and more curious coder.  My only issue, is that I cannot attend again.   Thank you David and Nimit!  Read less

In one sentence: 

The best career move I have ever made.

 

In many more sentences: 

********* Back Story. You can skip this if you just want to get right to the meat ***********

Before attending Fullstack Academy, I had VERY little knowledge of web development, coding, or javascript.  I had recently finished up a degree in Psychology and planned to move further down that career path.  But, it just wasn’t the right thing for me, so I started feeling around for other fields that interested me more. 

 

I began taking some online courses to learn HTML and CSS and enjoyed them.  It was fun to be able to create something from scratch purely on my own.  Then, I started to get into javascript as a way to make my pages a bit more interactive, but quickly realized that trying to teach yourself Javascript or coding in general is a very difficult task.  There are so many rules and syntactical nuances to follow that it can become a very frustrating process very quickly.  So, I started to look into schooling for web development.

 

There were several options: I could get a bachelors from a University in Computer Science, but felt that that may be a bit to broad. I could get a web-development certificate from a trade school, but those are for-profit schools and cost far too much. Plus, both of those options take two years to complete, and I didn’t want to take that much time.  So, I came across the concept of a coding bootcamp.  I loved the idea.  It’s fast, it’s intense, and it costs less. So, I began researching schools.

 

Most bootcamps offer training in Ruby, but very few offered a Fullstack Javascript experience which is what I was looking for.  Javascript is taking on a whole new role in the development community with newer front end frameworks and powerful new backend frameworks for Javascript allowing for use of Javascript in the entire stack. Of the few schools that I found with a Javascript focus, Fullstack Academy felt the most professional, comprehensive, and well-structured. So, I went for it.  I applied, was contacted, did an interview, and was accepted.  Even though I didn’t have prior experience, they could tell that I had a desire and a passion to learn and I was accepted.  I’m extremely grateful that they chose to take a chance on me.

 

************************** The Meat of the Review ***************************************************

I loved the structure of Fullstack Academy.  Before you get to school, you have a one month introductory course to Javascript.  This was invaluable for me.  I couldn’t have lasted in the bootcamp without putting my full attention into the Foundations work.  This brought me up to speed and helped me to be ready for the deep dive that I would get once I got to New York.  

 

The school experience itself was amazing. Full stack is located about 10 seconds from Wall Street in Lower Manhattan.  The space that they have got is great.  It’s large enough to teach 30-40 students at a time in two groups.  The instructors were amazing. David and Nimit are very good at what they do and are extremely helpful and interactive teachers.  In addition to them, there are several other instructors and fellows that are there to give lectures and workshops and to answer questions. 

 

**** First 6 weeks of the program *****

A typical day at school went something like this. Show up at about 9:00am and start working on a javascript exercise to get yourself going for the day. The first lecture would begin at 10:00.  It would last for about an hour or two and would introduce a new concept for the day. We would then be assigned partners and would spend several hours working on a workshop which applies the concept from the morning lecture.  Then, halfway through the day, we would have a mini-lecture which would allow us to discuss issues we were having in the workshop and ask questions.  Then we would go back out and finish up the workshop for the next several hours.  Then, at the end of the day, we would have a final lecture that would review the concepts from the morning lecture, go over the workshop and the proper way to complete it, and allow us to ask questions and discuss the concepts.  (This repetition of concepts and the ability to apply the principles in workshops every day really embedded the knowledge into me rather than just getting theory and lecture all day.)  This finished up around 6:00pm.  Then, you can leave if you would like to, but I found that many people stayed until 10:00 or 11:00 just working on tutorials or reviewing the workshop, or preparing for the following day. 

 

***** Last 6 weeks of the program *****

The last 6 weeks of the program are devoted to projects.  This is where the majority of the learning takes place.  You build a personal project and a group project.  I found that we would spend upwards of 15 hours per day just working on projects.  I learned so much during this phase because I had to take all that I had learned in workshops and lectures and piece it together into one cohesive project.  I had to go back and review concepts so that I could implement them in my project.  The application of principles in a real life setting is what made this phase so productive and I loved it.  The instructors are always available for questions if you run into a road block on your project, but they are very good at helping you assess the problem for yourself and then helping you find the answers to the problem.

