Ironhack Reviews
Page 25
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Joseph Garcia
My Ironhack Experience
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My experience at Ironhack was one I will never forget. Ironhack pushed me to my limits like no other class or school l have attended. At times I felt like it was just all too much but would constantly tell myself that it will pay off at the end. Eight weeks straight of getting your hands dirty and setting yourself up for errors over and over again, just to realize at the end that you forgot one letter on your line of code. It wasnt the easiest thing I have ever signed up for but I am glad I did it, I am glad I kept pushing myself everyday and studied even on the weekends, It brought out a side of me that I have never seen.
Nizar(Teacher) and Josh (Teachers Assistant) were the best teachers anyone could ask for. They were accessable throughout the day even after class and on weekends. They did their absolute best to explain the problem that we were having on our assignments. They walk around and check that you have completed the exercises before moving on to the next slide/presentation to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Ariel, the owner balanced us out when we were fried from the content we had learned throughout the week, he kept us motivated and gave us therapy to make sure that we kept pushing. Alia (marketing manager) made sure that at the end all of our LinkedIn profiles and resumes were styled perfect, she also set us up with mock interviews which I learned so much from and I cant thank her enough for that.
Overall, I cant take anything away from Ironhack, they exceeded all of my expectations. It wasnt easy but then again it is not meant to be easy. They are going to challenge you day in and day out until you really get an understanding of things. If I had the chance to do it all over again I would, I am glad I stuck around and accomplished what I have wanted to do pretty much since I graduated high school and that is to become a developer.
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Francisco Caro Díaz
My Ironhack experience...
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I finished Ironhack course some months ago and I would like to share the amazing experience.
I suppose that many of you that are reading this are in the same situation I was some months ago. I will briefly detail my background so you can understand why I went to Barcelona to make the iOS Bootcamp.
Chapter 1: My experience before Ironhack
I was born in Palma del Río, a town between Córdoba and Seville and since I was young I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, a Computer Science Engineer (that was once I realize I wouldn’t go very far practicing sport’s…).
Since I began my Bachelor degree in Engineering in Seville I had clear that I was passionate about mobile projects and even more if they were related to education or sports.
Since my first year at university I tried to find courses related with apps / education and sports, but the only ones I found were about J2ME and an E-Learning Master. When I finished my degree I started working for a consultant firm in Seville and at the same time I get enrolled in a Master Degree about mobile apps. After that, I began working in several iOS and Android projects.
My first professional challenge as a freelance was an App for the European Cinema Festival hosted in Seville and there I realized I needed to strengthen my skills in IOS. In November 2013 I started searching in Google for iOS courses but none of them convinced me. I also entertained the possibility of going abroad, but as I wasn’t able to afford it, I thought that self-training was the best option.
Due to the large amount of work I had in my first activity and the subsequent as freelance, I had very few time to to self-train. Therefore, I started to search again at the beginning of 2015. And then "voilá!!": I found a super-intensive course of eight weeks in Madrid to develop iOS applications. I saw the agenda, the methodology and I checked the quality of the teachers. The agenda was coherent and embraced everything in a reasonable period of time. The teachers were professionals of the iOS development area and with a high level of expertise in the subjects they taught.
At the beginning I had my doubts as many of my colleagues, I did not want to waste money and time in a course of such a short period of time, when perhaps I could learn the same by myself. Another aspect that helped me decide was the previous process I went through to be selected. The process and the pre-work strengthened my knowledge and provided me the confidence I needed to tackle the course. In addition, during the course they did not only taught language to develop IOS applications, they also taught us how to approach an application, with a good architecture based on concepts like clean code or using design patterns.
Chapter 2: Simply... IronHack.
Ironhack changed my life, professionally speaking. I saw a way to develop fully adapted to the real world, valid for iOS and for any other software. I could say that Ironhack changed my life, not only professionally. Ironhack is a family, I realized the first day with my classmates, teachers and people around. All I got from Ironhack was positive from the beginning to the end, from the first teacher to the last, and of course, from the first to the last colleague. To me, everything was perfect.
Everyday I went to school with more desire to learn, every day I learned something new that made me come the next day with more illusion. The feeling with my classmates was amazing. We shared ideas and developed them together. With regard to the teachers, everything was positive. They were very close o us, very flexible in class schedules and were always happy to help. In fact, I keep in touch with them, as colleagues they are awesome, and I am proud to have shared this experience with them (as well as with my colleagues).
I also have to point out all the people I could meet thanks to my classmates and teachers. I have to thank them because they made me see that you can be a crack being at the same time nice and passionate as I am of this world of mobile development.
Chapter 3: There is something after IronHack.
Ironhack provides training and a number of contacts unreacheable if you have not worked for years in this sector. Not only realted to IOS development, they offer many possibilities with seminars and lectures given by reputed proffesionals, offering a glance of the projects from the point of view of programmeing, marketing and business.
