General Assembly

When I decided to make a shift from being a business analyst and database admin to more design and user-oriented work, I chose to take the General Assembly (GA) User Experience Design Immersive. Candidly, there may never be a perfectly designed boot camp for you, it's all about balancing trade-offs, which I think GA did well. In particular, huge credit is due to the passion and hard work put in by our instructors and their real-world experience anecdotes. We touched on the tools, processes, and job hunting skills necessary to help us be successful. Sure, for skills I was weaker at I would have welcomed a few more weeks of coursework to practice. At the same time, a few more weeks of unemployment weren't financially appealing, so I give GA credit for trying to hone in on the right course length to weigh those competing priorities. So, if you consider this program what should you expect? You will have a solid foundation as a beginner in the UX practice, and employers be interested in those skills but vary on how junior/senior a role they feel you qualify for as a result.

:::Curriculum:::UX is an ever-changing field and GA recognizes this very well. They are constantly updating their curriculum based on feedback from instructors, students, and industry trends. All of the topics and tools covered were relevant and helpful. Attending UX events or reading UX articles really demonstrated how much information I learned in the bootcamp. 
Building a portfolio was one of my key goals for taking this course. By the end, I had a couple of class projects that I could turn into a case study as well as a real-world client project. This final UX project gives students the chance to work with a real client and apply their newly acquired UX skills. It was definitely one of the highlights of the course in terms of experience and has yielded the engagement post-graduation.
:::Instructors:::Our cohort had 2 lead instructors and 2 Instructional Associates (IA). All 4 were amazing. They supported everyone in the class and showed so much empathy and understanding of things UX. The 2 leads had so much experience and would constantly use past anecdotes to reinforce the lessons. The 2 IA (former graduates) were always available for help and would provide amazing feedback and one-on-one meetings when needed. They understood what we were all going through and supported us during tough times. Yes, there will be tough times but know that you are not alone (see the next paragraph).
:::UX Friends:::Attending a GA bootcamp makes you a part of the GA network and it is big! I have met so many amazing people through networking and events. The immersive course is like a full-time job and after 12 weeks, you really learn a lot about your fellow designers. You learn about each other’s backgrounds and their unique stories. We had a former teacher, journalist, architect, food server, car salesman, and so much more. I am constantly amazed at how close our cohort was and is. Even today, we still keep in touch. Having this network is amazing and I love hearing about new success stories. 
:::Conclusion:::This course was tough. There is a lot to learn and do in 12 weeks. The toughest part will be finding a job after graduation. You will have enough knowledge to do UX but I have found that experience is essential. Your portfolio will look like a portfolio of a UX bootcamp graduate filled with school projects. You will need to figure out what is best to overcome this obstacle but it can be done. In the end, I would recommend the UX Design Immersive program.

