General Assembly

I finished up the SEI Flex course a few months ago and I'm so glad I made the decision to enroll in this course.  I was provided exceptional instructional support and I now have a strong foundation in some of the most popular languages and frameworks being used today.  I specifically learned JavaScript, Ruby, Node.js, Express, Rails, and React but I also believe General Assembly provided me with the tools to successfully teach myself any other languages or frameworks I might be interested in.  Finishing this course allowed me to reach my goal of successfully changing careers and I was able to land a software engineering job within 90 days of graduation.

Overall I do not regret my decision of taking my career to the next level by attending GA's 3-month Software Engineer Immersive Program. Although a had a CS bachelor's degree, I decided to invest in this program to step up my game into trending technologies like ReactJS and backend languages like Ruby and Python. I met some amazing instructors who polished and helped me sharpen my programming skills as well as design patterns. I truly believe I've learned fundamental skills that have benefited my career and aided me back when I was on the job hunt.  It's been around 3 years since I graduated and I am currently working as a Mid-level Software Engineer at a great parenthood startup. I also work as a part-time Instructor associate to bring my experience in the field to our GA students community. From my personal experience, I can say it took me around 3 to 6 months to land my first job after the program. I highly encourage new students that are seeking to step up their career paths in programming to deep dive into General Assembly's academic SEIR program.

I had an amazing experience with General Assembly's 3 month Software Engineering Immersive program. After a COVID-19 sabotaged my ability to attend college and work full time, I thought my dreams of breaking into the software industry were going to be seriously delayed. Fortunately, I was able to get enrolled in the three month immersive program and get my goals back on track for less money than I would have spent on my degree! 
It is still amazing to me to go back and look at my skill level when I started vs my skill level when I completed the program. I came into the bootcamp with a very basic understanding of html and css and I had maybe written a few lines of javascript in YouTube code alongs. But I really had no idea what I was doing. By the time I completed my capstone project, I was able to teach myself React Native, build a full-stack mobile application and get it launched on the Google Play Store in two weeks time. It was invaluable to be able to tackle the challenges of learning to code with a group of like-minded individuals who were just as hungry as I was to make a life out of software development. I felt continuously supported by the great instructional team with GA and when I found myself ahead of the pack a few times, the instructors were quick to provide additional challenges and goals to allow me to keep growing as quickly as I could. The single most valuable thing I think I gained from my experience was a strong software engineering foundation that allows me to learn whatever technologies I want with confidence. 
I considered a number of bootcamps before deciding on General Assembly and I think the deciding factor was the proven track record that GA has for consistently giving their students the skills they need to land that first job. If you are wondering where you should go and are overwhelmed by the variety of choices, look no further. You will not regret the decision to enroll at General Assembly!

5 stars for General Assembly, where I found my calling as a UX designer!  There is so much to recommend - from the subject matter to the collaborative learning environment.  The Outcomes support (career coaching) was a game changer in confidence-building and helping me to set realistic expectations and goals. It's clear that instructors and career coaches work together to provide the most up-to-date guidance based on industry trends. Class projects are designed to set you up for success when putting together a professional portfolio, and there is a whole unit devoted to building that portfolio.  The instruction is designed for universal learning - ideal for those of us with learning disabilities.  And lastly, and maybe most importantly, the commitment to diversity in the classroom is an enormous strength.  I learned just as much from my classmates and peers as I did from my wonderful instructional team.

I am recent grad of the User Experience Design Immersive (UXDI) program at GA! First off, let me just start by saying that the experience was incredible and totally worth it!

Remote learning is extremely difficult. I imagine that remote teaching is just as tough, if not more. Teaching adults and keeping them engaged, is an especially added challenge. The instructional team of my cohort took those challenges with stride, and went above and beyond to cultivate a healthy and exciting virtual classroom environment. Shout out to Zach Thomas, Javi Calderon, Daijah Reese, and Johnson Cobb from Washington, D.C. They are the REAL DEAL! The dream team! Through and through, they each exude the core quality of a true UX designer--empathy. As a student, I had no doubt that they had a genuine interest in my well-being and success in this course. The classroom experience that they created is the epitome of authentic user experience design. It was beyond evident that each element of our classroom experience had been implemented with careful consideration, creative thought, clear intent, and passion. The discussions that we had were very interesting and engaging- very cool, real-life, relevant illustrations. They were also very conscious of our screen fatigue, and offered regular breaks so we have a chance to stretch and be refreshed. I super appreciated the special attention to mindfulness with the creative exercises and feedback sessions. The coffee time and morning meditations were a nice, considerate touch. I was also very grateful for the constant humor and interpersonal interaction between the instructors and students. The visuals that they'd incorporate were super helpful (GIFs, memes, video/movie clips, TED talks, etc). I always looked forward to our new unit projects, because my instructor gamified them and wrapped up our unit with a mini “award ceremony” and recognitions. I loved our weekly group activities, they were usually low-intensity, fun, and allowed our group members to connect and learn together. I was told in the beginning of the course, that what I get out of this course is totally dependent on what I put in. And it's so true! I think that also applies to the instructional team. I believe what the instructors put in heavily influences, and I would even say directly influences, the outcomes of the students in the course. 

