General Assembly

     First, off I love GA. GA changed my life completely. I took part in the full-time web development immersive program and by far it is one of the best decisions I've made in my life. Never would I have thought I would be where I'm currently at in life.  

    My instructors at the DTLA campus are amazing and very dedicated to teaching and preparing their students for a job in tech. Of course, at the end of the day, it is all up to the students to put in the work and apply those skills. The curriculum is very well designed to take you to the level needed to be hirable after completing the course.
 
   As for the job search, it all comes down to you. It's a little hard at the beginning but once you have your foot in the door your in. Most tech interviews are the same so the repetition of interviewing helps in your favor. software engineers are in such high demand there are open positions everywhere in tech. The skills you learn at GA get you one of those positions but like I said its all up to you.

Once I had made the decision to change careers and become a UX Designer, I turned to General Assembly on the recommendation of a friend from London, who had worked with GA trained UX designers in the past. It was one of the best decisions I could have made. Changing careers can be a very stressful thing, and if it weren’t for GA I might have chickened out. Not only did the UXDi course equip me with the tools, language and skills required in the field of User Experience Design, but the “Outcomes” portion of the program completely prepared me for re-entering the workforce in my newfound circumstances. They provided an incredible support system and helped me navigate my career change in the best way possible. I was employed within 30 days of graduating, and made back my investment within months.

If you have an aptitude for human centered design and the willingness to be proactive and put in the work required, then GA can provide the tools to help you succeed.

Incredible instructor, engaged classmates, relevant material covered in course, and focus on building transferable skills

Instructor (currently, VP of Product for a health tech firm in SF) was great at facilitating a collaboration among students, and gave constructive feedback to each product team at the end of every day. He created a safe learning environment, and I plan to keep in touch with him for future Product Management job openings.

Job Prospects After Completion: Depends on YOU! It's up to you to keep your network fresh and informed regarding your career plans. GA will share some career resources with you, but they are not as helpful with finding a job as they could be.

I took the Digital Mkt accelerated 1 week course and in general terms I can say it was a great experience. It's definitely a lot of information to digest in 1 week and I think that the final presentation complicates even more the equation because by day 3 everybody is more focused on doing that, than on processing all the different topics. However, I think most of the relevant topics are covered, the teacher shows a lot of knowledge about digital marketing and the course is well structured. Additionally, the school is really nice and well located, plus is a great place to get to know cool people. Overall it's a great option but I would try to do the part-time instead.

I already work as a designer and just needed to learn a bit more about UX. Just wanted to let others know that I enrolled in their part time 10 week course and found it quite useful. Of course this is not a comprehensive career switching course and only provides a good starting point (you will need to do much more in the future on your own or through other programs), but it provides good basic knowledge about the field and skills needed.

I do not regret enrolling and think that the course helped me get a boost in my design career. Not life-changing, but the course is pretty good.

I'm 6 business days removed from the course and I have an onsite interview with Amazon on 10 days after I graduated for a Designer Role. I am going through a recruiting agency but it was the resume rebuild that the outcomes program helped me with and my portfolio that was also designed in class that helped set me up. I received some prep info from the recruiting agency; after hearing what the company is looking for, I am confident that I have learned the skills needed from taking UXDI course. The next step is the interview process and making sure that I articulate my process clearly, something that is also taught as part of the immersive course. GA stresses so much how important networking is, and through networking is how I was able to get this onsite interview, I didn't wait till after I was done with the course before networking. I started early and told friends, family and anyone else who asked "what are you up to these days" about how I was going to a design school and where I wanted to be after. So when this role became available, a friend of mine contacted me and told me they have a opening for the role. Granted I didn't get hired or had the onsite yet, what happened here alone is a testament to how important networking is and that is why GA stresses it so much. 

*Disclosure* I'm a very optimistic person, trying to find the lessons in every thing negative that happens so take that into consideration when reading my reviews. 

About the school itself, I had a great experience attending the course. I made new friends with talented people that I still keep in contact with. I was fortunate enough to be able to take time away from working so I can fully immerse myself into the course. I understand that there are bills that need to be paid but it is also a huge load of stress of your shoulders if you don't have to worry about working at the same time since the immersive course is a 9-5 kind of thing, I usually stayed a bit later and some days till 8pm when they kick me out working on projects and other things. 

The instructor we had was very knowledgable and experienced, he was able to answer every question we had in a manner that he didn't just hand us the answer, but asked thought provoking questions that would lead us to the answer. Theres an instructor assistant who was also very knowledgeable and welcome as well that we were able to bounce ideas off of. Their feedback was also constructive and provided valuable insight. They're not here to hold your hand but they will support you when and where they can. 

Some other benefits is that you could attend any workshop that was hosted at GA for free, and there was also a hackathon at the end of the program. It was a great experience working under pressure with people you've never met before. 

