General Assembly is a technical education provider that teaches students the skills, career advice and networking opportunities needed to make a career change into a tech role, in as little as three months. General Assembly offers part-time and full-time bootcamps and short courses in web and mobile development, product management, data science, and more. The bootcamp experience is led by instructors who are expert practitioners in their field. Students should expect to build a solid portfolio of real-life projects. Since 2011, General Assembly has graduated more than 40,000 students worldwide from the full time and part time bootcamp.
To enroll at General Assembly, applicants should submit an online application to connect with a GA Admissions team member who will work with them to decide if a tech bootcamps is the right fit. The GA Admissions staff are also prepared to speak with applicants about the best tech role for them, learning styles at GA, expected outcomes after the bootcamp, options to finance the bootcamp, career services offered by GA, and more.
To help students land their first job in a tech role, General Assembly students are supported by career coaches from day one. The program is enhanced by a career services team that is constantly in talks with employers about their tech hiring needs.
To start - with any boot camp you do, what you get out of it is what you put into it. Most of these courses will have pros and cons, which you have to weigh before you choose one. But you absolutely have to put in the work or you won’t get as much out of it. Also - prepare yourself for what you’re getting into, read this.
<...To start - with any boot camp you do, what you get out of it is what you put into it. Most of these courses will have pros and cons, which you have to weigh before you choose one. But you absolutely have to put in the work or you won’t get as much out of it. Also - prepare yourself for what you’re getting into, read this.
General Assembly’s full-time UX course is the only full-time in-person course that I know of in the L.A. area. It is also the most expensive option that I am aware of.
But, since I could live with my parents if I stayed in Los Angeles, and wanted to do in-person because online learning isn’t a great option for me, and didn’t want a course that would take 6+ months to complete, and taking into consideration that I would likely end up working in Los Angeles, I went with GA.
PROS:
Professor: My professor, Gerrit, was awesome. He explained complex issues really well, was relaxed and calm in his demeanor, provided helpful feedback, and was always honest and transparent. He brought in explanations and rationales based on personal experience and was originally a graphic designer, which was nice since that is part of my background.
Classmates: I loved that I was in an in-person program. My class was about 17 students, which at times felt like a lot, but I am ultimately grateful because I enjoyed the groups I was in, loved meeting and learning with new people, and overall was honored to be surrounded by people from such a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, and ages. I enjoy surrounding myself with those who are different than me so I am continuously challenged.
Job Support: While I just finished the program last week, I’ve enjoyed the openness and support from our Career Coach. He’s easy-going, readily available, easily reachable, and pushes you to utilize him for help. He helps with interview prep, portfolio, and cover letter review, and you can go to him for pretty much anything and if he can’t specifically help, he’ll go out of his way to find someone who can, which is amazing.
Group projects and portfolio pieces: I also chose an in-person course so I could work on projects with a team since that is how it likely is in a job. I enjoyed my teammates and I gained valuable experience in learning how to balance personalities and differences of opinion. We got to work with a real client as our last project which is great as well since the other two are spec projects. One project is also solely focused on your portfolio, and GA puts a lot of emphasis on trying to make you as career ready as possible.
CONS:
Coding/Development: The primary gripe I have but didn’t negatively impact my experience, is that we don’t work on projects with developers. I don’t know if that is something other schools do, but it would be smart to pair up UX students with someone from the web development classes to work on a project together. Designers have to work with developers in a professional setting, so it’s great practice to do that in a school setting.
The course also didn’t cover any coding basics, but they give you $500 towards their courses, and you can take night classes and all day weekend classes to learn some basics, which is what I did. You can also do that for visual design, job prep and more. So I don’t see that as much of a negative, but some might.
Price: GA is definitely the most expensive school I looked into, which means my loan is bigger, but the school could use to be a few grand cheaper. Here’s to hoping I just get high paying job!
Admissions variations: While I naturally get neurotic when making major decisions so I spent weeks, sometimes even months, doing research on programs and UX in general before I chose this program. But many students don’t necessarily do that. Some students in my class were told different things by different admissions people, and there really needs to be consistency so all students are coming in equally prepared. For example, if students don’t have any visual design experience, they should be prepared for what they will need and spend time learning. Or if students want to work while doing a full-time program, they should be heavily warned against it - not casually warned against it.
Interaction design: We didn’t spend too much time on learning the nitty-gritty of this, which, in a sense, makes sense since it’s only an 11-week course and UX is a massive discipline with many verticals. But a quick project on it would have been nice.
LAST THOUGHTS
Again - I spent a lot of time preparing myself for this course mentally and financially. I watched YouTube videos, read Medium articles, talked to folks who took the course before, and really made sure its was the right fit and the right decision. I come from a graphic design and marketing background, which was incredibly useful. So take what I am saying with a grain of salt.
Some students in my class came from wildly different backgrounds, like acting, music and finance. If you feel like you need to take a few brief courses in things like visual design or the like to prep, it’s incredibly useful and just makes it so you won’t fall behind.
Description | Percentage |
Full Time, In-Field Employee | N/A |
Full-time apprenticeship, internship or contract position | N/A |
Short-term contract, part-time position, freelance | N/A |
Employed out-of-field | N/A |
How much does General Assembly cost?
General Assembly costs around $16,450. On the lower end, some General Assembly courses like Visual Design (Short Course) cost $3,500.
What courses does General Assembly teach?
General Assembly offers courses like 1. Data Science Bootcamp (Full Time), 2. Software Engineering Bootcamp (Full Time), 2. Software Engineering Bootcamp (Part Time), 3. User Experience Design Bootcamp (Full Time) and 15 more.
Where does General Assembly have campuses?
General Assembly has in-person campuses in London, New York City, Paris, Singapore, and Sydney. General Assembly also has a remote classroom so students can learn online.
Is General Assembly worth it?
The data says yes! General Assembly reports a 84% graduation rate, and 95% of General Assembly alumni are employed. The data says yes! In 2021, General Assembly reported a 82% graduation rate, a median salary of , and N/A of General Assembly alumni are employed.
Is General Assembly legit?
We let alumni answer that question. 711 General Assembly alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed General Assembly and rate their overall experience a 4.31 out of 5.
Does General Assembly offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?
Yes, General Assembly accepts the GI Bill!
Can I read General Assembly reviews?
You can read 711 reviews of General Assembly on Course Report! General Assembly alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed General Assembly and rate their overall experience a 4.31 out of 5.
Is General Assembly accredited?
All of General Assembly's regulatory information can be found here: https://generalassemb.ly/regulatory-information
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