Intro:In my experience, the online UXD Immersive was an amazing environment to learn the basic foundations of UXD. Don’t think however that going through a bootcamp is an easy and effortless way to make a career switch and a surefire way to score a UXD job post-course. The curriculum, instructors, and career coach give you the tools to become successful, but you need to go above and beyond to make the most out of it. 
Pros:Amazing learning environment. I’ve never been surrounded by such incredibly positive people before. Everyone in my bootcamp (instructors, career coach, and cohort) genuinely wanted to see everyone succeed and it was so refreshing to have people constantly rooting for you and lifting you up. I’ve always been really shy and never liked asking questions or speaking up in school, but the instructors and my cohort peers truly value everyone’s opinion, so I never felt embarrassed or too shy to ask questions. I also never felt any weird competitive toxic energy during my bootcamp (versus in the past where I’ve been in environments where everything seemed like a toxic competition). 
I also felt so supported knowing that my instructors were truly passionate about what they were teaching and were always there if you needed additional assistance. In the past during college and whatnot, I had so many dismissive professors where it seemed like they didn’t care about their students and I’ve never really enjoyed being in class so going into the bootcamp I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was so pleasantly surprised at how compassionate, honest, and supportive my instructors were. My cohort was about 35-40 people give or take (so I was a little nervous that I wouldn’t have a personalized experience), but I felt like the instructors genuinely cared about all of us and took the time to answer everyone’s questions.
Cons:You are taught design in a very formulaic academic way and your portfolio will reflect this and initially will probably really suck. This course teaches you UXD foundations, but understand that it’s easy to get caught up in adhering to GA’s very formulaic design methodologies when creating your design portfolio case studies and your work is going to scream “I just graduated from a bootcamp!”. The feedback given from instructors when critiquing your class projects tbh wasn’t as helpful as it could have been. During the course, it seemed like the instructors gave good feedback, but when I graduated and got feedback from design professionals outside of GA, that was a HUGE wake-up call. I feel like the feedback I received from instructors throughout the course on my projects and portfolio pieces were too easy and missed a lot versus when I sought outside opinions post bootcamp. I get that the instructors only have so much time to give feedback to all the students and that they’re tied closely to all of the projects they give out, but definitely, the most valuable feedback I got was from my networking calls after the course. Also too, when you present your projects during the bootcamp, your cohort peers also give you feedback, but this was totally unhelpful. Cohort peer feedback was totally unhelpful because a.) my cohort was just so nice and nobody wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings so it’d always be super positive, like “great job, good work!” without any actual critiques or room for improvement and then b.) we’re all students, so we didn’t really know how to properly critique a person’s design work or the small things to watch out for. 
Advice: IT IS ESSENTIAL to seek outside opinions once your portfolio and case studies are ready. After graduating on January 20th, I spent about a month and a half finishing up my portfolio and then setting up networking and portfolio review calls. I went on about 30+ networking/portfolio review calls during this time. I also was applying to jobs and not having any luck. After this initial first month and a half post bootcamp, I took about another month to really fix my portfolio based on all the feedback I had received. After updating and making revisions to my case studies and actual portfolio website, that’s when I finally started gaining some traction with job applications. Then I took another month applying to jobs, interviewing, etc… I applied to about 127 roles and interviewed at 10 companies (1 intern role, 1 part-time role, and 8 full-time roles). Then on April 28th I received my first full-time contract offer and took it. So overall my job hunt was about 3 months. What I found to help me be the most successful was that initial month and a half going on networking and portfolio review calls and really making my case studies to where they needed to be. The main case study that I would present during interviews was from the GA client project and I ended up doing 3 case study revisions on that and 2 additional UI revisions to the initial project. Definitely seeking outside advice and applying that to my portfolio I believe was essential to my success. 
Last Thoughts:It’s really all up to you on whether or not you succeed. Also too as far as career support goes, during the bootcamp you have “Outcomes” once a week. This was a lesson on things like writing cover letters, resumes, interviewing, etc… I didn’t find any of this information to be groundbreaking (but I suppose if you haven’t been in the job hunt situation in a long time this information could be helpful). For me I graduated college undergrad in 2018, so the process of writing cover letters, creating a resume, applying to jobs was all pretty fresh in my mind and felt familiar, but I can see if you’re someone who’s been in the workforce for a long time and haven’t had to write a cover letter in 10+ years, this could be helpful. Then post bootcamp you get a career coach. The career coach is there to answer questions and to guide you if you have questions, but they’re not going to hold your hand at all. I found my career coach Ruby really helpful because I knew I could rely on her to ask questions and to get her opinions on things. You need to actively utilize the fact that you have a career coach as a resource though, once again no one is going to do any work for you. 
Another point I wanted to make - why I chose GA over other bootcamps… I looked at other courses like Springboard, Designlab, Flatiron, etc… What made me choose GA is because I wanted that accountability factor of having to be in class 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week, and to really commit myself to this career switch. I think I would have really struggled to make this career switch if I had done a course like Springboard where you go at your own pace. I like being held accountable and having hard deadlines. Also having a cohort there to support you. GA's bootcamp price was worth it for me, I took out a loan for GA which was scary at first since I am still trying to pay off my undergrad loans. Also to note I am in a privileged position where I was able to quit my old job and move back in with my family so I wouldn’t have to worry about paying rent while doing this course and job hunting. So I’ve been fortunate enough where I haven’t had to worry too much about not having a job during these past 6 months of the bootcamp and job hunting since I’m living with my family, but if you’re someone who isn’t in the same situation, obviously the commit of GA might be too much. 
Overall if you realize that your success will be based on how much work you put in and the GA bootcamp will not guarantee a job, I think this could be a great experience for someone who wants to make a career switch into UX! Also overall too this whole experience has been incredibly positive and has made me much more confident in myself and feeling much happier and positive!