 

Overall, the curriculum and the way that it is taught is very well thought out.  The atmosphere was warm and allowed for asking questions and for collaborating with fellow students. It was the perfect intense learning environment.  But, I have to say that it was VERY challenging.  The rate at which you must learn and acquire concept after concept after concept is unlike anything I have ever done before. It was so much information so fast that my mind hurt at the end of every day.  But honestly, I would have expected nothing else.  I got exactly what I paid for; a ton of knowledge very quickly.

 

*********** Post Program **************

So, then the program ended and I got home… Now is the real test of how effective the program was. I am from Utah, so I didn’t move to an area that is as great of a tech hub as San Francisco or New York.  Fullstack was still great at helping me to prepare myself for a job by cleaning up my LinkedIn, preparing a resume, helping prepare for interview questions, and so on.  They also hooked me up with anyone that they knew in Utah who would be helpful in finding a job.  

 

I have been home from the program for two months now and have been actively looking for a job for about a month of it.  Many places told me that they wanted someone with more experience, but all were impressed with the amount that I knew considering that I was so new to the whole development world.  But, several companies offered first and even second interviews and offers.  I am glad to say that I have now landed a job that is going to be extremely fun and rewarding and pays almost double what I was making just three months ago.  I am so happy to have done this program and now that I have a job, I know that it was a good decision and was a great investment.  I’m in a field that I love and have an entire career ahead of me to keep learning, but Fullstack was the foundation that I needed.  It would have taken me years of self-instruction or other schooling to get where I am now.  I’m glad that I did it and I would recommend it to anyone. 

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I'd like to start out by saying FullStack Javascript is awesome, and attending Fullstack was the best decision I've made in both my professional career and my education. My investment in the program is paying dividends and I have been expanding upon the foundation built during those 12 weeks every day since April. It might sound like I'm blowing smoke here but seriously, I'm not.

Motivation
My lifelong interest has been learning about useful, versatile and in-demand technologies. What I had failed to do was to devote myself to a computer language, or any formal technical skill, and gain a level of fluency to build things.

Prior to Fullstack, a significant portion of my career was spent working in a Unix environment, but I wanted to build applications to solve real world problems. I attempted to learn some basic scripting by using resources on the web, but I needed a more formal experience to really start making compelling apps. 

After surveying technical bootcamps I came to the conclusion the best curriculum for me would be Fullstack Javascript. Node.js can be used in a wide variety of applications, and I would be able to use the same JavaScript knowledge in the browser to build web applications. Since Fullstack Academy was a pioneer of the immersive Fullstack JavaScript curriculum in New York, my decision was clear. 

During the admission process I completed a multi-question technical challenge in Python, and an in person technical interview with Fullstack Co-Founder Nimit Maru. When I was accepted into the program I was ecstatic, which made the awkward process of leaving my comfortable job, and my colleagues, a little less painful.
 
Experience
Fullstack set me up with 100 hours of preparatory work before day 1. This work was focused on javascript and DOM fundamentals. On the first day it was clear I was joining a diverse and intelligent group of students along with some very technically savvy, and friendly instructors. For the first 7 weeks of the program I spent 10-12 hours a day working on my Javascript fundamentals, while building apps with Mongo, Express, Angular, Node.js, HTML5, and CSS3.

Each day we started with JavaScript challenges, then transitioned into modular lectures. The lectures were jammed with valuable information, they were recorded, and I am glad I still have access to them for review. At the conclusion of the lecture we would break into groups and work with the components or javascript libraries that were introduced. Each day built upon the last, and every Friday I felt I needed another day of work to assimilate everything and complete my mental model of the concepts.

The best part of the program is that everyone, including the instructors, are engaging in the learning process together. When one person is struggling with a technical problem or a bug, they feel bad. Once they realize fifteen other people are stuck on the same issue, the frustration turns into constructive problem solving and learning.
 
