Fullstack Academy

Before taking the course at Fullstack Academy, I was doing photography, graphic design, marketing, and Wordpress development — it was more creative than technical. Not many creatives get into the program since the selection process is stringent and partial towards individuals who can rapidly pick up technical skills (extra emphasis on rapid and technical). My cohort was joined by physics, math, CS, and other mostly technical majors from around the world.

 

They have a respectably-sized campus in Manhattan's financial district with an interesting selection of lunch places and pubs. Getting there is easy as they have numerous subway lines that are accessible to the campus.

 

Like most bootcamps, thirteen weeks will fly by incredibly fast. You will learn at warp-speed, talk code on a daily basis, attend tech meet-ups & hackathons, and play boardgames with a group of highly motivated individuals who are kind-hearted as they are smart. While the faculty and staff are compassionate, they are serious on having the students comply academic requirements to maintain the competitiveness of senior projects. A good number of our cohort had to join succeeding cohorts because of the rigidity of the curriculum, which is build on Javascript’s MEAN Stack (MongoDB, Express, Angular, & Node). Learning Javascript, as opposed to Ruby and Python, is incredibly practical as most of the web is already written in Javascript and you can now run scalable and performant servers written in Javascript with the help of Node & Express! The key to learning rapidly in the program is getting lost in code and documentation while figuring out how to build modular, production-grade code in a small time period in a scrum/agile project framework.

 

Job support is plenty in the program. In the second half of the program, the career development team whips up your resume, LinkedIn profile, GitHub codebase, and your interview skills to a point that puts you ahead of regular CS graduates. It worked so much for me that I got hired a week before the program ended.

For someone who moved to the US five years ago, Fullstack Academy has turned my life around and gave me the tools to pursue an enjoyable career at an expanding field. It also connected me to a group of friends who are smart, fun, and motivated who continue to push me further into becoming a better developer even after the program ended. Many people have commented how much growth I’ve attained in three months based on the projects I can roll out, and tech recruiters have been sending messages on a semi-daily basis.

If you haven’t applied, make sure you’re well-prepared for the application. I’d take two months of at least two hours of consistent study from Codecademy, Codeschool, & Treehouse with supplementary practice from Code Wars if you haven’t done coding before. If you’ve been selected — make the commitment to quit whatever you’re doing and pursue the curriculum full time! Fullstack makes for a smart investment and trumps four years of college. Their graduates make a higher starting salary than Harvard so there’s a good chance you’ll earn back the tuition in less than three months with your job after the program.

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.

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.

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.

"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!

-----

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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!