Fullstack Academy

I won't drone on too long about how amazing this course is.  Instead, I'll just tell you what makes Fullstack special.
1.  You don't just feel like a number - Fullstack really cares about its students and that is clear from day one.  I was worried that I would fall behind and I would just be left in the dust, but every goes the extra mile to help you learn and succeed.  The instructors all know your name within the first day or two, and they cater to the specific needs of each student.
2.  The instructors are unbelievable - I don't really know what more to say.  They really, truly care about not only what they are teaching, but all of the students.  You can approach any one of them with any problem and they are patient, understanding, and extremely helpful.  They really made the difference for me.  Collin is probably the most knowledgeable person I've ever met, but even so, his patience was incredible.  I often had discussions with him in which I would ask the same questions multiple times, and each time he would patiently rephrase his answers so that I was able to understand.  In addition, he was willing to spend a great deal of extra time with my capstone group so that we could achieve a higher level of organization.  Our other main instructor, Finn, was incredible at using analogies and humour to explain complex problems.  At the beginning of every week, I honestly felt like there was no way I'd be able to understand all the material we were expected to learn, but Finn had a way of breaking down very complex programming concepts in understandable chunks.   In addition, he is relentless debugger.  During one of the projects, I had a very strange bug that he helped me to understand even though it took a long time.
3.  The other students - We all wanted to do Fullstack to change our life course, and it is very apparent that nearly every student is aware of this all the time.  I was astonished by the level of dedication shown by my classmates.  There was no sense of competition.  On the contrary, I felt like we were all working together toward a common goal.
4.  Holly rocks - the career services lead, Holly Valenty is such a rockstar.  Even though there were many of us (30-40 I think), she was willing to spend extra time with each student to make sure we all understood the tools we needed to get a job.  Holly really made me feel like I was ready to enter the job market.  I don't think I would have ever gotten a job without her!

When I started looking at software engineering bootcamps, I prioritized finding one with a challenging curriculum. Fullstack’s rigorous application process and focus on “productive struggle” during Bootcamp Prep made it my top choice, and the hands-on, fast-paced coursework did not disappoint. Fullstack’s magic, however, lies with its instructors, fellows, and career success team. Their support throughout made the otherwise daunting experience of switching careers feel very attainable.

Fullstack’s curriculum requires hard work, especially for those like me without a programming background. Students have to pass checkpoints in Foundations (4-week online course) to make it to Junior Phase (6-week on-site lectures / workshops), and there’s a similar checkpoint before the project-based Senior phase begins. Having access to fellows and instructors through help tickets and office hours helped me grasp important concepts for homework and looming tests. In Junior Phase, we had the additional benefit of weekly learning lunches led by fellows who answered questions on course content and their experiences at Fullstack.

Relationships with fellows and instructors deepened in Senior Phase: fellows advised us on our projects and instructors led code reviews. The Chicago campus instructors, Collin, Finn, and Priti, gave practical advice when we hit technical snags and encouraged us to learn beyond the curriculum. They held retrospectives for feedback after each project and seemed intune with our needs. (We received an impromptu lecture on React hooks, for instance, after they saw our interest in the topic.)

Chicago also has an amazing career success lead, Holly, who coaches students through resume and LinkedIn updates, technical interviews, and job offers. Holly brought in great companies for Launch Day, where local companies watch capstone project presentations and conduct interviews. Launch Day interviews can lead to job offers, and did for me.

I would only tweak one thing: while the team does a great job of teaching algorithms and data structures during Senior Phase, seeing those exercises earlier on would have been beneficial. 

Overall, however, I would recommend Fullstack’s program for its rigorous coursework and excellent support from instructors, fellows, and career success team. 

