General Assembly

General Assembly takes great care in its students and courses to give the best experience as possible. Through out my 12 week immersive course they taught and reinforced their lessons to make sure you knew the material. Through General Assembly I learned leadership and coding skills that have allowed me to land my first software Engineering role at Verizon. I can’t say a bad thing about my experience with General Assembly in NYC as I still today have friendships with my classmates and teachers. If you are looking to be challenged, and making a change, then General Assembly is the perfect place to start your journey into software engineering. Read less

The course is very thorough and thoughtful on how to teach students what data analytics is and how to use differernt tools to solve each type of real life problems.

I found it very hands on and being able to get feedback from instructors also made it that much better for improvement!

Def recommend!  Read less

Instructors

Many of the instructors are recent grads themselves. In one way, this is smart because it ensures that information is new and relevant, and you aren't being taught deprecated or soon-to-be deprecated material (out-of-date, no longer supported). The bad side to it is you aren't going to get help with things outside of their experience, compared to an institution that hires instructors that are seasoned in their fields.

Feedback on deliverables (homework that you're expected to turn in) is going to be random. At first, feedback comes consistently, but as the course gets to around the halfway mark the instructors just stopped providing feedback. Even a month past grad, I am still waiting for feedback on my last three projects (out of 4). At this point, I am 100% sure I'm not going to get any.

Curriculum

The curriculum is good enough to serve as a solid foundation for your journey into the world of programming and depending on how well you picked it up, even land a job soon after completing the course. They do their best to at least ensure that the curriculum is modern and up-to-date or at least still valid. They teach you enough that you can confidently build a web application from scratch on your own by the end of the course. However, there are some caveats.

Sometimes the course material is too new, and the instructors themselves haven't gone through it themselves prior to the course. So help in these materials is going to depend on instructor experience. In most cases, they won't automatically know the correct answer to a problem but will help you troubleshoot. For my cohort, the last project had three options that have never been done before, they were new to the course. None of the instructors had any experience or knowledge about the subject, and as such, was a mutual learning experience for both student and instructor.

Overall

Most of the cohort was great for me. Other than the lack of feedback (which I suppose the instructors just felt I didn't really need). However, because of a situation another student has had, I can't in good conscience give the instructors high ratings. In the last couple of weeks of the course, he had gotten COVID and was unable to complete the final project (per policy, in order to graduate you have to complete and meet the minimum requirements of each project). The instructors and up would not give an exception and thus would not let him graduate.

COVID or no COVID, they should have either just excused him from the final project or worked out some kind of arrangement that would let him turn in the final project post-grad. It was wrong to say the least. Read less

As I said in the title this course is simply fantastic. 

It is well structured with a project that you work on along side learning the theory. This really embeds what your learning and gives you a solid foundation to understand Product Management.
Course content that was provided is also really useful to take away. I did this course via distance learning and although it is an intense week, all the tools provided worked well and I never felt I was missing out. 
I would highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to work in Product management.  Read less

My experience was overall outstanding. I got a great education, lots of follow up material, and the ability to practice my skills as a product manager. I'm excited to see where my career takes me from here. I do wish there were more resources to help with resume shaping and product management interviews. Read less

Pros

• Lots of Technologies to Learn
• Staff was very friendly
• Free Coffee, Tea, Food (Sometimes)
• 300Mbps+ internet
• Can be used as Co-working space after leaving the Program
• Local Instructor and Instructional Associates were dedicated to the classroom

Cons

• Loud events sometimes on Weekdays
• Sometimes Cohort Leaders sent to help out at another room
• Some instructions on GitHub Enterprise (repositories for classwork) need to be updated
• 40 hour prep work was inadequate for less experienced students

Advice to Management

• Leaders of each Cohort/Team should spend all of their time for 12 weeks of a Cohort, not being forced to jump to others randomly in-between
• Pre-work should contain an additional 30 hours of prep work (70 hours total) in Ruby/Python that focuses on Object-Oriented Programming:  Abstraction and Encapsulation, Classes, Inheritance, Polymorphism

