General Assembly

Enrolling in the SEI program at GA was the best decision I've ever made. The staff at GA are wonderful, and the instructors are super knowledgeable, and more importantly happy to help you with anything. I think anyone with a poor review of GA wasnt there for the right reasons, it's not high school or university, you dont have to be there, you chose to go. Those that make the most of the resources there are the ones that will be successful. There's a lot of course content and it moves very fast so dig in and get ready to learn.

I have been thinking about changing my career to software engineering for a long time. This year I have decided to join General Assembly and I  honestly I don’t regret it, the teaching system and the projects helped me to learn and further understand multiple technologies to be able to make beautiful sites. The campus is spacious, just ideal for you to learn and there are always people available if you have questions.

 The job-support at the end of the course is unique, helping you to brand yourself and shine from other applicants. Definitely, the best way to start as a developer.

 

My experience with General Assembly started off very rocky. I'm not your traditional student just looking for another class they can take for the experience. I wanted to learn a new skill for a career change. I think that goal was met; however, I am still looking for employment in the field. I've joined a few Meetup groups and went to one conference, so I'm going to keep trying. 

I also got a moment to speak with other designers and learning the process isn't enough. You need to learn code. I know that as a UX Designer/Researcher, you shouldn't have to learn code, but I've noticed that employers don't really understand what we do so if you don't fit the minimum application requirements you are out of luck. I really was hoping that there would be help getting your portfolio together, but there was nothing. To be quite frank, if you are looking for more case studies to put on your portfolio (btw, if you take the online cohort they will not help you with this) you will have to go with a longer class (i.e. DesignLab, Springboard, etc.). They give you more ways to present your work. We only had the option to work on a responsive site or a mobile application (10 weeks vs 9 months).

If you are committed to working on this class at least 20 hours a week...you'll pass. My TA took a while to get back to us with grades, but he makes himself available for you if you ask. The instructor will also. In my opinion, the instructors made the experience for me great. They will answer any questions you may have about being in the field. The class is very interactive and you are allowed to critique your peers.

Advice for GA would be to make the job assistance available for all students and add coding to your course. For those that come from a completely different industry, this would help tremendously.

General Assemb.ly Software Engineering Immersive Online Boot Camp was an incredibly amazing experience.  It opened my eyes and mind to many parts of web site design, development, and maintenance. I learned many languages, frameworks, libraries, stacks, and computer science fundamentals.  Through the course, we built web sites, made functions, had solo and group projects. The amount of information blasted into my brain was equivalent to drinking from a firehose.  After completion, I have a few sites for my portfolio under my belt and a firm grasp of the basics and more for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python3 as well as a new way of using the computer itself through the command line and sites like GitHub, Netlify, Mongo Db and Heroku.  They have the outcomes program also, which helps mold your online presence and offers resume help and so much more. This program extends after the class is over and is available until you land your new career role. 

Although I was previously new to UX design and the tech field in general, GA staff were very thoughtful and welcoming from the beginning. My admissions producer responded to my initial inquiry immediately and answered all my tough questions. She stayed in touch with me as I completed the pre-work, and I never felt disoriented despite all the new information and procedures I was learning. 

The pre-work was an excellent guide to what the course would entail, and I came in with strong conceptial knowledge. Nonetheless, I was challenged above and beyond my expectations (in a good way), and I feel confident that I understand both the 'hard' and 'soft' skills needed to be a successful designer. 

My instructors were extremely personable and made themselves available whether I had a smaller question or larger concern. They even allowed me the space to vent on two occasions. During project work, they gave us the freedom to explore our individual interests (as they related to the project) -- along with the freedom to fail (and learn from it). I can only imagine how difficult it is to navigate 19 beginners through 4 rounds of client work, but they did it. 

The Outcomes staff were direct, nuanced, and efficient with thieir comments on my resume, portfolio, cover letter, and other career-related materials. I learned almost as much from their tutelage as I did from my content instructors (and I'm still learning). As someone who has spent a long time unemployed/applying cold, my confidence has increased enormously as a result of Outcomes support. I now have a comprehensive strategy and organizational system for my search. 

Overall, if you choose to take an immersive course at GA, know that you will learn a ton and be handled with care. At the same time, be sure to clear your schedule for the 10-12 weeks of the program (and beyond if you're immediately seeking a job thereafter). Do not take the commitment lightly. What you put in is largely what you get out. If you put in everything, you will get everything you expected -- and more. 

I found the GA UX Research & Design PT Course very enjoyable. I learned a lot and I feel that the curriculum gave me a solid understanding of the UX Research & Design process from end to end. Marcella was a great teacher and made all of the concepts understandable and applicable to where we all were in our professional careers. She was always available for extra help and advice which I really appreciated. It was a lot of work and in my opinion required more of a time commitment than the course syllabus suggested. Because it is a PT class it moved very quickly which caused me to get behind a few times throughout the course. I also found the curriculum to be a bit disjointed and unorganized.  This is primarily because the online pre and home work did not seem to match up with the 2 day a week in class schedule. There were a few times I had to go back and review because sections were out of order. Overall, it is a good course that would definitely be 5 stars with some fine tuning. 