I have loved my time at Fullstack Academy! Honestly, I couldn't have asked for a better experience. I attended the program in September, and then applied for and was accepted on as a Teaching Fellow for 3 months. I was allowed to job search during the second half of my fellowship and recently accepted a software engineering role. Here is my impression of Fullstack during the time I've spent here: 

Strengths
-Admissions Process: Fullstack requires students to have a basic understanding of programming fundamentals before acceptance into the program, which allows Fullstack to focus on more advanced topics in its curriculum.
-JavaScript-Centered: Students learn both frontend and backend development focusing on one language: JavaScript. I think this allows students to gain a deep understanding of one language instead of basic familiarity of several. 
-Career Success: Fullstack has a great Career Success team. Each campus has an on-site Career Success Counselor who provides insight into the job search and hiring process. They will walk students through effective salary negotiation and keep in regular contact with graduates who are job searching. 

What Can Be Improved
-Curriculum Update Reconciliation: The only reason that I give their curriculum 4 instead of 5 stars is not due to the content of the curriculum (which is great), but the way that updates are reconciled in the curriculum. A strength of Fullstack is its insight into what up-and-coming technology the industry finds impressive and how it updates its curriculum accordingly. However, on the job a Software Engineer also has to understand and maintain older code, so it's important be familiar with previous versions too (think async/await versus .then() ). Sometimes, it's a bit confusing for students who are taught to do one version of a feature see an older version of a feature in a workshop, but I think the goal of Fullstack is to strike a delicate balance to figure out how to appropriately expose the student to both versions. It can just be hard sometimes to do that in a cohesive way, but that might just be a natural consequence continuing to evolve appropriately. 

All in all, I'm so happy with the experience I had at Fullstack; I'm glad I took the leap and made the investment. I got to work with smart and creative people in the program and am looking forward to my new career!

This entire program was a really rewarding experience starting from the beginning to the end. The curriculum covered in the alotted time span was taught in ways that worked effectively for me from both the instructors and teaching assistants. Thanks to the awesome instructors John M., Ben R., and Orlando C. were honest about their knowledge and provided as much information as possible certain topics to the best of their ability. You can tell they geniunely care for your progress and will take the time to answer any questions you have. The amount of effort that I put in was well received, and you can tell the staff at Fullstack truly want you to succeed. The culture is great and there are many people of different backgrounds that I have never encountered before and learned so much through each individual's story.

Enrolling at FSA,  just know that perserverance is key. You learn it through the program and you will have to continue after you graduate in the job search. I can't thank FSA enough for allowing me to explore the world of tech and fully start a new career in mind.

Never give up! Be hungry and strive for success. The only person that can stand in the way is yourself. Good luck :)

Hello everyone. Fullstack was a turning point in my life. I was working in completely different environmental, never deal with engineering before last year. But I was always interested in computers and technologies, so I started to study by myself and after I made some progress, I found an amazing school - Fullstack Academy. I graduated from it  2 weeks ago. It was a great 17 week journey. It honestly was an intensive course, sometimes very hard, but it gave me great knowledge and skills to become a Software developer. 

Beside that I met  amazing people - my classmates and instructors, who helped me to succeed. Everyone in school is extremely supportive. If you got stuck, or you think you are ready to give up, you can schedule as many office hours as you need and got a ton of help. I never heard 'NO' when I asked a question.

If you love technologies, looking for career change but dont know how to start - Fullstack is a perfect place for you. You will begin from the scratch and every day will build on top of it. If you will work hard and trust a process you will succeed.

Best of luck ;)

I graduated from Fullstack Academy 2 months ago. It was a great experience. My cohort was a diverse group of like-minded people who were eager to learn. It is as intense as you would expect, so make sure you have a good foundation before starting. The instructors were all passionate about teaching, not just about code, but also how to deal with things like imposter syndrome. The career success team really cares - you aren't just fending for yourself after graduation. They offer weekly remote meetings and 1 on 1 support during the job search. Plus you graduate with a cohort of people all in the same boat to keep in touch with.

As for the curriculum, I was told more than once during my job search that the skills I had stood out from the majority of bootcamp grads. One interviewer was surprised I had only learned React a few months ago. I put this down to the quality of teaching I received. I would highly recommend Fullstack Academy to anyone serious about attending a coding program and making a career change.

Fullstack Academy of Code was one of the best decisions I have made in my life. I believe all education should start to follow this model -- make education quick and affordable.  Fullstack teaches the essentials to get you a job as a Software Engineer. 

