General Assembly

I was hesitant to go to General Assembly due to having a poor experience at a coding bootcamp in Utah. Due to that experience, I felt jaded by the whole bootcamp experience and assumed they were all the same, that it would be just another revolving door. Come to find out, that was the furthest thing from the truth at GA. I asked a lot of questions to the instructor and to the people at the finance department. I really pressed on them and they answered my questions genuinely and was not trying to pitch or sell me their product, which are the bootcamps. Instead they gave me the facts, the stats, and data that I needed to see to confirm my choice in going there. I went through their UX design immersive program in Denver, and it was one of the best decisions I have made in my life. The teacher has real world experience working in UX and web development. He has a background in teaching and made the course easy to understand and digestible. He was always available to talk and provide sound advice. The projects we worked on also helped me get a head start in my career search. The career coaches have been phenomenal and have provided me great feedback which essentially helped me get a job in UX. I am happy with the results I have gained here and I have already earned a return on the investment I have made here at GA. 

Prior to starting the Software Engineering Immersive Remote (SEIR) programing at General Assembly, I didn't know what to expect. When you google bootcamp reviews the results coming back tend to be all over the place from reviews that are very bad to reviews that are nothing but outstanding. Through my experience, I'll provide an unbiased review highlighting the aspects I enjoyed and what I think needs improvement. 

General Assembly wasn't the first school I reached out to and in fact I had a very poor experience speaking with the admissions department at a GA competitor who didn't want to give me more than 20 her time. Speaking with Zack in admissions from GA was a completely different experience in the best way possible. Zack took his time answering all my questions to ensure I was making the correct decision. He was in constant communication with me throughout the entire application process so that there was no question as to what happened next. One thing to note is that General Assembly offers the choice learning Ruby/Ruby on Rails or Python as the backend language and framework. I was speaking to a few of my classmates a couple weeks into the program and they didn't realize they had the option of learning a different backend because no one mentioned it.

The class pre-work was well written and the program they use was quite good however, I don't feel like the pre-work prepared me for the class in any way, shape, or form. I feel like the pre-work is written for someone who has previous experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; rather than who's learning about it for the first time. Now the teaching platform used is extremely well written and easy to use but I think the prep should have been based more on the foundations and fundamentals of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

The Software Engineering Immersive Remote course is a full stack software engineering program that teaches the MERN stack and the course is broke up into 5 units. Everything is taught by two main instructors and two instructor assistants. Coursework is heavy and moves at a very fast pace. Class is a mix of lectures, code along, and lab but the lecture isn't the boring type like you might think. The amount of information you take in on a daily basis and the amount of information you're expected to retain is probably more than you're used to. It wasn't till half way through my first project that I actually felt like I knew what was going on and I felt like I was trying to keep up with everything till that point. You're going to have days and weeks where you feel like you can't keep your head above water. I constantly felt behind. And before you know it, you're turning in the final project. Instructor assistants were quite helpful after school and on the weekends when they host office hours. My instructors helped when they could but both taught multiple classes each day. My instructors both referenced their real life work experience with what they were teaching and that was awesome to know.

Now for what I think can be improved. First and foremost the pre-work should be focused towards fundamentals and foundation building. I would add an additional week to the first four units, extending the course by an entire month. This would slow the pace of the course down enough to where retaining information learned becomes much easier and the student will be more comfortable with what they're learning. I had two great instructors but they were vastly different in how they approached teaching and some days I feel like they didn't know what the other instructor taught the previous day. Communication could have been better between the instructors. The full stack course does teach the backend but it's definitely front end heavy. At this point, I wouldn't hesitate to take a job as a frontend or full stack developer however; I wouldn't be confident taking a job as a backend developer after taking this course.

Outcomes is what General Assembly calls their career support so far it's been quite helpful. They offer mock interviews, Linked In, and resume building. I've only been with outcomes for a couple weeks but they've been quite helpful so far.

Overall I had a solid experience and learned a TON of information in a short amount of time. I wouldn't hesitate to take another course through General Assembly in the future and honestly, I may go take the UX/UI course down the road.

Overall I do not regret my decision to attend GA.  I met some amazing people, and feel that I learned skills that will benefit me in my career change.  It's been 10 months since I've graduated and I still do not have a job.  The timing of when I finished school (right at the start of COVID) definitely affected employment, but I do feel like administration was a little misleading when it came to how soon I could expect to find work and gave somewhat unrealistic expectations about that process (I think they told me the average student is employed within 3 months of graduation).  The payment program is helpful through and it is nice to know that I don't have to pay anything back until I am employed full time.