In Barcelona we were very lucky as we were able to meet many leading programmers of different companies, and people with different roles within mobile technology projects. Also I have to highlight the role of those involved in the career guidance carried out at the end of the course. Without their support and advice, seeking employment opportunities would have been much more complicated.
For all this and much more, I can state that there is life after ironhack, and I am discovering that it is a totally different life with open doors and a much wider range of possibilities. In short, being part of Ironhack was decisive to be offered the jobs I have opted to.
I 100% recommend this course, with no doubt. It's a big sacrifice but absolutely worth it, and, as I said, not only professionally but also personally.
Ironhack family thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Francisco Caro.
Should you have any question about the course on how to cope it, how to survive it, or what to do after, etc. please do not hesitate to contact me.
Email: franciscocarodiaz@gmail.com
Skype: carodiazfrancisco
Twitter: @kurrokardi
Web: http://franciscocarodiaz.github.io/
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Imanol Yañez
My experience
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Time passes and its almost 2 years since I got accepted at IronHack, I remember the initial fear of not knowing what I was geting into and about how much what I was about to learn would impact my future career as a developer. Today I find myself in that near future and I can say that i could not be more pleased to be an Ironhacker, a part of an amazing and fast growing nextwork of developers. I would like to highlight what I found to be the most important aspect of my educational experiece: the people at Ironhack.
The Ironhack team is without doubt one of the best things of course, to get to know and see how they work and how they resolve in record time was truly enriching. To this day I still hold them as a reference.
The level of involvement of teachers is something remarkable, precisely it was one of the teachers the one who gave me the opportunity to work with his team, Tapquo. It was an awesome team, very unusual in the world of development, they were an elite in the industry and I had the privilege of sharing work and learn with them.
Finally we have the students. Now we are very close friends, keep in touch and meet up whenever we can. In fact I am currently happily working with 2 of them precisely in projects we love like Gemfeed.
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Alexandra
You get what you pay for
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This is a personal opinion about my experience at IronHack Barcelona. I have to introduced myself as a customer experience and product oriented person, which means that I’m very sincere with all my experiences and also try to apply all that I've learned as an entrepreneur with a small non-tech startup company which focus on customer experience and product development. When I like something, I’ll be the best ambassador of that product or service, but when I’m not happy, I’m always very honest about my reviews. This is part of my own personal opinion of my whole bootcamp experience. Something that I wish someone would have told me before joining the bootcamp.
Before deciding to attend to IronHack, I have had several interviews for a few coding schools in the United States that were 12-weeks courses. Unfortunately, I didn’t get enough funds to attend to the one I really wanted. Then I found about IronHack in Barcelona that was a 8-week course and which the city’s living costs were also more affordable. Also all the reviews were almost 5 stars, so I decided to apply and prepare for the journey.
I did a lot of online tutorials and practices few simple coding challenges because the previous schools that I applied to demanded to have basic programming knowledge. I was very surprised that the interview process was very easy, maybe is because the main focus of the school is to take students from 0% to 80%. I had the chance that a friend that attended another bootcamp had shared with me his experience of his pre-work of the other school. So I was kind of surprised how disorganized and how poorly made the pre-course work was. We were not even ask how we were doing with it at the time.
I wrote my own very personal review, but since one of my classmates have better english writing skills and I couldn’t agree more on what the author wrote, which its content is similar the two pages I wrote, I asked for permission for posting and editing the review. I’ll just highlight a few other personal comments starting with to slashes ( // ) at the end of each paragraph of the author's review.
We were supposed to be sent a overall bootcamp feedback survey, but even before that they were already asking us for positive feedback. My classmate's review post and my personal add-ons:
“ … Still, there has yet to be any surveys sent out, yet each week we had to complete two surveys on the quality of our instructors. This speaks volumes to the quality and goals of Ironhack. Additionally, we were told that there would be extensive career help, even a spreadsheet for us to fill out in order for Ironhack to track our progress, yet, this request for a review was sent out before even a slight mention of such a spreadsheet. There’s been no career follow up, no LinkedIn or resume reviews and I am extremely disappointed, to say the least.
// Before attending the bootcamp, IronHack sent me a PDF of more than 5 slides with "career support" that was supposed to taught during the whole duration of the bootcamp.
I'm an entrepreneur, and one of the things that completly appreciated about this bootcamp is that it was meant for entrepreneurs, as their Twitter profile says, note that not a single lecture involved any entrepreneurial concept with code.
My experience at Ironhack was amazing in regards to my peers and the quality of our TAs. Despite there being only one TA per 8 students, they went above and beyond to help us out and it was so appreciated.
// Thanks to the TAs for all their effort!