Through my experience at General Assembly (note, when I started, it was still Bitmaker, but in effect, the content was General Assembly approved), I was able to land my first data science role.    While the industry is hiring Sr. Data Scientist engineers, and Sr. Data Scientists, breaking in is difficult for more entry-level Data Analyst/Scientists. However, I do like how there are Data Scientists who come from a variety of backgrounds, from social sciences, cognitive sciences, to mathematics.   On this journey, I’ve had a lot of support from my General Assembly instructor (Max is one of smartest, and also most effective teachers), career coaches and classmates.    Note, your mileage may vary based on your instructor, or peers (to drive discussion and helping each other). I was lucky to have one of the best. Our instructor worked at two local start-ups before joining General Assembly, so he had real experience. Additionally, he often presented at conferences like Pycon and abroad. This is the by far the reason why I am rating General Assembly so high, it’s because you gain access to an instructor who can teach the material better than online materials. Anyone can find a Jupyter notebook on Random Forests, or youtube video on Neural Networks, but to get insights from an Engineer who has written production code, and has advice about ‘flex’ topics like why Docker, cloud computing, and a better way of approaching a problem is invaluable.   Choose your boot camp based on your instructor. That’s the differentiating piece. Go to an info session, and ask him/her questions.   Coming from the software industry previously, the inclusiveness and culture were great, but not a differentiator for me. I’d imagine Brainstation being similar. But those guys were way too sales-y while recruiting, which is why Brainstation turned me off. The syllabus was a bit less relevant too.   To close I’d like to highlight two areas of improvement.

• It’s a jam-packed 12 weeks, but if there was a way to embed more data engineering, software engineering by removing some of the less relevant algorithms, I think that would be better time spent.
• Career support is great, but let’s raise the bar for those who have already worked in the industry. The general advice is table stakes (geared towards interns and university students), so it would be more valuable to have real data scientists, and data engineers provide advice on how they recruit, and perform whiteboard interviews. The network of alumni is growing, but the corporate partnerships engagement is weak as far as student employment is concerned. The career coach is working hard on early conversations with Telus Digital and MaRS, but at this point, there’s no real pipeline to feed students into those programs. Bet on yourself to find jobs rather than rely on employers knocking on your door on demo day. Set your expectations appropriately.  

I took the part time Front-End Web Development course from February 2018 to April 2018 as my plan was to move into the Software Engineering Immersive, which I am currently taking. 

I really enjoyed the front-end development class as I got to learn a lot of HTML, CSS and an intro to Javascript and JQuery. We were able to put together a lot of smaller projects and site mockups. Also, even though I have never had experience in any coding, javascript and jquery were a little difficult for me to grasp but in my SEI class, I picked up on everything MUCH quicker because of my previous exposure.

I've just completed the 10-week part-time course in Data Analytics and found the experience to be highly valuable.

As virtually a total beginner in Excel, SQL and Tableau prior to the course, I found the material and the pace of learning to be quite challenging and demanding. However, provided you are able to allocate the required time outside the classroom teaching and commit yourself to learning the content, the pace of study leads to the acquisition of a wide range of skills in a relatively short period of time.

The course material provided isn't perfect, which sometimes requires a degree of independent problem-solving and perserverence, but that in itself can be quite useful when it comes to utilising the skills being learnt week-to-week.

I found our teacher and teaching assistant to be extremely helpful and dedicated to helping the class and individuals follow the material and reach their potential.

Overall, I would highly recommend General Assembly and the Data Analytics course, provided you have adequate time in your week to dedicate the hours required. I was in-between jobs when I did the course and would have found it difficult to get as much out of the experience as I did had I also been working full-time. 

Doing the Web Development Immersive (WDI) program at Santa Monica was probably one of the best career decisions I've made. First of all, what struck me about GA was their international presence, being located around the world. Also, the fact that GA offers courses in a variety of fields, whether it's Web Development, UI/UX, Digital Marketing, also attracted me to them as I was able to take workshops in those subject areas as well. It was also a great learning experience getting to meet people and learn from the other students doing the other immersive programs such as in Data Science and UX.

My background prior to doing the web development immersive program was that I already had a degree in computer science and an entry level job as a web developer. But I still decided to do GA to learn new technology stacks and have a more solid foundation (particularly in Node.js, React and Mongo since I was only familiar with Ruby on Rails at the time). Even with this prior background, I was still able to learn a lot and push myself out of my comfort zone. The beauty of the program is you get out of it what you put into it no matter what your background is.

My instructors and peers were probably some of my favorite aspects of my experience there. The instructors and TAs were very helpful during class and after hours and taught very well with their use of analogies. The people in my cohort also provided a very encouraging and fun learning atmosphere and we all still keep in contact to this day, where some of us actually work together at our jobs.

Our outcomes producer also did a really good job helping us get our resumes and cover letters ready and provided good advice on how to market ourselves with the Do's and Don'ts. However, at the end of the day, we're responsible for our success in the job application process depending on how hard we push ourselves in putting ourselves out there and preparing for job interviews.

Overall, what I really liked about GA is the network that you get yourself into. I was able to travel to different General Assembly locations around the world, attending different events and seeing how the GA community and vibe is similar everywhere. Being a GA alumni also puts you as a part of the large network that significantly opens more doors and career opportunities worldwide.