General Assembly

After graduating with a B.S. in a non-quant heavy major, I wanted to continue my education and applied to the GA DSI program.  For such a rigorous and math heavy curriculum, the technical assessment assignment only consisted of coding in SQL and then visualizing those results. If GA wanted to assess if an individual was ready for a quantitatively heavy and coding heavy program, the technical assessment should have been more centered on Statistics, Calculus, and Python instead of just SQL which is very simple to pick up in a short amount of time. 

I would not reccommend this program to someone who doesn't have either a very high quantitative acumen or a very solid understanding of computer science. The reality of the program is, you aren't going to become a data scientist in three short months, unless your field of study was in close proximity to data science or you were already in the work force for several years and working with data. 

For how much the program costs, I'd reccomend either courses from edX, Udacity, or Coursera. There are several online resources like DataCamp or DataQuest that can teach the fundamentals of coding. If you aren't comfortable with very high level mathematics, you will not get your money's worth from this course. The instructors did not do a good job of teaching, rather just display how but they don't explain why. The pre-work required for the course claims to put everyone on an equal level of knowledge, but that is simply not the case. If you are from an engineering background or have extensively worked with data in some capacity, you will be much more prepared and equipped to succeed. If the course were better structured, organized, and promoted as to what it actually is, I could reccommend it. But in it's current state, unless you are someone with experience or education related to data science, you will not become a data scientist in three months and instead be burdened with at least 15k in loans.

I've taken General Assembly courses online and offline. They're commitment to quality is obvious and consistent no matter the format or topic of the course. In every class, you're working with professionals in the field. This means you're learning applicable tools, understanding how things really work (not theroteically but realistically), and hearing the language as it's used in the industry. You get a real feel for what working in that space is like. Teachers make themselves available for extra help and 1:1 help. They're excited to work with students and hear about why you're taking these courses, what your goals are, and how you've been able to apply what you're learning in class day to day. The content is thoughtfully delivered in an constantly-optimized fashion (they're always collecting student feedback and updating content for the students and needs of the particular class). Everyone is so helpful and the skills taught are immediately applicable. I'm a huge fan of this institution. 

Instructors: I am so lucky to have a knowledgable instructor along with two other awesome TAs in my cohort. they are really awesome. They are really passionate about teaching and wanting students to succeed. They do know how to teach. I would suggest you to find out who the instructor is before taking this course because instructor is the key here.

Recommandation: I wouldn't suggest you just go in there and only spend your time in the classroom. Utilizing your resources, TAs, instructor and ask questions. You are there to learn, and not just to get that certificate(the paper to me is just a piece of paper). What matter the most is what goes into your brain and know that you will become very confident after this program if you put in the work. There wouldn't be any assessment tests.

ClassSize: We originally had around 20 students, but only 12 students remained. What I would say is that GA didn't do a good job in recruiting their students and so some people left the program because they didn't know what would be expecting in the later part of the course-(SQL, which is the part that i evaulated the most, they thought excel was too easy so they left). What other students drop out was because they never used excel before. I can always always can get help from teachers/TA. Think about it:12 to 3 instructos ratio. This was the best class size I have taken in my life because of the accidental drop out students(or maybe GA should just limit the class size to 12 already) and I got a lot out of the program. I believe the best ratio is 4-1 or 3-1. 

Thought:  I would say I improved a lot whether in SQL, presentation but also met a lot of awesome people who all worked in different field and it felt pretty awesome just to be a part of this group since those who still remained in the program are the ones who really want to learn and not afriad of struggles. I would say everyone in my cohort are all very nice and knowledage.

I would give the instructors and TAs 5 starts: They would always answer your questions through slack. I had one TA answered my question during his time at work. I felt so thanksful for him. They really care about your success. 

I would give the GA curriculum a 3 since not all the materials in the courses I found it to be useful.

Instructors are the key, find out who will be teaching- if they love what they do( teaching, helping, and want their students to succeed). I was lucky to be in a awesome cohort.  

After completing General Assembly’s full-time, 12-week WDI (Web Development Immersive) Bootcamp in San Francisco, I highly recommend choosing another bootcamp. There are far better bootcamps out there than GA that will get you where you want to be; hired as a Web Developer/Android Developer/UX..

What General Assembly is really good at is creating a supportive and encouraging community of students and teachers that support each other and don’t pressure you beyond what you’re physically capable of. They have free coffee all day long which is pretty cool. Their outcomes team is incredible. They have great career coaches that walk you through every step of the job hunting process. You have a workshop with the career coaches once a week and they continue workshops after the program with feedback on resumes, interview tips, cover letters, informational interviews, every piece of job advice you’d want/need. Also, we did a ton of pair programming which is great experience. We pair programmed almost every single day.

As for the bad, and why I wouldn’t recommend General Assembly, here’s what I have to say. I came to General Assembly with basically zero coding experience. I spent about 40–50 hours on Codecademy. The pace is extremely fast and I put in 12–15 hour days as well as an hour and a half commute each way. That’s expected. It’s bootcamp. What was unexpected was the student to teacher ratio which they claim is 3–4 students to 1. Not the case. Usually, the ratio was about 18 to 1-2. There’s not a lot of help available. They also promised one on one feedback and code reviews. Not true. I received feedback twice the entire time I was at GA. And it was never code reviews. Most of the feedback was behavioral, which isn’t what I was there for, I was there to learn to code.