Aside from that, I entirely regret choosing Ironhack for my bootcamp experience as Ironhack has failed at their only two objectives: be a great educator and be a great business. My list of possible improvements is endless, but here are a few:
1 Start by actually vetting your instructors. Have them do a test run in front of you. Are they comfortable with public speaking? Do they engage the audience? Are they clear when speaking English? Are their materials written in proper English? Are the passionate about working with others? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you shouldn’t be hiring the instructor. If you wouldn’t want to listen to them on a Monday morning, don’t hire them. Period.
// There were days that I honestly think I’d learned more in CodeSchool, that the current lecture because some of the teachers didn’t seem to be prepared or didn’t have high teaching skills.
2 Be upfront about the condition of the work space and classroom. Ironhack should be ashamed of the condition of our classroom in Barcelona. I was ashamed when posting class pictures because the room looked so horrible and rundown, and it was. Paint chipping, the room hadn’t been swept or dusted in forever, there were maybe only three quality chairs in the entire room (how are developers supposed to code for over 10 hours a day on plastic chairs?), the room was unbearably hot and we had to pretty much protest for weeks in order to get fans which then just circulated all of the dust around the room. The projector didn’t even have a screen and it was close to impossible to follow along with the instructors having to adjust their settings so frequently. The tables were not actually tables, but rather pieces of lumber stacked on wooden posts even though the average Mac in the classroom was worth $1500. If one of those Macs were to fall and break, I think we can both say that Ironhack was not going to cover the costs.
// The first thing I’d learn while studying at industrial engineering: work conditions (weather, ergonomics, etc) affects productivity. I truly understand and appreciate that Barcelona is such a environmentally friendly city, but take into account that 80% of our bootcamp was not form Barcelona, and I’m from Panama City, Panama (Central America), where is 30ºC all year round, and I haven’t been that suffocated by heat in a workspace in my entire life. 6 tables, 2 fans, not enough! By day 2 there where two more, and that wasn’t even enough. I literally had to bring my personal fan until the last day of the bootcamp because I couldn’t focus on class or during my final project. Some electric extension were laying on the floor, where easily more than 10 times people have tripped because of them. Also, as programmers that were supposed to spend 10hrs+ a day in that room, I expected to at least have basics: water and coffee. Filtered water tanks or water dispensers with filters, specially when not even people from Barcelona drink their own tap water because it is awful!
3 Reevaluate which students are accepted into the program. While of course more students mean more money, if you don’t have enough TAs and are unwilling to provide more, then simply get more selective and accept fewer students. Also, students who have been working as a developer and beginners are not to be in the same class. Reevaluate your mission as a school and choose an audience. The majority of the time, it felt as if the instructors were speaking to 3 of the 16 students.
// Either you take people from 0% to 80%, or from 20% to 120%. There where students that haven’t even finished the pre-work before coming to class, and where so lost on the basic concepts. I think it may have downgraded the class for people with more experience.
4 Establish your worth as a school and stick to it. Although each student paid the same amount, certain students have been afforded the opportunity to retake the bootcamp. If that is the case, are the rest of the students going to get half of their money back? I didn’t think so. I, in no way, learned as much as I thought I would have and I know I would have been given more attention had I chosen one of the American bootcamps, yet a second round at Ironhack was never offered to me. Keep it fair, it’s as a simple as that.
// The fact that there were several students that either dropped out or very lost in class and they just decided to skip some subjects and do what they could, should have never happened on the first place if the pre-work was better built and proper follow-up student/pre-work would have existed.
5 While MOB is clearly not the correct choice to host Ironhack, at the bare minimum, if it is known that there is going to be loudly obnoxious construction the FINAL DAY OF PRESENTATIONS, the day for which we prepare during the entire bootcamp, the day that Ironhack invites guests to listen to its student’s present, you find an alternative space in Barcelona to host the presentations. It’s not that hard, not to mention Ironhack’s connections to startups with amazing presentation spaces. I’m sure those startups would have loved the exposure and would have loved to be a part of the presentations. Get creative, don’t get lazy.
// At the HackShow, there where 40-50 people in that room, and I felt ashamed that the audience had to uncomfortable watch our presentations which such heat. Also, as a finalist for the top projects, I was very sad that not a single video was taken by IronHack, like the previous cohorts, or even t-shirts with our handles where given to all the students, to have memories about our experience presenting our final project. This may not sound very important, but if you start adding features, even as almost meaningless like the previously mentioned, you shouldn’t downgrade by taking it away. *MOB: Makers Of Barcelona, where the bootcamp was being held.*
6 Know your audience. During our “hiring help days”, the first thing that Alvaro said was that most of us probably aren’t comfortable with networking and approaching strangers. False. The majority of my class came from backgrounds like communications, media, marketing, sports, recruiting, journalism, customer service, etc. Learn about your students before you attempt to advise them. Additionally, don’t have us go into a corner and show you our LinkedIn profiles while you tear them apart -- it’s not thorough and it’s inefficient. Take the time to look at the profiles in advance, take some notes and then discuss with us. It will save both your time and the student’s.