This is one of the best bootcamps in America right now. They are very selective on who gets in, they really want to make sure you are serious about your career switch. They take your education seriously. 

I would recommend taking Bootcamp Prep in a Month with them before applying! I can not stress this enough!!  Start learning code on your own before you apply. The more you know the better you will be. Just focus on JavaScript.  The bootcamp can not teach you everything, it is up to the individual to go out and be able to learn on your own. Fullstack Academy gives you the tools you need to get the job you want.  It can not teach you everything but it will teach you how to keep educating yourself.  

The support during the program is amazing.  Holly Valenty and the career counselors are just the best and most supportive people in the program. This is what makes Fullstack Academy great.  That support is amazing and very much needed when you are on your job search. I will say it is not easy, it will take dedication and perseverance to keep yourself going everyday.  But never give up. The job search can be frustrating and hard. But with Holly and the career counselors they will give you the support you need to get through it. No matter what keep coding and you will get a job!

 

If you had told me a couple of years ago that one day I would become a software developer, I probably would have laughed out loud. I never thought that I would like spending a huge amount of time writing lines of code or enjoy digging in the bushes of the source code. But life has an interesting sense of humor, and here I am enthusiastically describing my new profession.

I attended the Grace Hopper Program in NYC, then got hired on as a Teaching Fellow afterwards at Fullstack. I finished my Teaching Fellowship recently, and just accepted an offer at a very cool cybersecurity startup!

When I first heard about the Grace Hopper Program, I heard it described with words such as community, comprehensive curriculum, and support. After I started the program, I was very pleased to learn that these are the real concepts with which the program operates.

Community: After completing the program, you will be part of the FSA / GH circle. It doesn’t matter if you graduated from the FSA or GH, each former student will be happy to help with anything, such as a job referral or even just a piece of advice. During my job search, I contacted an FSA grad who finished the program in 2017, and he responded almost immediately and provided me with invaluable information.

Comprehensive curriculum: There is a lot of new information to digest, but it is all presented in a way that allows you to absorb the material through application. The curriculum is well structured for layering in new technologies and for getting you practical experience in a short amount of time.  It is a fast-paced program, so be prepared to speak and dream in javascript.

Support: The program leads, instructors and teaching fellows really play a big role in their students' success and are constantly going out of their way to make sure everyone is getting the help they need to succeed.

Participating in the program takes your full dedication; you get out of it what you put into it. In the end, this is an extremely rewarding experience. You gain a tremendous amount of knowledge and are provided with all of the tools necessary for your success. 

I had been eyeing doing a bootcamp for about 5 years, so I think my perception of them was from the earlier days. I honestly expected a more intense experience with more committed peers. A big surprise to me was that Saturdays are optional (and only a handful of us max were ever there) and everyone left campus at 5pm on the dot every day. 

The curriculum is split between 3 phases - Foundations (remote, vanilla JS), Junior Phase (learning the stack and how to put together a full web app), and Senior Phase (building 3 full projects). I found myself with lots of free time during the junior phase. I was disappointed that when I asked fellows or instructors for ideas on what else to work on, they mostly just told me to relax and have fun. 

Ok, that's the bad out of the way.

The good - Fullstack ultimately gave me what I paid for. The ability to get a job as a software engineer. I graduated 3 weeks ago and have already had 4 offers and accepted 1 at my top choice company. I felt very prepared for my interviews (although I think part of that was my exposure to the tech scene in my previous job). Learning React is key as I think that's one of the main things that set me apart from just CS grads and every company I interviewed with uses React. I was able to go from theater producer to account manager to software engineer and I don't think I could have done it nearly as fast without Fullstack. I will also say that Collin the instructor is fantastic. Eager to teach, knows everything, and great at explaining the underlying concepts behind the frameworks. I was very, very thankful for his code reviews and guidance. 

Suggestions to Fullstack - Please don't ignore students if they are bored/ahead. I really appreciated the extra workshops that started being available to me towards the end of Junior phase. If a student asked me what else they should work on, I would tell them to build a simple CRUD app. Then I would say re-do it using React Hooks instead of Redux. Then I would say use GraphQL. 