Before I go into detail, I want to make it clear that this is a 12-week course. You can't learn everything in 12 weeks. You should go into this knowing that you're going to pull all-nighters, cry, and become frustrated—but you have tons of support and resources available to you, so take advantage of it! I enjoyed GA's course. I feel like we learned all of the things that we'd want to learn from an instructor and not on our own. This is an incredibly fast-paced class. I was in the remote program due to COVID, and my course was M-F, 9-5. The work doesn't stop at 5. Expect your 40-hour week to actually be 80+. PROS: You'll be exposed to in-demand technologies, languages, and frameworks such as JavaScript, React, and Python. My class had 2 instructors and 2 instructor associates. We also had 2 TAs who spent their evenings with us for help 7 days a week. Everyone is incredibly supportive and knowledgeable. I never felt intimidated asking for help. You'll also have career support after the program ends. We had 4 projects to help build out our portfolio. One project was a group project, so I was able to work on a team and get that experience which is obviously useful in the real world unless you're working for yourself. You'll come out of the program as a full-stack engineer, and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. CONS: This is a 12-week course, so you're not going to be job-ready at the end. You're going to learn just enough to be able to continue learning the rest on your own. You've got to make extra time to practice, and you're going to get burnt out. This is a BOOTCAMP. I felt that the curriculum could've been structured a bit better. We hardly spent any time learning data structures and algorithms, which is the main thing that you need to ace during a technical interview. We only spent 1 week learning React, which is unfortunate since it's the most in-demand library in the industry. We also never went over hooks, functional components, or Redux. We only spent ~1 week learning Python—again very unfortunate since that's in-demand as well. I don't feel comfortable having Python as a language on my resume at this point. You'll want to blame the instructors, but please don't—they're doing what GA is telling them what to do. We also only had one mock technical interview—it would've been great to have more since that's very intimidating for new engineers. There wasn't really any focus on CSS frameworks, so you'll need to learn those on your own. GA reuses their course notes, which is expected... but many times they weren't updated. Generally speaking, it wasn't a huge deal until we got to PostgreSQL. You're encouraged to code along during lecture (muscle memory works!!), however, it's very fast-paced, so you're going to fall behind at some point, but that's what the notes are for. It was very frustrating when we were learning PostgreSQL, because our notes referenced SQLite. This was crammed into the week that we learned Python, so it was an absolute nightmare. The instructors even told us not to refer to the notes for PostgreSQL since the notes were wrong. It can't be that difficult to update the notes, right? When you graduate from this course, you'll be ready to apply for an internship, apprenticeship, or junior-level role. If you're in this because you think you're gonna make bank after 12-weeks, you should get on Glassdoor and check the salaries in your area for junior-level engineers. This isn't necessarily a con because you have to start somewhere, but just know that going into it. I wanted to review their Outcomes program separately. Outcomes is GA's career support, and you'll be paired with a career coach. It was frustrating to attend the Outcomes class during the week—and especially during project weeks. I wish the program would've been voluntary up until you graduate. The program is awesome and super beneficial to folks who have little to no job experience. You'll learn how to craft a resume and build out your brand, and you'll learn best practices for using LinkedIn and networking. However, if you've been working professionally for some time, you'll find this frustrating because you've likely been doing that already. That being said, once you graduate, the Outcomes program is so super incredibly helpful. You've got to meet certain criteria to remain in the program. Expect to spend around 20 hours a week applying for jobs. You'll also be expected to attend networking events. This is all up to you. You're not going to get handed anything, but you'll be coached and given the tools you need to be successful. You'll also have access to GA's direct job recommendation process. Essentially, they've got a Partnerships team that literally acts as a  Sales Team to find open roles for GA grads. If you meet the criteria for one, you can actually get a written recommendation for it. I know that I listed a ton of cons, but overall, it was a really great experience. I'd definitely recommend GA to anyone looking to make a career change. You can't do this by yourself. Just know that you have to continue doing the work after class ends. You've got to make time to practice during the week, and you can forget about self-care! But, you're going to have an amazing and supportive group of folks including the instructors, TAs, career coaches, and your entire cohort. You reap what you sow. To answer the burning question that you likely have—it took me 23 days to find a job as a full-stack web developer at a great company. I applied for 38 jobs, had 3 interviews, and had one offer. The offer that I accepted had a great starting salary for where I live (NYC)—it was more than what I expected and an awesome benefits package. I was very strategic about my job search, and for this particular job, I actually met all of the requirements because I had engineering experience prior to GA. For some folks, it might take a year to find a role, and that depends on tons of factors that GA may not even have control over such as your location and specific career goals. I'm very happy to have chosen GA, and I think that it's 100% worth the $15,000 price tag.