Some general observations about the course:

• I'm social, and didn't want to do a self-paced, independent course. GA's live, virtual courses were a great substitute to in-person classes. I thought I would struggle with it, but it was surprisingly refreshing and  actually one of the best courses I've participated in, including in-person high school/college courses.
• Career Foundry vs GA. I tried Career Foundry for a week or so, and I switched to GA because I wasn't motivated to do so much independent study. Career Foundry is chock-full of great resources, they have mentors available for you to meet with regularly, but the bulk of your time is spent independently reading and watching videos. There is a forum/community of other students that you are able to connect with, but I did not find it to meet my needs. The pro about Career Foundry is that you set the pace-you can go as slow or quickly as you like, and maintain a job while studying. For GA's UXDI course, it's a twelve week, full-time program, and therefore impossible to maintain even a part-time job if you want to be successful. The course offers live instruction, and the opportunity to build wonderful relationships with your classmates. There are several resources made available to you throughout the course  to help you succeed. I think the human element is invaluable. Each week there is a 2 hour session with "Outcomes" that assist you with preparation for post-course job-seeking. 
• GA's UXDI was $14,950 compared to Career Foundry's $6,900. This is a big difference, but totally worth it for the experience, relationships, and resources/tools you gain. 

I was hesitant to go to General Assembly due to having a poor experience at a coding bootcamp in Utah. Due to that experience, I felt jaded by the whole bootcamp experience and assumed they were all the same, that it would be just another revolving door. Come to find out, that was the furthest thing from the truth at GA. I asked a lot of questions to the instructor and to the people at the finance department. I really pressed on them and they answered my questions genuinely and was not trying to pitch or sell me their product, which are the bootcamps. Instead they gave me the facts, the stats, and data that I needed to see to confirm my choice in going there. I went through their UX design immersive program in Denver, and it was one of the best decisions I have made in my life. The teacher has real world experience working in UX and web development. He has a background in teaching and made the course easy to understand and digestible. He was always available to talk and provide sound advice. The projects we worked on also helped me get a head start in my career search. The career coaches have been phenomenal and have provided me great feedback which essentially helped me get a job in UX. I am happy with the results I have gained here and I have already earned a return on the investment I have made here at GA. 

Prior to starting the Software Engineering Immersive Remote (SEIR) programing at General Assembly, I didn't know what to expect. When you google bootcamp reviews the results coming back tend to be all over the place from reviews that are very bad to reviews that are nothing but outstanding. Through my experience, I'll provide an unbiased review highlighting the aspects I enjoyed and what I think needs improvement. 

General Assembly wasn't the first school I reached out to and in fact I had a very poor experience speaking with the admissions department at a GA competitor who didn't want to give me more than 20 her time. Speaking with Zack in admissions from GA was a completely different experience in the best way possible. Zack took his time answering all my questions to ensure I was making the correct decision. He was in constant communication with me throughout the entire application process so that there was no question as to what happened next. One thing to note is that General Assembly offers the choice learning Ruby/Ruby on Rails or Python as the backend language and framework. I was speaking to a few of my classmates a couple weeks into the program and they didn't realize they had the option of learning a different backend because no one mentioned it.

The class pre-work was well written and the program they use was quite good however, I don't feel like the pre-work prepared me for the class in any way, shape, or form. I feel like the pre-work is written for someone who has previous experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; rather than who's learning about it for the first time. Now the teaching platform used is extremely well written and easy to use but I think the prep should have been based more on the foundations and fundamentals of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

The Software Engineering Immersive Remote course is a full stack software engineering program that teaches the MERN stack and the course is broke up into 5 units. Everything is taught by two main instructors and two instructor assistants. Coursework is heavy and moves at a very fast pace. Class is a mix of lectures, code along, and lab but the lecture isn't the boring type like you might think. The amount of information you take in on a daily basis and the amount of information you're expected to retain is probably more than you're used to. It wasn't till half way through my first project that I actually felt like I knew what was going on and I felt like I was trying to keep up with everything till that point. You're going to have days and weeks where you feel like you can't keep your head above water. I constantly felt behind. And before you know it, you're turning in the final project. Instructor assistants were quite helpful after school and on the weekends when they host office hours. My instructors helped when they could but both taught multiple classes each day. My instructors both referenced their real life work experience with what they were teaching and that was awesome to know.