// I like people being realistic, but Alvaro saying that it was almost impossible to get a job in Spain as a non european, was absolutely demotivational. Nevertheless, one of my classmates and me, non europeans, got job offers, because we manage to find alternatives to pursue success. So, don’t just say it’s almost impossible without providing work arounds. Also, how come you claim to have a 97% rate of hired students when not even 50% of the students are showing up at interviews and with such non-existing follow-up after that?
7 Hire more TAs. Don’t be greedy. Money is great, but a stronger reputation is worth much more and ensures longevity. Having to sit and wait 40 minutes to ask a question is beneficial for no one, especially a newbie.
// I get that some students may have slow pace while learning, but the other students that are paying the same amount of money, deserve the same kind of attention and assistance during class. If you don’t want to let anyone behind, make sure that each student is really prepared to start a coding bootcamp.
8 Lastly, hire someone that has both customer service and teaching experience to facilitate the education aspects of Ironhack. You need them. As a former educator, most of the things that went wrong were simply due to lack of planning and experience. Even our welcome meeting was lackluster and could have been full of creative and light-hearted icebreakers designed to get everyone introduced to one another.
// TAs had enough work as being TAs, someone that takes care of the customer experience and product is very needed so we don’t end out writing this long reviews!!!
I truly hope you view this feedback as constructive more than anything. Everyone wants to see Ironhack succeed, but without some adjustments it’s truly not worth it. "
// Couldn’t agree more with this!
And now, one of my best friends, who I recommended to learn to code and go to IronHack, is about to take the next cohort, and I just wish he can have a better over-all experience that I'd had. I'll definitly take another bootcamp in the next few years, this time one made in the USA.
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Bogdan Vasile
Ironhack Summer 2015 - Barcelona
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Turns out that after many years of work in a certain field I’d like to change something and focus only on doing things that keep me engaged and very enthusiastic about. Learning web development technologies was something I intended to do for a long time, but never actually took my time to just do it, I decided this is the time and I chose Ironhack based on their reputation, training curriculum and also because I really wanted to spend some time again in Barcelona :-).
I am really confident my investment will pay off, in fact I think it is one of the best investments I ever made. I met the most extraordinary group of people, my colleagues, and I learned a lot in a relatively short period of time. I never coded before, so the first week seemed like a lot to take in, but persisting in understanding as much as I could and getting support from the TAs, which are the greatest, I began to feel more at ease as I continued my learning journey. At the end of the bootcamp my project was selected by a jury of senior developers as one of the top 5 projects in the class. I wish you all happy coding at Ironhack !
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Lu Martinez
Miami Summer Ironhack 2015 - Exceeded expectations
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Probably the most incredible part of the experience is the surprising level of continuous support from the entire IronHack team. With a family member serious ill throughout the process, I've sometimes had to shoot off to the hospital or the like temporarily. On each occasion, the team displayed genuine concern, which meant a lot, and helped me stay on track with the course. It's a testament to the IronHack mission of making us part of their community.
As an attorney and someone whose career is mostly in management/operations, IronHack teachers made it fairly seamless to transition to what was previously a foreign language (code).
Came to Bootcamp with already lofty expectations to be completely immersed in coding for 8 weeks. At its conclusion, I feel like it has exceeded those expectations by also being an immersive experience into technology and a style of thinking.
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Grace Berler
Best thing I could've done for my future
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I was a recent college graduate with a degree in Art and Art History. Learning to code is something I had always wanted to do but felt intimidated when I tried to learn on my own. When I heard Ironhack was coming to Miami, which is where I live, I knew I had to do it.
I had almost no previous experience with coding (very minimal HTML and CSS) and now I can't believe what I've been able to learn in 8 weeks. The instructors have been amazing. Some people can be geniuses at something and not be able to teach it. The Ironhack instructors and T.A.'s are not only genius coders but incredible teachers. The class size was small, only 12 students, which is actually the largest cohort that Ironhack has had in Miami.
I was worried about paying for the bootcamp but they assured me I wouldn't need to start payments until after landing a job as a web developer.
Overall I'm really happy I chose to go to Ironhack. I feel like my future is being fostered by everyone here and that this is one of the best decisions I've ever made for myself.
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Kaysser Kayyali
My Life-changing experience
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The program at Ironhack Miami is one that I'll remember for the rest of my life. From day one you are immersed in programming culture and basically hand-held for the first 1-2 weeks.
They start from the basics, and build your programming chops from the ground up. The team they have put together has become the best learning experience I've seen, and your peers will quickly become your friend circle.
There are some cons tho, but they are purely opinionated. You are going to have to want to learn, and you are going to have to be willing to stay late to be sure you grasp the concepts of the day.