Results
I completed FullStack academy in July 2014. My group project, which comprised the final four weeks of the program, was the development ofhttp://postermuseum.com, which I completed with a fellow Fullstack student. 

Since Fullstack I've worked on numerous development projects. My skills feel more relevant and well rounded than ever. I've had a steady stream of very compelling jobs, and I've been working nearly 7 days a week to keep up with the workload. My earning potential has increased substantially, but most importantly, I'm finally doing work that I truly enjoy. I don't feel trapped in a job anymore, and I feel like I have options to work on exciting projects, and in any industry I choose. 

Thank you Fullstack Academy - you changed my life.

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I first realized that I had a passion for coding when working with Excel macros as a Business Analyst. While I thoroughly enjoyed it, I had no idea that I could actually pursue a career change into the development field. I figured that most professional developers had been coding since childhood and that companies wouldn't hire someone with little to no experience. This all changed when I came across the hot new trend in the development world: immersive software bootcamps.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn about these programs that help non-developers become developers. While I was intrigued by the bootcamps, I felt that the price tags were quite steep, and figured that I would be able to teach myself. I then spent my days working full-time and nights studying as much as I could, but quickly realized that while I was making progress with my studies, it would take forever to learn enough to apply for a job. Although I was concerned that these bootcamps seemed "too good to be true," I was eager to learn more about them, and decided to apply to a few in NYC. I also relished the challenge of putting my new coding skills to test throughout the competitive admissions processes :-P.

Upon being accepted to Fullstack Academy, Nimit reached out to me and spent over an hour answering my questions and addressing any concerns I had. He was extremely candid and helped me assess the pros and cons of attending a bootcamp vs. continuing to learn on my own. I was very impressed with Nimit's patience throughout the conversation as well as the lack of any "sales pitch." After our call, I reached out to some Fullstack alumni to gain students' perspectives and was blown away by the overwhelming praise of Nimit and David. Every single student recommended Fullstack and many claimed that enrolling there was the best decision of their lives.

Fast forward six months and I couldn't agree more. As an employed software developer at an exciting company in NYC (I got a job less than 2 weeks after my program ended), it's hard to imagine that I was struggling to find time to learn the basics of coding only a few months ago. Although I felt that I was capable of learning on my own, there was simply so much to learn and not enough time in the day to view a career change as anything more than a distant possibility. I'm still amazed at how much I've learned and how far I've come in such a short amount of time, and I can say without a doubt that I have Fullstack to thank. I know that all my classmates feel the same way about their experiences as well.

Fullstack offers a unique learning environment that combines a rigorous and challenging hands-on curriculum with a driven, intelligent, and collaborative student body. The pace is quick and intense but also fun and exciting. Nimit, David, and the TAs are all wonderful teachers and always eager to help with any challenges/bugs that students encounter. They care deeply about their students and you can see their enthusiasm and joy as they're teaching. 

I highly recommend Fullstack Academy for anyone considering a bootcamp. The excellent curriculum, mentorship and guidance of Nimit/David/TAs, and great friends (and professional contacts) you make throughout the program are truly unique. My time there was easily the most intellectually stimulating and rewarding three months of my life, and I couldn't have asked for more.

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I graduated from the summer 2014 class at Fullstack and I am now working there as a Teaching Fellow. Based on my time here I can confidently say that if you want to quickly learn the skills needed to become a professional software developer, Fullstack Academy is the best resource you will find.

The program is a unique combination of guided workshops, group and individual projects (in which you build your own apps). This provides just the right combination of fundamentals and practical skills training.

Having also gone through traditional academic channels (undergraduate and graduate engineering degrees from Columbia University), I found this approach much more efficient than that of a typical degree program. Fullstack's approach and exceptional staff were essential to rapidly learning the skills that matter in a job as a developer.

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A year ago, I was laid off from my previous job not under the best circumstances and now I am working as a Software Engineer at a promising startup making more than twice the amount I did at my previous job. I would say that qualifies as having a pretty good year and a lot of it is due to Fullstack Academy.