Now for what I think can be improved. First and foremost the pre-work should be focused towards fundamentals and foundation building. I would add an additional week to the first four units, extending the course by an entire month. This would slow the pace of the course down enough to where retaining information learned becomes much easier and the student will be more comfortable with what they're learning. I had two great instructors but they were vastly different in how they approached teaching and some days I feel like they didn't know what the other instructor taught the previous day. Communication could have been better between the instructors. The full stack course does teach the backend but it's definitely front end heavy. At this point, I wouldn't hesitate to take a job as a frontend or full stack developer however; I wouldn't be confident taking a job as a backend developer after taking this course.

Outcomes is what General Assembly calls their career support so far it's been quite helpful. They offer mock interviews, Linked In, and resume building. I've only been with outcomes for a couple weeks but they've been quite helpful so far.

Overall I had a solid experience and learned a TON of information in a short amount of time. I wouldn't hesitate to take another course through General Assembly in the future and honestly, I may go take the UX/UI course down the road.

Overall I do not regret my decision to attend GA.  I met some amazing people, and feel that I learned skills that will benefit me in my career change.  It's been 10 months since I've graduated and I still do not have a job.  The timing of when I finished school (right at the start of COVID) definitely affected employment, but I do feel like administration was a little misleading when it came to how soon I could expect to find work and gave somewhat unrealistic expectations about that process (I think they told me the average student is employed within 3 months of graduation).  The payment program is helpful through and it is nice to know that I don't have to pay anything back until I am employed full time.

You get out of this immersive what you put into it. I dedicated myself to listening intently to and participating in the in-class exercises then often put in 10-20 hours of work outside of class each week to get ahead and immerse myself beyond what GA offered. This dedication and commitment to participation helped me leave GA with a perfect score and rave feedback from my instructors. As far as luck goes, you can't pick your instructors, my cohort had friction with one of ours, and there were a lot of students very unhappy with their experience due to that one instructor's performance. I totally understand how they felt, but I approached the situation with the attitude of, "listen, you can't pick your coworkers out in the real world, and sometimes it's going to suck, but make the best of it you can!!" I'd do another immersive with GA. I don't think you'd regret doing one as long as you are 100% dedicated and committed to success! Also, outcomes (career) support is BOMB AMAZING!!! Having someone on your side through the job seeking process is invaluable. That is a fantastic cherry on top! Shout out to my amazing outcomes coach Chelsie!

I have had an overall positive experience with General Assembly's courses so far. I completed the Front-End Development remote course and it really prepared me for the next course I'm currently in, the Software Engineering immersive course. I'm currently in Unit 2, the course is very fast paced, but the instructors and TA's are incredibly helpful. The office hours and just your fellow classmates on slack are always open to help each-other, I've had study groups with multiple different classmates that have really helped me through some tough homework. The amount of homework assigned each week isn't as intimidating once you start understanding what you're learning. It's been great so far, I'm very eager to complete the program and start my new career as a Junior Full Stack Software Engineer.

 What background in coding did you have prior to the course?

• I came into my course having already coded a decent amount in my life. It was all hobby-based, but I felt pretty comfortable with HTML and CSS, as well as the basics of JavaScript. At the behest of some friends who were already software engineers, I also followed the advice I mentioned above, and tried to take advantage of AS MUCH free learning as I absolutely could. So for probably 2-3 months before I even enrolled in my Bootcamp, I took advantage of some sales on Udemy and bought some Stephen Grider React courses and learned as much as I could about the MERN Stack (MERN meaning MongoDB (your document database), Express.js (your Node.js web framework), React.js (your client-side JavaScript framework), and Node.js (essentially your JavaScript server). If I had time, I would have loved to have learned even more beforehand. Two main reasons for all of this: 1.) you get to test the waters and see if you even enjoy being neck-deep in a text-editor writing code! It’s not for everyone and that’s okay! 2.) and just-as-importantly… Most modern coding languages are just off-shoots of other languages. Many, many, many front-end languages are built on top of JavaScript/HTML/CSS. So, having a really solid fundamental understanding of these languages will do nothing but make learning the more difficult languages/concepts/frameworks THAT much easier. I personally don’t feel that it is possible to over-prepare for something like a bootcamp for these specific reasons.

Has the instruction been thorough or are you googling a lot?