All in all, Ironhack is the premiere bootcamp option in Miami, with their talented staff and strong work ethics, anyone can sign up and be a reputable coder in just 8 weeks! -
Anonymous
Ironhack Barcelona
I was a full stack web developer and I wanted a BIG change in my career, I saw some information about Ironhack last year, but I couldn’t go, my mistake. This year I was able to attend this bootcamp and now I’m working as an iOS developer in a startup, that was the objective and thanks to Ironhack now I can say “mission accomplished”.
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Anand Kumar
More then code meets the eye. Beautiful Experience
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I’m Anand from Malaysia,I studied I.T from London Metropolitan University and the last time i code was 10 years ago. I am a Web Designer,Graphic Designer and a UI Designer. Over the past years i have ventured into many other work including producing Reality Shows and account manager for brands.
I chose Ironhack because of its reputation as the best Coding BootCamp in Europe and it was nearer for me since I came from Malaysia.
The methodology is good as far as it is concerned, i have never been to other bootcamps, so I can’t really say much about it. It would be nice if you can suggest extra one month or something for those beginners before getting into the main class, so everyone will be in the same level and understanding.
Teachers are good and was able to cope with all our questions and ramblings, also my classmates were totally amazing, they were part of the whole study as well, without them I don’t think I would have totally survived the bootcamp.
The things I like the most: free beers, good classmates, environment and the people .
The most difficult part for me was Coredata. Trying to grasp everything everyday was difficult, everyday we were learning something new and had no time for recap and remembering.
My final project was Menu Del Dia app which shows the menu del dia of the restaurants nearby to the user. Its a simple and straightforward app.
Too early to say anything about Careers...well i think so far so good, lets see how its goes.
I would recommend Ironhack to everyone because it’s a very good place to have a feel of what is coding all about and the excitement of it.
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Javier García-Vidal
A unique experience
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Ironhack is certainly a unique experience, in my case I am a computer science engineer. Since the first day I noticed that Ironhack has nothing to do with what I studied at university, where what they taught was really outdated. Courses were oriented to the theoretical part and quite unrelated to what companies were demanding.
The community I created with my fellow colleagues at Ironhack is magnificent and today we remain as a small family where we all help and cooperate with each other for a common benefit.
In Ironhack you can get the ability to develop projects that you have previously thought about but you weren’t able to develop because you didn’t have the tools and knowledge you need. That was what happened to me, I have an idea before arriving and was not able to carry it out. But I could make it for the Hackshow at the end of the course and I proved myself that I could do it.
Also they have advised me magnificently on how to orient my professional profile online and prepared me to face interviews, coding challenges and to negotiate my starting salary.
Many friends ask me if I will recommend Ironhack and I have no doubt, it´s a great experience I wilI repeated again without hesitation. -
Miguel Antonio Savignano Coronado
More than code
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Going through Ironhack has been the best educational experience I have had in my life, and I know that this only the beginning to reaching all my professional goals.
I started to study Electronic Engineering at Carlos III University in Madrid, but soon found out it was not for me. So I ended up enrolling at a Professional training program in Telecommunications. There I found out about my passion for coding
Ironhack for me is a dream come true, bringing to my professional and personal life unmeasurable value. From the 1st day when I met the instructor Rafa de Castro I knew that the best way to learn web development. What I loved was that new concepts we learned were immediately put into practice in exercises.
What Ironhack has given me above everything else is a group of colleagues that I met and shared over 10 hours a day learning with. We helped each other all the time, we carried out projects together and most importantly, every friday we went out for a few beers! It was tough to spend so much time programming and to learn so many new concepts in only 2 months, however having such peers and mentors and professors, really made the difference and created the perfect ecosystem to learn more every day. You could feel the passion everyone there has for coding!
Ironhack is much more than your peers and professors, in the labour market you can feel that being an Ironhacker starts to make a difference. In Madrid you run into Ironhack alumni at every coding meetup and there is one working at a bunch of companies or startups.
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Toni De Mingo
Great experience!
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I am delighted to have done the course, I definitely recommend it to all my friends, my life has completely changed. As I said, one month later i was an ...iOS Developer ! And I starting coding not so long ago as my education is in economy and business administration.
The bootcamp is tough, but that's how you learn, basically no pain no gain. There are several key points of the course that make you adopt a winning mentality and very professional approach to programming.
The first point is that teachers are first class. What you learn in Ironhack is to do things in a serious and professional way, you’re the one that set the limits .
The routine takes several hours a day. Starting at 9am, teaching ends at 6pm but then we all stayed until 10pm with colleagues taking things forward, the atmosphere is really awesome! It is like all paddling together to reach the goal, these are the kind of experiences that create amazing links!
You’all also learn lots things about the environment, is like driving for the first time, lot’s of good feelings. There are several weekly business talks and workshops, thanks to them you get to know lots of interesting people, businesses and personal experiences. It gives you a good idea of how does the startup ecosystem works today.