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I've completed the 1 week digital marketing course and I'm so glad I've done it. This is the second course I've done with GA and they are always very well organised and have fantastic teachers. It's never dull learning with GA, thank you! They provided different learning mediums to ensure everyone is catered for, which being dyslexic I really appreciate. They could have done more in the pre-communication to make sure I was fully prepared and organised for the class. So just make sure you ask how to best prepare in order to get the most out of the course a few weeks before hand.  Read less

General Assembly created a very easy-to-follow workflow for the classes. It was a very 'hands-on' approach, where we could put into practice all we learned. A very good comprehensive course, yet easy to follow. The instructors were phenomenal! Since they are real professionals working with the topics on a daily basis, they could give us a real insight into the professional day-by-day scenarios and examples. They were always available for that extra support as well. I'm really pleased with this course! Read less

I finished the UXDI course online and I think its a great program, but it lacks a lot of the in person experience that doesn't make it very worth it. If you thrive in a classroom setting, consider skipping online to either wait for campuses to reopen or take a course with a cheaper school. 
Each campus does things differently, so there's a disconnect of what some people got for opportunities ot experiences than others. Upon being accepted, I was informed the online experience would be no different than in person, but it does lack a lot of that networking and informational experience you would get. 
Outcomes helps you with your job materials and searching, but it can be a bit disconnected from your instructors (like learning something in class you covered from outcomes a month ago). Not to mention, different locations will handle things differently. Others got to do a sprint working with developers and engineers to complete a project, but our class only got a three day outcomes sprint, which wasn't nearly as good as that would've been.
Other than the negatives, if you like remote learning and can devote 3+ months to GA, I'd recommend them, just know its a lot of work and dedication. You'll meet great people and brilliant instructors. 
My advice would be to start crafting your portfolio and network as early as you possibly can. Portfolios are worked on later in the course and it can be a lot to try and write case studies and design a website layout at the same time. Get the layout done first and make sure you get pictures of everything as you work. Hiring managers and recruiters like to see a lot of pictures! Read less

I had an excellent time in my 12-week immersive bootcamp through General Assembly. I felt like the pacing was adequate, the lectures were rich with information, and the structure was strong. In this field it is hard to grasp the ambiguity of it all, but as you push through it becomes easier and easier and you begin to realize that it all comes together. My instructional team was always there when needed and gave helpful advice. I felt accepted and even praised for my human experience. This is a field of endless opportunities and I feel like my time at GA was well spent!   Read less

Honestly, this course isn't worth it. The instructors fly through the material and only offer minimal support. The TA's are great, but sometimes lazy. The outcomes program, and student success portion of the program is an absolute joke. It really just felt like they got your money, and that's all that matters to them. It definitely depends on your instructor, but unfortunately I was stuck with an awful unit 1 instructor, so by unit 2 I was already so lost and couldn't follow along. 

Some of the staff are very condescending and demoralizing when you reach out to them about issues that you're having. They talk down to you a lot, and when you speak up for yourself they have a lot of issues with it and kind of bully you. I withdrew from the course because I was intimidated by the staff (not the instructors) and they said they don't give refunds.  Read less

Wow, it is really the best academy with full of humble staff members  and best instructors who teaches in  way you can understand ,who encourages you through out the program.Now I am confident thanks to GA I can do anything in SE field.
       -you do project almost everyday
        - you present it
        -you do team projects everyday 
       -you got help from instructors through out the week
 
All in all i just want to say thanks to GA and God Bless to all instructors, i will definitely recommend to my community. Read less

I have always been interested in learning more about data analysis, but finding a suitable program was a challenge. I was recommended to attend a series of webinars held by GA to learn the difference between data science and analytics. After the sessions, I was able to pin down the program choice. 

I then was able to easily connect with an advisor from GA who made himself accessible to share as much information on the program, process, and fees (smooth). He took the time to learn about my goals and motivation to enroll in the program, he then shared advice on the most suitable course format to match my learning style. Great enrollment journey!

The instructor and support staff were very accomodating and gave us time, and made us feel welcomed. More importantly, they were patient with the class knowing that many have been out of school for a while. The content was spot on what was mentioned in the description, industry-related skills that you can pick up or polish as you go (what you see is what you get). Challenging, frustrating at times, but the instructor and staff helped us push through. Always providing feedback on what went well and what to improve on. The course carried 3 projects which continuously push you to learn and practice what you learn in class. 