You get out of this immersive what you put into it. I dedicated myself to listening intently to and participating in the in-class exercises then often put in 10-20 hours of work outside of class each week to get ahead and immerse myself beyond what GA offered. This dedication and commitment to participation helped me leave GA with a perfect score and rave feedback from my instructors. As far as luck goes, you can't pick your instructors, my cohort had friction with one of ours, and there were a lot of students very unhappy with their experience due to that one instructor's performance. I totally understand how they felt, but I approached the situation with the attitude of, "listen, you can't pick your coworkers out in the real world, and sometimes it's going to suck, but make the best of it you can!!" I'd do another immersive with GA. I don't think you'd regret doing one as long as you are 100% dedicated and committed to success! Also, outcomes (career) support is BOMB AMAZING!!! Having someone on your side through the job seeking process is invaluable. That is a fantastic cherry on top! Shout out to my amazing outcomes coach Chelsie!

I have had an overall positive experience with General Assembly's courses so far. I completed the Front-End Development remote course and it really prepared me for the next course I'm currently in, the Software Engineering immersive course. I'm currently in Unit 2, the course is very fast paced, but the instructors and TA's are incredibly helpful. The office hours and just your fellow classmates on slack are always open to help each-other, I've had study groups with multiple different classmates that have really helped me through some tough homework. The amount of homework assigned each week isn't as intimidating once you start understanding what you're learning. It's been great so far, I'm very eager to complete the program and start my new career as a Junior Full Stack Software Engineer.

 What background in coding did you have prior to the course?

• I came into my course having already coded a decent amount in my life. It was all hobby-based, but I felt pretty comfortable with HTML and CSS, as well as the basics of JavaScript. At the behest of some friends who were already software engineers, I also followed the advice I mentioned above, and tried to take advantage of AS MUCH free learning as I absolutely could. So for probably 2-3 months before I even enrolled in my Bootcamp, I took advantage of some sales on Udemy and bought some Stephen Grider React courses and learned as much as I could about the MERN Stack (MERN meaning MongoDB (your document database), Express.js (your Node.js web framework), React.js (your client-side JavaScript framework), and Node.js (essentially your JavaScript server). If I had time, I would have loved to have learned even more beforehand. Two main reasons for all of this: 1.) you get to test the waters and see if you even enjoy being neck-deep in a text-editor writing code! It’s not for everyone and that’s okay! 2.) and just-as-importantly… Most modern coding languages are just off-shoots of other languages. Many, many, many front-end languages are built on top of JavaScript/HTML/CSS. So, having a really solid fundamental understanding of these languages will do nothing but make learning the more difficult languages/concepts/frameworks THAT much easier. I personally don’t feel that it is possible to over-prepare for something like a bootcamp for these specific reasons.

Has the instruction been thorough or are you googling a lot?

• Slightly loaded-question. I have LOVED my instructors. Incredibly knowledgable, empathetic, caring people who have bent-over-backwards to make sure that as many of the students in my cohort are equipped to succeed in a professional SE role post-bootcamp. The class moved kinda slowly at first, but picked up speed VERY quickly. The communicated goal was to teach us the 20% we would need to know in order to accomplish 80% of the work we would be doing. All of that to say that they, inherently, can only teach us so much in ~13 weeks. Thus, a huge focus quickly became teaching us how 1.) ask the RIGHT questions and 2.) how to scour Google or StackOverflow or wherever for answers. So… Both? The two core instructors for our cohort are very thorough, but a skill of being an effective software engineer is ultimately just problem solving, so you’ll definitely have plenty of situations where Googling a particular error or what-have-you is a must. Again, just part and parcel of being a developer.

 
What material haven't you get that you wish you had (not sure if you have a sense of that yet)?

• Not sure I have a great answer for this one, but there are definitely things that I had to put time toward myself because we just patently did not cover them in class. Immediate things that come to mind are the core computer science pillars of data structures, algorithms, design patterns, and code-testing. We touch on each of the above in class, but I was not prepared for any of these appearing in technical interviews based on class. GA could definitely do a better job here, but 1.) there admittedly just isn’t enough time in 13 weeks of class and 2.) they did point me at resources, I just had to tackle them in my own time.

 
Why'd you choose this program over other programs?

• Languages. I spoke to a lot of friends who were Software Engineers already, before I ever even really truly considered enrolling. They pretty much all told me the same thing: focus on what languages they’re teaching and how they support you on the job-front. GA is pretty solid on both fronts I’d say. Their tech stack is ultimately what pulled me in (we started with HTML/CSS/JavaScript to learn front-end development; then moved to full-stack and learned MongoDB, Express, Node.js, and others; then focused on drilling-down into front-end frameworks such as React; then finally learned API-driven development and kinda tying it all together, learning Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SQL, and how to make those work nicely with our frontends). Their Get You Hired Team (GA calls this “Outcomes”, which I’d say has been a little lackluster… but most of my issues with it could be tied to the fact that the entire team for my cohort is based out of DC. So they’re all crazy knowledgable, but I don’t know. There’s only so much they can do from a distance and during a global pandemic). For reference, I also seriously considered HackReactor, Flatiron School, and Turing School.