One of the things that I was worried about was the loneliness I was about to face at the end of the course. In that sense Ironhack helps you very much. Ironhack assigned a person (Alvaro) dedicated exclusively to prepare and help everyone at my cohort to find a job. He was kind of my personal coach! I can also say that Ironhack is highly valued in the market, is what I have noticed when I finally start working one month later.
I hope my thoughts help you and you will be excited about joining the course, it is a very enriching experience! -
Marian Martínez
Ironhack | Web Development Bootcamp | Madrid
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I started to study Higher Technician in Computer Network Systems Management in 2010 and it was during this period when I discover the world of programming and I was totally hooked. After that, I was working as full stack web developer in a marketing online agency where I had to face many challenges. One day I realized that I need to stop and continue learning. My main goal was to improve my skills developing scalable, maintainable and well tested web applications. That day, was the day I found Ironhack and I left my job to begin a new adventure.
From my point of view, Ironhack is the best course to start a career in web development. You will learn not only all the best practices and all the technologies required and used by the leading companies, but also you will be involved in a great and different experience where teachers and classmates work and practice together to get the best from every hour.
Teachers are all excellent professionals with a huge working experience so learn from them has been a pleasure and a great opportunity.
All eight weeks of the Bootcamp have been very intense but the hardest week for me was the second one, when I discover how to do TDD and it was very challenging.
Finally, doing a final project where you can practice everything you have learned is essential. In my case, I was working in a learning platform called “Skillstep” where you can create your own learning tracks. To introduce a project at the Demo day was not my goal, so I decided to focus in learn better how to do specific parts of my application and it was good choice. Whether you want only to learn or you have an entrepreneurial profile and you want to know how to develop your project, you will find no better place.
Career support after Ironhack is excellent also, and the “Career Week” a good opportunity to get a good job. Thanks to a coding challenge sponsored by a company that we did last week, I am waiting to close a job offer only a couple of weeks after graduating, so I couldn't be happier at this moment. -
Isaura Fontcuberta
Ironhack Madrid
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When I first learned about Ironhack, I knew everyone is capable of coding. I tried to learn how to code by myself, but I felt lost in the huge programmer’s world. Ironhack was my guide to obtaining a full web development toolbox. The classroom based learning environment is ideal to improve your skills and to achieve your career objectives. After some weeks of intense work, a rollercoaster of feelings and many hours working with great teachers and mentors, I find myself comfortable around languages and technical resources to grow up any web business idea. Ironhack is the absolute platform to start your developer career.
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Rafael Tejado
Web Development Bootcamp - Madrid
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I am a photographer who wanted to change the course of my career, so I started to experiment with many disciplines and ended up discovering that coding was something that I liked and I was good at. At first I was trying to learn by myself, but when I found Ironhack and the way they understood education, I didn’t hesitate and applied for it.
During the bootcamp I met a different approach to learning that was really different from what I’ve seen during all my years of being a student. The way that the syllabus of the course is developed is impressive. In Ironhack the focus is in the feedback of the students, improving the quality of the materials week by week.
Thanks to their methodology centered in doing things over heavy theory, working with your classmates and helping each other and the excellent selection of professionals programmers who also know how to teach, in the end you know more than two programming languages. You learn to learn. You make your basic principles that will lead your future career as a web developer.
Would I recommend Ironhack? Of course.
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Jaime Muñoz
Ironhack Review
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Ironhack's bootcamps are short in time and long in contents. I don't think they are for everyone. You mut be properly motivated for it. Thats why Ironhack has a selection process to be sure you are a good candidate.
They also have a scholarship program for the proper candidates.Trying to complete these contents in 2 months means to work on it from 9am to 9pm every day during the bootcamp. In my case for example I accomplished Ironhack’s bootcamp with the following contents (more or less) in 8 weeks:
• Week 1
◦ The basics
◦ HTML, CSS, JS
◦ Responsive design
◦ Browser development tools
• Week 2: Start coding!
◦ Git, Github, Gist
◦ Intro programming and algorithms
◦ Coding in Ruby on Rails
◦ First test spec
• Week 3: Clean code
◦ Designing web apps and clean code
◦ Data and relationships with Rails
◦ Using MVC with Rails
• Week 4: The agile way
◦ Agile management
◦ Writing tests
◦ Forms and gems
◦ Deployment of the app
• Week 5: Javascript time
◦ Client Side Javascript
◦ Integrating common APIs
◦ Advanced frontend with SASS and HAML
• Week 6: Getting serious
◦ Monitoring, performance, real stats
◦ Advanced Ruby on Rails
◦ Applying caching
◦ Securing things
• Week 7 & 8: The end
◦ Advanced Workshops
◦ Final Project
◦ Demo Day
During two months you can do nothing but coding. That means you cannot work during the bootcamp.