Suggestions to Students

- Pick your capstone project carefully, but not in the way you think. I was very focused on the actual product and wanted it to be cool, but I am so so thankful that we ended up using new technology and went through struggles and learnings I could talk to. This came up in all my interviews. Several said they brought me in because they liked how well I could communicate in my Youtube video and one had me give a 15 minute presentation on a challenging project to a room full of people. If you don't know how everything in your app works, ask your teammates to talk you through the code AND their decision making process. This was super important for interviews.

- This is something not everyone can control, but I think my exposure to the tech industry and how software is built was invaluable. The people in my class who had similar backgrounds really stood out and seemed to grasp the bigger picture much much better. So if you can work in the field before doing a bootcamp, I highly highly recommend it. I had no technical experience before landing a job as an account manager so I do think this could be an option for lots of people. 

- And go to the optional Saturdays and do the optional workshops! They were my favorite workshops and the most beneficial. 

 

I think Fullstack is a top tier bootcamp and I am very grateful for all that it gave me.

Simply put, Fullstack's cirriculum can help you change the trajectory of your life. After years working in non-profit and for-profit sector, I was ready to pursue my interest in coding. I choose fullstack because of its emphasis on a challenging cirriculum and only accepting good people. The instructors at Fullstack were more than willing to work closely with me as a student to answer any lingering questions I had after lectures, I was honestly surprised how much one-on-one time I was able to get with all of them. After the program I went on to become a teaching fellow at fullstack which gave me a peek behind the curtain and I can say with confidence that everyone who I interacted with on the fullstack staff level was as commited to helping students suceed as anyone I have met. From the more behind the scenes staff like Ben and Brett, to the instructors like Collin, Priti, and Finn everyone was kind and working everyday to make this a better program. Software is a quickly changing field and Fullstack provide the flexibility for the cirriculum to stay up to date with the newest tech and best practices. Also must give a shout out to the career sucess team including Holly in Chicago. No one has been more commited to getting me a job, Holly is the best! 

Prior to attending Fullstack's full-time immersive web development program in Chicago, I'd worked in logistics and operations within the publishing industry for a bit less than a decade. I self-taught a bunch of Python during that time for purposes of business process automation, and after coming to really enjoy this part of my job I eventually decided to try to break into the tech industry. After looking at the job market for web development, I realized that despite some demonstrable technical skills in order to actually get hired I'd need to do a few things: (1) learn the tooling and ecosystem that surrounds the immensely complex, fast-moving world of modern Javascript, which I couldn't do alone; (2) gain some experience writing code as part of a team, for having only ever worked in relative isolation; and (3) develop a portfolio showing proficiency in web technology stack in demand on the market.

I looked at bootcamps in Chicago, Denver, and a couple of other cities hoping to find a place that would help me in all three of these respects. I wanted a relatively selective program so I'd be working with people who already had a bit of technical experience (or the facility to acquire it quickly). I wanted a program that required students to come in the door with a fairly solid grasp of the fundamentals of the main language or languages used so classroom work could focus on frameworks and technologies rather than for loops and functions. I wanted the program to have a strong curricular component based on working together in teams. I wanted a program whose graduates' portfolios weren't just cookie-cutter copies of todo apps or simple CRUD applications; I wanted to finish with projects demonstrating some creative engagement with technically challenging problems so I could be competitive on the job market alongside CS majors. Lastly, I wanted a program whose curriculum seemed up-to-date, reflecting new trends and directions the industry is moving in (e.g. React, Angular 2, functional programing concepts and patterns), rather than older technologies, however battle-tested they might be (e.g. Rails, Laravel, etc.).