 
What have been the best and the worst things about the experience?

• The best has been discovering a new love and passion, honestly. I absolutely adore what I do at this point, but BOY was it tough. Like, anyone considering a bootcamp just needs to be really, really honest with themselves and set realistic expectations. You are trying to learn an entirely new career field in 13 weeks – IT IS NOT EASY. There is an OBSCENE amount of information — and often incredibly dense, convoluted information at that. Once again, it IS NOT EASY. I drive that point only because we 100% lost multiple people from our cohort because it was just a lot more than they were expecting. A totally normal day for me was to be in class from 8am to 4pm (with breaks here and there + a longer break for lunch), take a power nap immediately after, and then grind on homework for 4 or more hours. That time is important too, because your homework is really your only chance to practice, and if you’re not practicing every day to some degree, you’re just making it harder on yourself. Then there was probably longer homework for the weekend, or a project, or whatever. Just wanting to be totally clear: I ate, slept, and breathed code because that’s kinda what it takes to make it through a bootcamp like this (again, just my opinion).

What kind of time are you putting in outside of class?

• Not to be a broken record, but this will require a huge amount of time. I spent 500+ hours just IN-CLASS over my 3-ish months. With homework, there was generally the expectation that you would put at LEAST 4 hours toward it. If you got it done, awesome; if not, you should probably get sleep rather than throwing more than 4 hours at homework. We also had 5-ish “projects” over the course of the class. I couldn’t even begin to estimate the time I sunk into those, but we generally had 1 week of self-led work-time to finish each of those. So, ideally, you really want to have a deep interest in coding and the technologies at play with whatever you’re building. Otherwise, it just becomes difficult to stay motivated. Again, just my .02.

 
Are things working out with the fully remote covid plan? Are teachers accessible and approachable?
• Best as can be expected, I think? I would have preferred to be in-person, but remote learning hasn’t been nearly as drastically different as I kind of expected. You meet in your Zoom classroom everyday, anyone/everyone is only a Slack message away, my instructors were both always really good about hosting regular office hours + responding to random requests for help or insight. I also was still able to make a bunch of friends which I would 1000% recommend. The people in your cohort are quite literally the only one’s who will understand the depth of what you’re going through. It’s an experience that really brings people together, in my opinion. There are people I will most definitely keep in contact with after the Bootcamp.
 
Hopefully the above wasn’t too much or too overwhelming. I am 1000% a proponent of a bootcamp like GA offers, I just think everyone should know that it is, unavoidably, a massive undertaking. But you will get out what you put in.
 

I signed up for the accelerated Digital Marketing course which ran for about a week. Before the class, I was a bit rusty with Facebook Ads, Google Analytics/Ads and SEO. The instructor delivered real life marketing campaigns from his own business that helped us better understand how to formulate our customer persona + target market and take that research to design optimal websites/fb pages for our clients or business .  I came out having finished a marketing campaign for my consulting practice. I was able to create websites + facebook pages for my clients and nurture the campaign by setting realistic KPI's; delivering optimal solutions. The marketing campaign I built for the class project became my template for future campaigns and really a recipe for success. I'm still involved with GA as an attendee of their workshops and from time to time I go there to network or work on independent projects. It's a really cool friendly community. Once you become an alumni, the possibilities are endless. 

'd never have been able to transition fully into the Digital/Tech & UX spaces without the User Experience Design Immersive at GA that I undertook at the end of 2019. 

It was truly a transformative experience where I got to meet industry pros, my fantastic cohort, guest lecturers and engaged teachers. Given the time-frame, the curriculum was overall well balanced as a long as you are aware of that you are being taught the "Cookie-cutter" UX-process and that it will most likely differ to what you'll experience as a working professional. 

Post-GA I was able to score a job not even a month after graduating, and this was at the height of the global pandemic in the beginning of 2020. Later in the year I ended up as a UX/UI Designer at Vodafone in London earning 44.000 GBP per year, which from my understanding is way above average for people graduating from GA.

Pro's: 

- The London Campus, which is a fantastic environment filled with daily seminars after class and is overall a highly motivating and stimulating environment to immerse yourself in. 

- The cohort, I've met some friends for life and the support and encouragement of the fellow students truly contributed to the learning experience. 

- The outcomes team did overall do a very fine job in terms of the job support and post-course preparation for the job search. 

Con's: 

- Not always up to the latest developments in the industry with the rise of the product designer title, requiring more focus on product thinking, strategy and growth. 

- Not everyone will be able to progress as fast as I did since I'm leaning on 10+ years of experience in other fields of design - although this wasn't always completely clearly communicated in my opinion when you often have people joining without any design experience what so ever which will result in a much harder time getting a job afterwards in the current highly competitive job market for juniors (at least in London) 

- Expensive, and might not fit all budgets.

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.

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.