I feel like I benefitted from this course a lot and that it set me up to make the transition into the design field. The amount of work you put is what you'll get out of it to be honest, if you decide to put in as little as possible then of course you're going to benefit as little as possible. As RW3 would say, "the separation is in the preparation!" If you plan on taking this course, my advice is do everything as early as possible! If my resume wasn't ready to go right after I graduated then I wouldn't have been able to send it to the recruiter for my interview thats coming up. I also decided to code my own website using boot strap so that was a learning curve and took some time to polish as well (I'm still not done polishing it) but I started 2 weeks before class ended. 

The only con I have is that its tough to schedule a time with the Outcomes Person. Theres only 1 person for Seattle and she's awesome but getting that individual help takes some time. When I realized that this was going to become an issue, I started scheduling multiple 1on1s with her way ahead of time. 

Good Luck! 

General Assembly taught me enough to co-found and lead the technical development of my startup. Having tinkered around with some web development during uni (although studying Geology) I'd always been interested in coding but didn't have the confidence to make a career change. 

Fast forward a couple years to when I met Johnnie, a TA(teaching assistant) at GA. I hadn’t heard of General Assembly at this point and within a few minutes of speaking with him, I felt like the ‘dark arts’ of coding were being demystified and providing me with the confidence to look into these boot camps/courses more seriously. 

After a couple weeks of research and visiting a few different academies I felt that GA was the best of the lot with the most friendly team and well-varied curriculum for web development. I applied and was accepted after some code challenges and interview.

Day 0 - We meet the instructors, outcomes team and my classmates. WDI(Web Development Immersive) begun and I’d quit my job, oh sh1t this is real! 

The beginning of the course is there to create the foundations of your development knowledge with HTML, CSS and plain JavaScript with libraries like jQuery covered. It’s structured well with daily assignments + morning reviews that happen throughout the course and is a great time to see a different solution or get help on your own.

The middle of the course gets tough and found it really challenging though immensely rewarding as at the end of the day when your head feels it’s about to explode you begin to do stuff second nature that earlier on in the course you could not.  The group project also in this period was so much fun and the first glimpse into what working in a professional environment would be like albeit with your friends.

The end of the course like the middle was testing though at this point the training from the instructors kicks in. We’re not taught to learn the syntax or how quick you can write a function but how to problem solve, It’s perhaps the most crucial attribute a developer needs.

The final project which is normally done individually, I teamed up with a couple of friends that made it more fun but challenging as we dealt with git conflicts, way more code to ship and break. However writing our API ’s, integrating authentication and front-end logic became easier and we actually ended up with something that people couldn’t tell it’s been done by juniors (well at least someone not looking at our code haha).

1 - 3 students get picked to become a TA in the next course and for my cohort, I was lucky enough to have been chosen, which contributed twofold to my coding knowledge as when a student you see your problem vs a TA who sees the classes problems! Though not only my coding at this point was improved, my teaching/management skills that I’d ultimately be applying in my startup today called Bunk. If you're on the course and thinking about applying for the TA, go for it. 

Something I’ve not mentioned (in this rambly story) is the social aspect to GA. It was loads of fun with lots of time spent at the Black Horse || leman street tavern. Also due to the intimacy/circumstances of the course (we’ve quit our jobs to follow this idea), there's a real common ground for everyone to get along and am still chatting with classmates today. 

All in all the curriculum element was challenging but completely worth it. I was there to learn and what you put in with these sorts of things is what you get out. The support staff and instructors were awesome both when a student and TA, I couldn’t recommend this place highly enough for those thinking about becoming a web developer.

My background is in Anthropology and Architecture, and I have recently accepted an offer from a tech consultancy. It took me a lot longer (about 6 months) to get my first UX job compared to my classmates (some of them started working right after the course, and the majority got a job within 3/4 months). 

The course was very well structured with a mixture of lectures and practical tasks (done individually and in groups). Some of my classmates felt the topics were not as indepth, but as a complete beginner, I felt there was a good amount material to learn. It was a close-knit learning/working environment so by the end of the course, we got to know each others pretty well. We still meet up once in a while and would like to do it more often. 

The amount of career and personal development support suprised me. We received talks about insights of UX industry in London, tips on job search, and teamworking etc. In fact, teamworking is a major focus at GA, we worked in teams, we excercised agile ritual such as daily stand-ups and team retrospectives. In the first few weeks, we also had fun excercises that promote teamwork. 

Generally speaking, it was a very positive experience at GA and I'm proud to be part of the community. It was the best investment I have ever made so far. 

I studied at General Assembly from September 2017 through December of the same year. Education aside for a brief moment, I want to talk first of all about the class experience. The way the course is structured allows you to make friends very early on. As it continues you're shuffled around to get to know as many people in as great a depth as possible. It's a really welcomed consideration to the course itself.