Does it worth?
Absolutely. It’s hard, expensive and sometimes stressand, but it's also funny and the reward is amazing.
Teachers are very skilled people they will push for a fast learning path, so you will learn in a way you could never imagine before. In quantity and in quality
Besides, you will meet a lot of interesting people with the same concerns than you, and they enjoy his profession like you do.
If you work hard you will be prepared for the next step in your career’s evolution to a better job or just to do it better where you are.
My personal experience is that thanks to Ironhack and my hard work, I reached all my goals in 3 months. -
H M
Ironhack Miami - first cohort
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My experience at Ironhack was very positive one. As a minority and female with limited coding experience, I was doubtful at the beginning if I could complete the program. However, after 8 weeks, I not only completed the program, but also was able to develop a web application from scratch.
Before Ironhack, I was in business, doing completely unrelated to programming. I even had a great fear for anything technology. One day I decided to cast off my fear of tech and started learning how to code. Though I was studying dilligently, it was very inefficient. As a responsible adult with responsibilities to fulfill, I thought going to school and learn "how to learn coding" in a short amount of time seemed efficient than reading posts after posts on stackoverflow. And, I am glad to tell you that I made the right decision.
What makes Ironhack very unique was people - my classmates, the teachers and the staff. My classmates were from all walks of life and open-minded, which made me feel ok to ask even seemingly silly questions in the class. I still hang out with some of my classmates even after the program ended.
The teachers were great, too. Though some classes and the curriculum have rooms for improvement such as installing some programs prior to the cohort begins, the lead teacher, with knowlege, passion for coding and teaching, patience and care for each one of us, made my learning experience the excelent one.
The staff. I decided to attend Ironhack because of the staff. Everyone was always thinking about how to create an open and comfortable environment and make the learning experience fun. They provided us many opportunites like happy hour, beach BBQ, and pinada smashing (to release our stress) for us to socialize and have some break. They also set up a weekly meeting where students can provide feedback and share our thoughts. People there were "real."
Lastly, Ironhack provided great job assistance. Of course, I had to do 99% of the work following their strategic advice, but they set up interviews with companies (I received a job offer from one of them), provided useful resources and followed up with me on the phone almost weekly for practical advice and encouragement. As a result, I received a few job offers and am currently working for a growing tech company (where my colleagues know the Ironhack lead instructor).
Ironhack really changed my life.
There are many schools out there with different emphasis but I think the value of going to a coding school is to build skills, confidence and knowledge to continuously learn new technologies. Like myself, many coding school students will probably end up learning something new or maybe unrelated to what they have learned at school. Then, my recommendation is to go to a place like Ironhack where you interact with good people in a good envionment where your learning experience will be joyful.
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Tiago Ameller
Web development bootcamp
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Ironhack has been an unforgettable experience for me and that I would most definitely recommend it to anyone really serious about learning how to code! To take full advantage of Ironhack it is important that students come with a minimum level of coding knowledge so do take the pre-work seriously.
I have been a professional developer for the last 27 years. Now I lead a my own company that develops products mainly for clients in the hospitality sector in the Balearic Islands.
For a long time I have wanted to update my skillset and learn web-based programming languages and knew it would be really hard unless I went on a “spiritual retreat”. Ironhack has certainly exceeded my expectations. Loved the fast pace of the course, my fellow Ironhackers and how much the instructors cared!
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Gorka Pitarch
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I studied photography and audiovisual communications after that. So I worked in different media outlets such as TV channels and photography studios to end up in marketing. I spent a lot of time in front of a computer without finding a motivation until I found out about Ironhack.
Up until that moment, my contact with web programming was limited to small wordpress retouches. I had learned the little I knew though online tutorials. Truthfully, I soon noticed that I was learning fast and that I enjoyed coding a lot therefore I decided to give the bootcamp a try.
During the 8 weeks, Ironhack absorbed every bit of my time. We immersed ourselves in new technologies and methodologies. Since the beginning everyone was really keen on sharing their knowledge with the rest of the group and on helping other out. Teachers and mentors were also of a lot of help, they showed infinite patience and were always available.
2 months don’t seem like a lot of time, however I was astonished of the amount of new things I was able to learn. I found specially useful the mini-projects we got assigned each day and the extra motivation of being selected among the best projects in order to present at the Hackshow.
Ironhack definitely prepares you to jump into the professional developers job market. I am not just saying this. I finish classes on a friday and on the following monday I was already working at Quipu, a startup led by one of our instructors. Currently I am coding in Rails and experimenting with other frameworks such as EmberJS.
If you like web development and you want to make a living out of it and you don’t want to spend at least 4 years going to university and you often get stuck learning by yourself, a bootcamp if definitely the answer. I am 100% satisfied with Ironhack so I can only recommend this great experience to anyone thinking about it.