They also said you can go to bootcamp with no experience and be successful. Also not true. Out of our group and the group before us, 2 people are hired 2 months out. In past groups, 4–5 months out, about half of them are hired. I have no idea where they get their 99% hiring rate from, but it’s not accurate. In my class, every single person had previous experience, years of experience in some cases in the field. Only me and 5 other students were coming in as true beginners and 2 of those students dropped within three weeks. The worst part about General Assembly and the primary reason I wouldn’t recommend it is wasted time in class and mistakes during the lectures. Almost every single lecture, the teachers were obviously not familiar with the material and made huge mistakes in the code that at times set us back 8 hours of work. That is totally unacceptable when we’re paying close to 14,000$ for a 12–week bootcamp. There were so many mistakes that students actually stated they didn’t even come to class/did other stuff during class because they knew they’d have to reteach themselves later.

General Assembly is a middle ground where the more experienced students aren’t challenged enough and the less experienced students don’t stand a chance. GA is spending all their money expanding and not enough money fixing what they have. If they keep up the bad experience my group and I had, GA will not be around much longer. There’s way too many bootcamps that can actually fulfill what they promise, and do it for cheaper.

Sidenote: GA is constantly asking for feedback and I did communicate all of this to them in feedback surveys. I know they try to incorporate feedback so I hope they fix their program because I’m not the only student feeling extremely disappointed in my outlay of time and money.

Not to say it wasn’t a good experience because it was and I learned so, so much. It’s been a great launchpad and I feel excited about learning much more on my own/online programs such as Udacity. But, I don’t think it’s a comprehensive jumpstart to actually begin a career as it would be at Hack Reactor/Galvanize.

If you have any questions at all about details of the course, or you want any more information about my experience, feel free to reach out. I’m happy to talk.

Contact: geckogirl312@yahoo.com

**Used my less frequent email as to remain anonymous

Like all study's there are ups (fun class great insturctor and assistant) and downs (jam packed with fast moving topics to cover and semi difficult assignments to complete while working) 

Nick ( the instructor) and Vito (assistant) were well rounded, very pro in all topics , there is never an "I don't know moment".

Fun classes and assignments, great encouragement and enthusiasm.

Fast pace for beginners that will come out at the end proud to have developed working web apps and better understanding of the lingo and being able to manipulate code, fixing bugs, start writing own scripts from scratch, and explore libraries.

People with experience in coding or a bit of JavaScript will gain knowledge in most recent trends , frameworks, and will enjoy the subject as much as n​ewbies, as The instructor had reworked the course to make it very relevant to what the industry is currently using, and what would be most relevant.

My work is confident in GA, therefore very confident to let me use the skills I have just recently learnt, at work. 

Build a fully responsive, interactive website that stands apart from the usual templates.

Understand how a skillful mix of programming and layout powers the web we see – and how teams collaborate to create it.

Use HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, GitHub, and Sublime in concert.

I was so excited to be in this course and it was marketed as a Beginner course that anyone could take!

I felt overwhelmed from day one, utilized the tutors but could not catch up. I asked my teacher for help understanding topics and he could not explain them in a way that I could understand.

I had just come off a semester of Straight A's from a nearby college studying various Computer Science topics. I felt very discouraged with the teacher's inability to teach me and the misrespresentation that anyone could follow a long with the program with no prior experience.

We're in week 10 of the 12-week data science immersive program, and I really regret choosing GA. Last week, after almost 2 months of ignoring student concerns, the administration parted ways with our lead instructor, gave us a 20% discount, and decided to extend the program by a week. You can imagine what the program has been like for these things to happen.

There ARE some wonderful people working at GA. However there isn't quality control (on anything), and the administration has handled the situation in our class quite poorly. I'd recommend choosing a better and better-established program, even if you plan to work in DC. 

The instructors are hit or miss; we had one amazing instructor, but the other instructor was often unprepared to teach.  The curriculum gives a good introduction to the basics as well as cutting edge technologies for web development and the projects provide good hands on experience.  There is very little job assistance following graduation.  GA advertises a reverse job fair where employers come to see your work, but for ours only 5 recruiters showed up and they were looking for people with previous tech experience.  GA does not have relationships with companies to place students for internships or jobs.  Especially in Seattle, if you do not have previous experience in the tech industry or a large network of friends in tech, you will struggle to find a job.  5 months after graduation, only 4 people in our cohort are working in tech.

Overall, an incredible opportunity that you can and will see the rewards from if you are willing to put the time and effort in. Having absolutely no technical background 6 months prior to application/acceptance of the web dev bootcamp, I am now a full time web developer. It is one of the most difficult and time consuming thing I have ever done. It is 12 weeks of non stop work, realistically somewhere between 60-80/hrs of work per week. Very fast paced, and a TON of information, much of which you aren't even sure your actually learning until you've moved on from it and are applying the concepts in actual work.

Very relevant course work and curriculum, they definitely make an effort to stay ahead of industry trends to put you in the best position possible after graduation. 

You leave the course with the skills you need to be productive in an entry level position, which I guess is really all you can ask for from a school.

Job Assistance is kind of a joke, keeping in contact with your post graduation career coach is a hassel, they speak to you like a parent making sure their kid did their chores for the week. Many areas of improvement here, the class science fair should be a demo day for potential employers not the students in other cohorts, interview prep was minimal, and the job "leads" they give you are just jobs youd see searching on your own.