Fullstack Academy

If you’re thinking about a boot camp, go to Fullstack. That’s the gist of this. Boot camps won’t totally prepare you, but they do a pretty good job, and you should get ahead of this as much as possible because there might be a job bubble coming if there already isn’t one. 

Students: They clearly care about who they let in to the cohort. Most students are kind, sociable, and chill. Some are especially decent. A couple are bummers, but the ratio is outstanding. Everyone stops what they’re doing to help each other out. I have made great friends from Fullstack. I was someone who was going in thinking “this will be cool but these aren’t going to be my people”. They will be your people. If you're thinking of changing careers or adding a skillset, the student body alone is a reason to choose Fullstack.

Company + Personnel: Fullstack is scrappy, mostly transparent, and they take you seriously. The instructors are good, super smart, and very kind. They're completely sincere and straight forward with you. Only the people whose job it is to be obtuse will be obtuse, and even then they do their best to no be, and for the most part, understand that’s sort of their function within the structure of the company. People here work hard to show that they care. The fellows (the student teachers) range from being brilliant and kind to being NOT the best engineers ever but still very kind. They are all wonderful and committed to being helpful. This is a reflection of the student body again, and the commitment to a stellar culture. The recent Bridgewater purchase of Fullstack makes me nervous, but I doubt they'll interfere too much with how the company is run for now. Just look out for that, I guess.

Education: I know JavaScript. That's just true. I understand most things about it at a fundamental level. I have a stack I can code in. I felt fully supported the whole time, with tons of opportunity for extra help and practice even after school was out. The exams were tough but fair. I have made more than one app since graduating, like, got it up and running by myself. They were dinky toy apps, and most were used for interview projects, but I can do that now. It's wild. It will be brutal, it will be fast paced, but seriously trust the process. You'll see a lot of people say that, and they're right. The process won't help you get a job, but it will allow you to learn a lot very quickly.

All that said, there’s a lot more to learn, and relearn, and relearn. You will still be a junior when you leave. You graduate an engineer in that you can engineer things, but you’re going to be very confused looking at a large codebase, you’re going to forget a lot of what you learned, and you’re going to feel stupid but you’re not! They teach you well, so you’ll be able to brush up on what you forgot. It's 3 months though. Take it easy on yourself. You are pretty much job ready, and that's amazing.

Most importantly — despite their best efforts, unless you have a BS in Computer Science or general experience with CS, you will lack those CS fundamentals and algorithm skills. If you can help it, spend a couple hours a week practicing algorithms before the second half of the program where you will practice more frequently. It’ll be a lot less rough when you get out of the program that way.

Diversity + Culture: The environment is great. Fullstack is pretty progressive regarding identity politics so that's really nice. I mean, not everyone who is there totally gets it, but everyone is very friendly and I knew at least one trans person who had a solid experience at Grace Hopper, and I know there were other NB folks who did well there. There is still a lack of diversity mostly in gender and sexuality in the Fullstack cohorts. Mostly dudes, mostly white, with a few SEA and EA guys (my cohort had one queer person and no black people). Almost no women because they usually go to GH, which can make it a bit of a boys club, but the environment does a great job preventing that from happening (GH helps too, you interact with your sister cohort quite a bit). GH had a lot more overall diversity.

But yeah, just reemphasizing that the culture is overall really great. Very surprised how cool everyone was. They clearly care a lot.

Other thoughts:

The whole boot camp thing is nuts. You go in there, and you're learning a hundred new things a day, and they're trying to give you theory but also trying to make sure you can actually get something up and running so you have projects on your resume by the time you graduate, and they spend a good amount of time practicing whiteboarding problems but it isn't enough, and you're meeting new people, and you're working 60+ hours a week, and you're not seeing any of your friends and family (or if you are, not that often) and it's just bananas. Fullstack is pretty great, and there will be people who are better at identifying specific negatives about the program. I had a good time, I did well for myself, any flaws I saw seemed to be no fault of theirs as much as it was the fault of boot camps as a whole. I think if you have a different background or you're a different kind of person, maybe Fullstack isn't right for you. I don't know. Read other reviews, they helped me a lot when I was deciding.

You're almost definitely not going to come out of this interview ready. Some of you will, because some of you are wired for this. God bless. Most of you will not, and you'll probably take a very high paying hybrid role (sales + engineering usually) and do quite well for yourself. There just aren't as many junior roles out there right now. The industry is starting to grow wise to the fact that they can avoid hiring new engineers by just paying seniors more money to create systems that do junior work for them. Yes it is unfair, but that's how this works right now. There are a ton of great folks in software though looking to mentor people. Find them -- they will help you. Unless you have a lot of natural talent (and even if you do), it's going to be a long road. A handful of folks from my cohort got jobs after a normal amount of time (3 - 4 months), but a majority are still looking (4 - 5 months in right now).

None of this boot camp stuff is sustainable, but it is available right now, and it is totally feasible that you leave Fullstack with a high paying job in the tech space. Also, if you come from a relatively privileged background, and you're young, and you don't have a lot of direction, just do it. Nothing out there is going to fulfill you right now, but you'll be able to get some direction in your life towards a discipline that pays well with tons of flexibility, you'll get out in front of the incoming automation wave,  and you can maybe even have some time and energy and capital after all of this to eventually do something you like for a living that isn't actively contributing to the siphoning of wealth from the bottom to the top. I don't know.

If any of this sounds appealing to you go to Fullstack. If I sound like someone who thinks like you go to Fullstack. It’s probably the best boot camp around.