I registered for a digital course online thinking it will not be as good as going ot a class. What an amazing experience that was , when i end up finalising a project and having a wake up call on  even building my own business. GA have excellent teachers! the best in the industry , really passionate and entertaining no matter what. How hard is it to go back to school when you 've done it years ago. Well this is just incredible the way they manages a team of very different people - we all loved it! I really fnished the course thinking i can't beleive how much knowledge i gained in few weeks. I will recomment GA to anyone who wants to upskill, find a new purpose or even keep up to date with the market .

After being a stay-at-home mom for 5 years I wanted to reenter the workforce but wanted a career pivot. With a 15 year degree in marketing and graphic design I had a good background for UX but didn't know how to make the jump. On top of that, I needed a way to support myself since I was planning on getting a divorce. General assembly was the perfect chance to change my career into something that that I could support my daughter and I with. The program was intense but I couldn't have asked for better teachers and fellow classmates. It was a lot of work but I'm currently on the job search and General Assembly made my future a lot brighter in that regard. Anyone looking to radically change your life, buckle in.

I have always been interested in working with computers and after being surrounded by some amazing software engineering friends, I decided I wanted to delve deeply into coding projects and problem-solve just like them. Fast forward to my General Assembly experience, I graduated from the Software Engineering Immersive program where I developed skills in JavaScript, React, Ruby on Rails, and other technical skills that allowed me to build four projects over the course of the twelve-week full-time program. The amount of support provided during the program was absolutely amazing and next to none. I really felt cared for during the class with the instructors, teaching assistants, and classmates. GA is a wonderfully collaborative community. 
After graduating, my career coach Anna stuck by my side for an entire year until I got a job in tech (at General Motors as a Software Developer!). It took a little longer to find work due to the pandemic, but Anna and the entire GA community are extremely dedicated to seeing you succeed. I am extremely excited about my new job and will continue to grow and learn within the field of technology long after my experience with GA!

Easily the best career decision I've ever made.  The flexibility of the part-time program and depth of the curriculum make this a perfect course for someone with a full-time job who is looking to make a career change without having to leave their current role. 

The instructors were phenomenal—extremely knowledgeable/willing to answer questions, supportive and empathetic throughout the duration of the course, which was 6 months. There's a lot of work involved, but it's definitely worth it if you can hang in there and give a solid effort— I was recently hired as an engineer at a FAANG company!

GA was the best experience of my life, I had virtually no coding experience going into the program and came out with the vast knowledge I desired going into it and I loved every second of it. All of the instructors do a wonderful job from the get go setting expectations and guidelines and really help and support you through the course. Yes the course is difficult and fast paced but it is designed to get you job ready in 3 months and teach you all of the necessary skills, not just coding skills but all of the soft skills you need to succeed in this industry as well. The material is very challenging but it needs to be to get you job ready in 3 months, if you ever find yourself looking for even more of a challenge the instructors are always willing to find ways to help you push yourself even more. The job assistance portion of the course is wonderful as well, weekly meetings with your classmates and a career coach to go over how to break into this field from an employees perspective is invaluable. You also get 1:1 time with your outcomes coach to go over personal career goals as well. Overall I would recommend GA to every person in the world trying to break into tech, it changed my life in so many ways I cant even describe and I will always value my time there as a student.