It was more learning a skill VS GA helping/supporting you with career opportunities. Surely it would have been amazing to have 1-1 chats with a coach/career counselor on how to tackle the potential employers in a certain location etc. Maybe this would be feedback for GA. I am looking forward to learning more about GA Alumni community and the kind of continuous learning opportunities. 

The course wasn't the cheapest,  I wasn't company-sponsored so it was a decent investment. GA helped by offering an installment plan, but I wish they would consider individual students and offer them some sort of price reduction during uncertain times. Other than that I would strongly recommend GA and the DA course.  Read less

The course was very effective in practicing the skills of a UX designer. As one would expect, the course really depends on the instructors and the groupmates you are taking the course with, but I saw that General Assembly tries their best to keep that become a hindrance to the students by checking in with each student and group to support them with any issues, whether it be work-related or issues between group members. Overall, it's worth taking, if you can afford it and can handle fast-paced learning and some workload. Read less

I enjoyed the online course at General Assembly. The instructor was fantastic! It was a wonderful learning experience, where I have learned a lot of data analytics skills. I feel this is a valuable course and allows me to grasp how data analytics can be. I certainly have much more to learn in this field and look forward to doing so. 
We received a Certificate of Course Completion right one week after the course was complete, which is super efficient! 

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The course was great overall, instructor was very good and helpful. Learned a lot. However it's been months now and no one in our bootcamp has received a certificate of completion even when we have asked several times. Beware, once the course is completed don't expect any evidence of actually completing it :( Read less

I attended this bootcamp as part of the Adobe Digital Academy program, and this bootcamp proved valuable. I came in with hopes on brushing up my react knowledge, since I was a very beginner. The instructor, Kareem, was superb, and I came out feeling a lot more confident. I am now doing an internship at Adobe using React, and the projects and the lessons I learned were all very applicable. I just wish we could have gone over more React concepts such as Redux or Hooks. I also would have preferred learning Python/Django as the back end over Ruby on rails.  Read less

IN SHORT: Don't take online javascript at General Assembly. You won't gain the skills needed to be competitive in the coding industry. As a middle school teacher I know what good learning looks like, and this online class is simply not doing enough.
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I was let go from my teaching job during the recession and was desperately looking to provide for my family. I've always dabbled in programming so I decided to go that direction. After researching for a course I could afford I signed up for general assembly javascript online (b/c coronavirus).

The first class was spent installing everything and getting github working. I was using windows and the teacher had never taught a student on windows before, so he couldn't help me get everything started and pointed me in the direction of articles that should help me. They didn't. I had to figure out how to emulate the unix termainal on my system all by meself, and then distribute the information to the other underserved windows users. Though this was just the first class, I didn't want to rush to conclusions. I mean, we were only installing stuff, it must get better.

Next class we took an hour to learn js arithmatic commands. An hour. I had already taught myself a decent amount of javascript and I knew it didn't take that long to learn a simple skill like this. When I talked to my advisor they said that this course was for absolute beginners and was going to move extremely slow. Unfortuneately they didn't mention this before the class started. Because of this and the underwhelming teaching of the second lesson I decided to withdrawl. Little did I know that because I had participated in the first class (the one that was just installing everything) I had forfieted the right to a full refund and General Assembly was going to walk away with a cool $400 of my money. My family's money. In the middle of a recession. For teaching me literally nothing.

This is a company like any other and they will take your money if they can sell you the product. If you are able to learn on your own, do it. If you can afford to do a in-person intensive $16k class, do it. Though don't do this middling bs online course. You will regret it. Read less

I did the GA Data Science Immersive course in September 2019.
It was a complete career change, having spent 7 years in payroll and accounts payable, I was able to switch to a career in data. I am now a Data Engineer so I got the best outcome I could have wished for. 
The facilities at GA Sydney are great, so many new people to meet with regular social events. There is a sparkling shared kitchen and work space areas. The staff are great.
I think the curriculum needs to include more SQL as there is such a high demand for it in the market at the moment. 
The job assistance program is also awesome and tailored individually.
If you do an immersive course I would recommend committing 100% to it, study hard, go to lots of meet ups and do lots of pre-work and you are on to a winner! Read less