The 14 weeks onsite at FullStack were intense, challenging and very thorough  The instructors are deeply knowledgable (and very patient).    The curiculllum was clearly set out at the beginning of each phase.  Pair programming and test driven development kept things interesting daily. Workshops and test were challenging and really helped motivate me.   There are several bigger projects as you progress through the course and they really helped increase my understanding and enthusiam for software development.  

Fullstack's curriculum is pretty great and very up to date. Fullstack gives you a solid foundation for modern web development careers. Every project was jam packed with essential programming concepts, which was overwhelming at first, but it was useful to return to these projects during the studying phase of my job search. I also felt that my instructors were genuinely interested in web development and also in teaching. Fullstack is very high quaility bootcamp and you cant go wrong if you choose it. 

pros:
1. full-stack JavaScript-focused curriculum with strong emphasis on React.js was a perfect fit for jobs in the NYC market;
2. amazing, committed instructors;
3. project-based and collaborative (pair-programming throughout) was a plus in interviews;
4. Career Services helped me negotiate a higher salary

cons:
1. not enough emphasis on becoming proficient at writing tests (e.g. Jest, Mocha, etc.), and
2. Career Services was great at the negotiation phase, but they seem to be too busy to give too much individualized focus before that point

general advice:
1. Computer Science fundamentals is extremely important, but only so much of it can be taught in a 4 month program - make sure you study algorithms and web fundamentals on your own after graduation;
2. I probably was under-qualified for admission into this extremely rigorous program, which meant that I was constantly trying to catch up. I didn't really hit my stride until a month or two after graduation as I continued practicing on my own. Do your best to take advantage of free resources prior to the bootcamp (such as FreeCodeCamp)

I attended Fullstack as a Summer of Code student. I was weary of attending at first since I am already a computer science student, and thought it may be "overkill." But it was worth it in the end because I learned so many valuable skillsets that I would have not encountered otherwise. The interview prep support was also tremendous, and I really enjoyed learning and working with others who are equally motivated. Shoutout to Kate who was a wonderful mentor and teacher throughout my Senior phase! If you are weary about price/experience, just now that this is such a worthwhile experience and I feel way more confident in my programming abilities now. If I had any criticism, it would be that specific internship support wasn't available, but I got enough out of the job support that it didn't make a huge difference for me. 

Foundations was incredibly challenging. Junior phase was very challenging. Senior phase was challenging. Everything got easier over time because your confidence improved and your understanding of the context of what you were learning improved, and your skills for learning improved. At the beginning we all kept telling each other and ourselves, "trust the process." It got easier to trust over time. We got a lot closer than I thought we'd be able to over a remote platform, but it really felt like we were all hanging out every day. I made friends that I still talk to all the time. The instructors are not equal, but they're all very competent and helpful. Everyone in the tech world that I talked to after the program was thoroughly impressed by my knowledge and experience from Fullstack. I felt great during interviews and ended up with 2 offers. It's not all perfect, you've got to advocate for yourself and take initiative to get out of the program what you need from it. At the end of the day I really had fun in the program and I'm literally making more than double what I was in my last profession (with a master's degree) with no prior tech education or experience. What more is there?

For me, leaving my career and starting this bootcamp was a huge risk. It would mean spending most of my savings to continue to live in NYC will not working, not working for the first time in 12 years which grated on my psyche and not being sure I would get a job quickly... if at all in this field. 

Grace Hopper was well worth it. You can tell from the get-go that it's a mutual investment because of the tuition policy but it's more than that. I do have some criticism regarding my cohort in particular and the lack of consistency of instruction - but we still did learn a substantial amount. 

In terms of instruction - the curriculum is clearly tried and tested and is being iterated on consistently which is key. It does require a lot of self-direction and motivation but.. it's a bootcamp so that's to be expected. I was disappointed by the fact that we didn't have consistent instructors (only had one for quite a few weeks) and that I don't feel the instruction was always very strong. You can be an amazing engineer without knowing how to communicate that to other people. Instructors need to be able to communicate that to other people and stay organized. 

One thing I can't say was awesome enough was the career success team. Again - you need to stay on top of your own stuff - but they will support you really well (at least my counselor did). She was responsive and no-nonsense and made it very clear that the goal was to get you a job that you could thrive in for a while to come. My resume and linkedin and negotiation skills have never been better. At hiring day, I met so many companies that followed through with interviews and got and accepted my first offer within a month. And if that hadn't been the right offer for me, they would've helped me come to terms with rejecting the offer and making a plan for how to get a better one. 

Moral of the story: if you're thinking about it seriously, do it. It'll be worth it. 

My experience at Fullstack Academy was truly remarkable. I had an amazing time at Fullstack and it redefined my career goals as my job search was more successful than I ever could have hoped. The technical foundation you are provided with truly is enough to obtain a job at a top company. The quality of other students was very high and it was truly special to learn alongside so many interesting people who had succeeded in many different areas and industries. I could not reccommend Fullstack more highly. The only caveat I would note is that the expereince is what you make of it and it is not magic. You must be willing to put in the work to fully reap the benefits of this amazing program

Fullstack was not just a great bootcamp experience, but one of the best educational experiences of my life. The team of instructors does a great job creating a sense of community. The curriculum is incredibly thorough, and by the senior phase of the program I could not believe the kinds of projects we were producing. I think the only downside was that the instructors are incredibly capable and experienced programmers, but they don't have much teaching experience. Overall, FSA is a great program that really produces job-ready graduates.