I chose Fullstack Academy (hereafter, "FSA") for it seeming to be a good match on all counts-- albeit after no small amount of research (including flying to Denver to spend a couple of days on a competitor's campus). FSA requires students to have a grasp of fundamental control and data structures in at least one language (as well as some demonstrable problem-solving ability) before being admitted. FSA requires admitted students to complete an at-home month-long "Javascript Foundations" curriculum before stepping the door, ensuring that everyone has a base level of proficiency. After getting everyone up to speed in its tech stack, the second half of FSA's program (“senior phase”)  assigns students to teams to complete projects in an environment designed to approximate the practices and rituals of a real-world agile workflow. In this "senior phase", students are not just encouraged but mandated to explore technologies beyond FSA's stack, finding interesting problems to solve along the way, documenting their work with videos and write-ups that prepare them to present their work on the job market. Finally, FSA's curriculum switched to React a couple of years ago emphasizes a functional style (e.g. you learn the syntax for OOP in JS, but SOLID is not taught; on the other hand, students spend lots of time thinking about how to write pure functions and that are easily testable). 

That's what my research taught me about the program. What I found at FSA vastly exceeded even these expectations. FSA's staff are extremely committed to instructional excellence for every student. In contrast to what I saw when checking out some larger, more impersonal programs, they get to know each student, identifying who is struggling with what and how to best help, on the one hand, and figuring out how to further challenge students who are breezing through the material, on the other. 

The curriculum is designed not just around teaching Javascript and the chosen stack, but at teaching students how to continue to grow as developers. At the beginning of the junior phase, the workshops do a lot of handholding, but as the program progresses the demands are ramped up: students take on projects involving larger and larger portions of the stack, moving from test-driven learning to building code that meets requirements stated much more abstractly, eventually in the senior phase being pushed to learn new technologies on their own and to solve problems with increasingly less instructor assistance. 

Throughout this process there is a healthy expectation that students will build up debugging resilience and gradually learn how to use Google to solve their own problems, though always with help from instructors and TAs. In some ways the purpose of the program, beyond teaching a particular stack, is to equip students with the knowledge of technique and confidence necessary to continue learning in a self-directed way, which is part and parcel of working as a software professional. 

The program places strong emphasis on learning to give and respond to feedback in healthy and productive ways, which does a great deal to ease the transition from pairs to teams and collectively acculturates students to the kind of social organization and processes employed in workplaces.  

All of this is wonderful, but it’s the approach taken in the “senior phase” and around the capstone project that really sets FSA apart. Throughout the first classroom-instruction phase, FSA collects survey data about which pairs of students work well together. In the senior phase, the instructors build teams based on this data combined with student performance scores and the results of further surveys which ask students what kinds of applications they’re interested in building. Teams are guided through a process which helps them decide between ideas, translate the best ideas into minimum viable products, and then into production-ready applications. The balanced, well-matched teams generated through this process are in a position to be pushed by the instructors and teaching assistants to build technically interesting applications that demonstrate students’ capacity to pick up new technologies and capacity for deep thought about architecture and design. 

As in any bootcamp program, things move quickly. It’s up to students to dive deep into technologies or parts of the stack in which they would like to specialize. The portfolio projects can end up having a “hackathon” feel, for this being the environment in which they’re produced-- but employers of course understand this. Tough choices have to be made about what to cover and what not to cover. But these are all par for the course with all bootcamps for being built-in to the territory. 

There are a couple of potential challenges unique to FSA worth mentioning. FSA’s teaching-assistantship model (they’re called “teaching fellows”) is based on keeping former students around for a three-month contract to help guide more students through the program, in contrast with some other programs which keep around a semi-permanent teaching-assistantship staff (i.e. people with less expertise than instructors who are the front-line debugging helpers, coaches, code reviewers, etc.). While the instructors typically stick around for several years, teach many cohorts, and grow their own skills as programmers and pedagogues through this experience, the relatively short duration of the fellowship program makes it hard for FSA to accumulate experience and wisdom in the area of its teaching assistants. On the flip side, teaching fellows always have a fresh memory of what it was like to be a student and are in this respect well-positioned to help other students navigate the program’s many challenges and demands-- the program is quite good at selecting qualified former students for this role.

FSA prides itself on an always up-to-date curriculum and has a lot of infrastructure in place to collect student feedback on the curriculum and integrate improvements into it. But as of Fall 2019 FSA moved more slowly than should be possible in integrating this feedback due to the many demands placed on instructor time. I believe they are now in the process of reorganizing curriculum design into a separate department to help address this issue. These are growing pains that instructors and management will freely admit to-- and I am fairly confident that FSA will rise to meet them in the years to come. 