After my layoff,  I knew that I wanted to get into tech and learn coding so I tried to teach it to myself using tools like CodeAcademy, CodeSchool, TreeHouse, various tutorials I found here and there. But I knew that I needed a bit of guidance because the biggest thing holding me back was that I didn't know what I didn't know.

To be honest, I got accepted into quite a few bootcamps including DevBootcamp, General Assembly, and App Academy and the only reason I chose Fullstack was that it started the earliest and I figured the earlier I joined the earlier I would get a job. But I am lucky that I did. Fullstack Academy was great in guiding me and helping me learn the basics of Web Development. And it was truly an environment where you got out as much as you put in.

And I would like to think I put in quite a few hours (I spent close to 80 hours a week at Fullstack) and I learned more than I ever did in a span of 12 weeks. And the best part about it was that I was learning by doing. 

I agree with everything that the glowing reviews have said here about David and Nimit. Nimit is probably the most patient human being I've ever seen when dealing with sleepless-crazed people trying to learn to code, while David is one of the most skilled debuggers and knowledgable fullstack developer that I've met. They genuinely care about your success and how to make your experience the best.

But the thing with any of these bootcamps is really the amount of effort you keep exerting after you leave Fullstack. It's been about 5 months since I've left Fullstack and I would say I am probably lightyears better as a developer than I was then. But I really can't say that I would not get to where I am without the jolt star that Fullstack gave me.

I also wrote a much longer review about Fullstack in my blog, if you care to read:superjisan.org/devblog/m…

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During my coding bootcamp search, my main goals were to become extremely proficient in programming, learn from great mentors, and land a great job once I was done. I'll assess my experience based on these three criteria.

Coding

Thanks to Fullstack, I can now have an intelligent conversation about the pros and cons of SQL vs. NoSQL databases, explain what $watch and $digest are in AngularJS, build apps from scratch, and show you how to do three-way data binding with AngularJS and Firebase. I have a Github repo full of code that I can explain, and projects that I was able to show employers during interiews. I definitely felt like I got my money's worth here.

Mentors

David and Nimit, the co-founders, have pretty impressive backgrounds. David was a former early employee at Gilt Groupe & RecycleBank. Both worked at Yahoo! together (and have the stories to prove it). Nimit was the co-founder of Bloomspot (acquired by J.P. Morgan Chase in 2010), and a Wharton grad. I didn't just want to learn from someone who was good at teaching, I also wanted to learn from someone who has been in and understands the startup world. They did -- they made the coding real by peppering in stories about how things were done at Gilt, Bloomspot, etc.

Job Prospects

The market is extremely hot for developers. The 2 weeks after graduating, I ended up having about 6 to 8 interviews, and ended up landing a position at a great startup which I am loving.

If you are serious about becoming a professional developer, I'd highly recommend attending Fullstack. If interested, I wrote a a more extended review on my blog here.

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Prior to attending FullStack, I spent over a year and a half learning web development independently through the usual suspects of free and paid online channels. However, despite all the invested time, I still felt woefully unprepared to move beyond 'hobbyist' mode and into production-grade development. I applied to FullStack with that intention -- to become a professional grade developer and synthesize all the concepts I had learned online and in my undergrad electrical engineering days (many many many moons ago). It's a big investment of time and money, but well worth it -- in saved opportunity cost (of not having to learn concepts in isolation), high quality of instruction (the lead instructors are fantastic!), and network of other students. I came into the school with a decent amount of prior experience compared to some of the other students, and still felt that I couldn't learn enough. You learn things that there is no way you could learn on your own -- the latest technologies, deployment, working with other developers in a simulated production environment. Plus, you have a whole classroom of potential hackathon partners! You basically learn how to learn, and once you have a solid foundation of web development principles, you're on the path after graduation to continue to learn on your own and find a job, which many of my fellow students did quite quickly post-graduation. I highly recommend FullStack (and learning to code in general!) to anyone -- it will pay off in spades in any field you are currently in or decide to enter in the future.

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