The learning is done in the format of both lectures and practical work. After a lesson in Card Sorting (for example) you'll go away and prepare and work on an actual card sort with users for a piece of work that ends up in your portfolio. This type of learning, I find extremely beneficial as it lays the foundation in the theory and solidifies your knowledge by practicing it. In the environment of learning alongside your peers that you're forming relationships with, you're all able to learn at your own pace as well as help and be helped.

On a personal level, I experienced some problems outside of GA during my second week. They made it extremely clear to me that everything would be ok and they would do everything they could to support me through what was a difficult period during the course. This is something I'll always be eternally grateful for with them.

In January 2018 I was lucky enough to become the Teacher's Assistant for the latest set of students to enter the programme. To be given the chance to pass my knowledge on to a new group of individuals was something I was incredibly excited for. Having just gone through the program myself and knowing GA had acknowledged me as someone they felt could do the job, I honestly felt so proud I can't put it into words. The cheesiness of the sentiment really has no words.

For the 8 months, I was with GA (3 months education, 3 months working, 1-month interim, 1-month job support) I've developed such a great sense of achievement, unlike anything I've experienced before in other forms of education that rely on a graded system. GA provides something far more meaningful than a letter on a piece of paper. I've left their system of education with a portfolio to be proud of. Skills to find work and succeed in interviews. Ongoing support throughout my career. Encouragement to stay involved and iterate me to become as great a UX Designer as I want to be.

3 weeks after I'd finished my employment with General Assembly I was approached by a company to become the latest addition to their team. The staff has consistently checked in on me to see how things are going all the while remembering just where I am and the point I was at when we last spoke. This level of personal attention I find staggering.

In short, I can only thank General Assembly for everything they've helped me to achieve over this past year. It really has been the greatest year of my life to date.

I honestly did learn a lot at GA, and I felt like without it, I would not have made as much progress as quickly as on my own. My instructors were great, and everything went relatively smoothly. However, 12 weeks is not enough time to learn everything, even things they teach you in class you will have to probably go over on your own afterwards in more depth. But they definitely do a good job at getting you exposed and learning to write fullstack apps. My main gripe with GA is the career services/outcomes team. There isn't much help from them in getting a job. They just kind of go over your resume and cover letter over and over and over. There is a showcase after you graduate where you can show off to employers, but no one from my cohort got hired (we had some very bright/talented people too) so I don't know how effective it is. Not too many employers showed up as well. So you are pretty much on your own for the job hunt, and it sucks because the NYC tech market is hyper competitive (the most competitive after San Francisco) making it very hard to land that first job. TLDR: GA is a good program to get you started on your journey to becoming a developer, but definitely expect to keep improving and learning (and relearning) after the course is over, and don't expect much help from them with getting a job besides resume/cover letter tailoring.

As a UI designer with certain experience in the industry, I needed to keep up to date with the evolution of the profession, so I wanted to learn UX. I've tried several online-courses, that were just about learning theory. It didn't work for, I needed to find a course with a more practical approach.

After studying different options (even in different cities through Europe) I've decided to go to GA. It was more expensive but way more impressive in terms of curriculum. Honestly, that was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Why?

• 4 UX projects during 2,5 months (amazing practical experience!).
   
• Career support - a crazy amount of helpful tips&tricks for a job search.
   
• More and more companies are amazed by GA alumni and come back to GA to hire cool guys while they are still juniors.
   
• GA is not just another school, GA is a family. They support their grads no matter how long ago they've graduated. Moving to another city with GA campus? Come and say hi! And get a career support in your new city. 
   
• Great, interesting and highly motivated people. This a place where I met my friends.

So now I'm in love with UX and I'm in love with GA. Highly recommend!

I studied Art History at UCL and spent my 20s working my way through roles in arts organisations to become a Individual Giving Fundraiser at institutions including the Tate and the ICA. However, the came a point (when I turned 30 in fact!) where I realised I wanted to be much more hands on in my work ('build things') and explore other interests. I didn't think career change was a legitimate option until I was made aware of the existence of coding bootcamps! 

After researching my options in London (who knew there were so many!) I decided to go with General Assembly(GA) as I felt welcome and supported from the moment I enquired about the course. I committed to the GA Web Development Immersive and studied harder than I ever have for three months. The tutors were excellent and made themselves available after class to review any problem topics or to help fix bugs! My classmates were brilliant and were great at keeping each other motivated in the face of any challenges or moments of exhaustion!

The curriculum was huge and in three months we covered HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery as well as Angular.js, React, Node.js and Express in conjunction with MongoDB and a variety of npm packages. We completed four different projects, each with a different stack. The only thing missing for me in hindsight, would be that I wish I had spent more time practicing and reviewing fundamental JavaScript and programming concepts. It is one thing to know how to set up a React app but not much use if you haven't got your head around the basic JavaScript concepts and functions which make the framework so powerful. 

After graduating, thanks to the support of my classmates, tutors and the GA Outcomes Team, I was able to find a role as a Full Stack Developer at a start-up called JamieAi. I work on all our apps across the stack and continue to learn from brilliant colleagues and peers every day.