Whatever the challenges faced by the program, I liked the environment at Fullstack so much that I decided to stick around as a teaching fellow despite some leads for local jobs that would have paid much more (I should say that I've wrapped up that contract and am no longer employed by FSA at the time of writing!).

Some words on the alumni network and the career success program. When FSA advertises that they've helped candidates land jobs at top companies, they're not kidding. While obviously not everybody will end up at Google, or whatever, it's also not just a couple of outliers that have made it into FAANG companies. (In NYC, Google in particular has taken an interest in FSA graduates and it's not uncommon for a few grads in each cohort to go through the interview process-- whether they make it in, or not, it's a great learning experience.) FSA is known for its academically rigorous curriculum and the quality of its graduates relative to other bootcamps, and companies that have hired from FSA are likely to do so again-- facilitated by an alumni network that feels loyalty to the program and helps graduates navigate the complexities of the job market. It's not uncommon as an alum at career fairs or tech events to name-drop Fullstack and see faces light up: "Oh, great! I've heard good things about them / I've worked with a Fullstack grad / My coworker spoke so highly of a Fullstack grad they’ve worked with," and so on.

After the program I planned a move to a new city in which there was a *much* smaller FSA alumni presence than Chicago or NYC. But the few alumni in my destination city more than made up for their small numbers with a willingness to help me understand the market and find companies where I might be a fit. Not long into my search, with lots of advice from alumni and and the career success team at Fullstack, I was able to land a wonderful position at a Fortune 50 company. And that definitely would not have been possible without FSA!

Bit of background about me before I dive in: I spent 6 years in the advertising field before making this career change, I attended the Grace Hopper Program in NYC, then got hired on as a Teaching Fellow afterwards at Fullstack. I finished my Teaching Fellowship in July, and just accepted an offer recently at my dream company!

When I used to do admissions interviews, I often get asked about my experience at Fullstack. Obviously I can't speak to how it compares against other coding bootcamps in the city, but what I can say is that when i was "bootcamp-shopping", I identified Fullstack, Hack Reactor and App Academy as the top bootcamps, but after reviewing graduation outcomes on CIRR and interviewing with all 3, I chose Grace Hopper @ Fullstack because of its superior CIRR outcomes and the fact that they don't have weekly Survivor-style elimination rounds like the other 2 bootcamps. 

Once I started at Fullstack, it was immediately apparent that EVERYONE there was committed to my success. There was an abundance of resources to help you succeed: custom workshop content, live-coding lectures, several Teaching Fellows (like TAs) who get assigned as your mentors, office hours for one-on-one coaching, extra lectures on Saturdays for those who need it, and a never-ending supply of additional study material (videos, articles). When I became a Teaching Fellow after graduation, I realized that this was fully-intentional; each Fellow would discuss how their group of students is doing, coordinating with instructors to make sure that lectures and assistance were tailored to their specific needs. They really leave no stone unturned.

Further, the staff maintains a startup mentality, in that they maintain an agile approach to their curriculum in response to student feedback. They regularly ask for feedback -- both on the staff memebers as well as the program itself -- and I've seen them implement them within only a few weeks.

I wouldn't in a million years regret my decision to spend this much money on a bootcamp. Before I joined, I was considering just doing a few nanodegrees on Udacity or going through FreeCodeCamp. However, there was no way those would be able to get me 1) live Q&A during lectures, since I have A LOT of questions, 2) tons of pair programming opportunities, 3) learning 5 new technologies in 1.5 months, and 4) a portfolio of full-blown applications and experience working in an agile team of developers, which I was consistenly asked about in my job interviews after graduation. 

Like other reviewers here said, going to a bootcamp, be it Fullstack or otherwise, might not necessarily guarantee you a job after graduation. It's not a silver bullet that will solve your life's problems. Like any other educational institution, the outcome you get will be positively correlated with how much work you put in. Be prepared to spend most of your waking hours thinking about, reading, and writing code. Work hard, but also work smart. Understand your learning style early on, as this is a bootcamp and things move at lightning speed. And most of all, don't forget to have fun :)