• Slightly loaded-question. I have LOVED my instructors. Incredibly knowledgable, empathetic, caring people who have bent-over-backwards to make sure that as many of the students in my cohort are equipped to succeed in a professional SE role post-bootcamp. The class moved kinda slowly at first, but picked up speed VERY quickly. The communicated goal was to teach us the 20% we would need to know in order to accomplish 80% of the work we would be doing. All of that to say that they, inherently, can only teach us so much in ~13 weeks. Thus, a huge focus quickly became teaching us how 1.) ask the RIGHT questions and 2.) how to scour Google or StackOverflow or wherever for answers. So… Both? The two core instructors for our cohort are very thorough, but a skill of being an effective software engineer is ultimately just problem solving, so you’ll definitely have plenty of situations where Googling a particular error or what-have-you is a must. Again, just part and parcel of being a developer.

 
What material haven't you get that you wish you had (not sure if you have a sense of that yet)?

• Not sure I have a great answer for this one, but there are definitely things that I had to put time toward myself because we just patently did not cover them in class. Immediate things that come to mind are the core computer science pillars of data structures, algorithms, design patterns, and code-testing. We touch on each of the above in class, but I was not prepared for any of these appearing in technical interviews based on class. GA could definitely do a better job here, but 1.) there admittedly just isn’t enough time in 13 weeks of class and 2.) they did point me at resources, I just had to tackle them in my own time.

 
Why'd you choose this program over other programs?

• Languages. I spoke to a lot of friends who were Software Engineers already, before I ever even really truly considered enrolling. They pretty much all told me the same thing: focus on what languages they’re teaching and how they support you on the job-front. GA is pretty solid on both fronts I’d say. Their tech stack is ultimately what pulled me in (we started with HTML/CSS/JavaScript to learn front-end development; then moved to full-stack and learned MongoDB, Express, Node.js, and others; then focused on drilling-down into front-end frameworks such as React; then finally learned API-driven development and kinda tying it all together, learning Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SQL, and how to make those work nicely with our frontends). Their Get You Hired Team (GA calls this “Outcomes”, which I’d say has been a little lackluster… but most of my issues with it could be tied to the fact that the entire team for my cohort is based out of DC. So they’re all crazy knowledgable, but I don’t know. There’s only so much they can do from a distance and during a global pandemic). For reference, I also seriously considered HackReactor, Flatiron School, and Turing School.

 
What have been the best and the worst things about the experience?

• The best has been discovering a new love and passion, honestly. I absolutely adore what I do at this point, but BOY was it tough. Like, anyone considering a bootcamp just needs to be really, really honest with themselves and set realistic expectations. You are trying to learn an entirely new career field in 13 weeks – IT IS NOT EASY. There is an OBSCENE amount of information — and often incredibly dense, convoluted information at that. Once again, it IS NOT EASY. I drive that point only because we 100% lost multiple people from our cohort because it was just a lot more than they were expecting. A totally normal day for me was to be in class from 8am to 4pm (with breaks here and there + a longer break for lunch), take a power nap immediately after, and then grind on homework for 4 or more hours. That time is important too, because your homework is really your only chance to practice, and if you’re not practicing every day to some degree, you’re just making it harder on yourself. Then there was probably longer homework for the weekend, or a project, or whatever. Just wanting to be totally clear: I ate, slept, and breathed code because that’s kinda what it takes to make it through a bootcamp like this (again, just my opinion).

What kind of time are you putting in outside of class?

• Not to be a broken record, but this will require a huge amount of time. I spent 500+ hours just IN-CLASS over my 3-ish months. With homework, there was generally the expectation that you would put at LEAST 4 hours toward it. If you got it done, awesome; if not, you should probably get sleep rather than throwing more than 4 hours at homework. We also had 5-ish “projects” over the course of the class. I couldn’t even begin to estimate the time I sunk into those, but we generally had 1 week of self-led work-time to finish each of those. So, ideally, you really want to have a deep interest in coding and the technologies at play with whatever you’re building. Otherwise, it just becomes difficult to stay motivated. Again, just my .02.

 
Are things working out with the fully remote covid plan? Are teachers accessible and approachable?
• Best as can be expected, I think? I would have preferred to be in-person, but remote learning hasn’t been nearly as drastically different as I kind of expected. You meet in your Zoom classroom everyday, anyone/everyone is only a Slack message away, my instructors were both always really good about hosting regular office hours + responding to random requests for help or insight. I also was still able to make a bunch of friends which I would 1000% recommend. The people in your cohort are quite literally the only one’s who will understand the depth of what you’re going through. It’s an experience that really brings people together, in my opinion. There are people I will most definitely keep in contact with after the Bootcamp.
 
Hopefully the above wasn’t too much or too overwhelming. I am 1000% a proponent of a bootcamp like GA offers, I just think everyone should know that it is, unavoidably, a massive undertaking. But you will get out what you put in.