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Domingo Cividanes
Ironhack Web-Development Bootcamp Barcelona
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Currently I am a Telecommunications Engineering student at Universidad de Vigo, a degree that covers a wide variety of topics but does not go in depth into web programming, which is what I am really passionate about. For this reason, I decided to take a break from University to enroll at Ironhack. I wanted to take some time to focus on learning what I enjoy the most, and do so while having fun and surrounded by motivated peers.
The curriculum was very well organized, starting off with some basic programming concepts, building up the level of difficulty gradually and covering coding best practices and clean code. Their methodology help you structure complex problems (you end up seeing the hidden woods behind the trees) The whole learning process is led by expert programmers and instructors, practitioners that are currently working with the latest technologies. They taught us what’s most valuable from a professional's perspective.
Everything you learn is enhanced by an exceptional group of international and very motivated buddies. To me it was really important to meet such a group of motivated students with whom I shared a passion for technology and coding in particular.
As if the above mentioned was not enough, Ironhack really goes out it’s way to make sure students have the best educational experience of their lives! I would say that this commitment to their students is what makes Ironhack different. Their help goes well beyond the 8 weeks of in person education. They provide great support making sure you reach the right coding level before you start the bootcamp and then, after the Hackshow, Ironhack staff really makes sure you are ready for the job market. In my case I was able to get a bunch of job interviews through Ironhack and ended up accepting one from a great startup in HAMBURG. That’s right, I am starting an adventure in Germany!
After my experience at Ironhack there is only one question to solve, would I recommend Ironhack to others? The answer is absolutely yes! Whether you have a tech background or you don't, Ironhack is the answer if what you are looking for is to start working in the IT sector.
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Moritz Berthold
Ironhack Web-Development Bootcamp Barcelona
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I studied Physics in Munich and after several internships in business, I decided to become an entrepreneur. I am currently studying applied physics in a masters degree, however, I wanted to learn some hands-on skills in programming so that is why I decided to look for a way to learn in which I could do it effectively.
I chose Ironhack because to me it seemed the most professional and intensive coding school in Europe, so I decided to to move to Barcelona for the two months of this years Winter-Web-Bootcamp.
The bootcamp is special in many ways: It offers a broad horizon in both technical and social level. It teaches state of the art methodologies in Web-Development, but also brings together people with very diverse backgrounds.
At Ironhack, there is a strong sense of community: We often worked together in pairs and met many interesting people at talks about development/technology or business in the evening. I would recommend the bootcamp for anyone, seeking to boost their career with an additional key-skill. The career department of Ironhack trains their students very well and offers great support in finding work-opportunities.
During the final 2 weeks I built an idea I had in mind. I found Ironhack’s instructors super helpful. They gave me a guideline on how to build the minimum viable product (the product that would just be enough), and helped in the planning, making it realistic. Furthermore they helped me, solving countless technical issues, ranging from the design to the database-structure.
The project also benefited from the inspiring and productive working atmosphere at Ironhack, where students help each other and solve challenges together.
In all, I think that for non-natural programmers or want-to-be´s, being able to learn coding in such a short time period is just an incredible chance and Ironhack definitely delivers! -
Anonymous
Great stuff!
Ironhack was a valuable experience. They managed to efficiently cover a variety of topics while creating a fun environment. Their boot camp structure is very conducive for developing a solid coding base with the skills and knowledge to learn more advanced concepts with ease. I would recommend giving IronHack a shot.
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Patricia Henriquez
Ironhack really cares
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What I got out of my experience with Ironhack was invaluable. I learned a great deal about myself, made friends with wonderful people from all walks of life, and came out with a solid understanding of the web development landscape.
I decided to join Ironhack because I wanted to learn more about web programming and gain a new skill. My job as a consultant consisted of working, communicating, and at times leading developers so I thought getting a leg up in coding would be beneficial in my day to day activities at work. I knew I needed to become code literate and I knew that the best way for me to really learn programming would be to attend a course, to throw myself into the deep end.
Into the deep end I went. My experience wasn’t all butterflies and rainbows. It was probably one of the toughest experiences of my life. There is a ton of content and it is constantly changing. It is a very rigorous curriculum with an aggressive timeline designed to really challenge you. It put my ego to the test, it made me feel dumb at times, and frustrated in others. The first week and a half I felt like I had been knocked down, but this was done intentionally, which I appreciated after the fact. It got me into gear and forced me to adopt a “can do” attitude. From a personal development standpoint the program helped me learn how to better overcome difficult situations, how to ask for help, and to really understand how detrimental negative self-talk can be to ones progress. From a technical development standpoint I was amazed at how much I learned and how much I was able to accomplish.
I think what really differentiates Ironhack from other schools is their amazing team and their culture of “ the customer is always right”. I really loved and was really impressed by the constant feedback loop they incorporated into their system. It felt like a very intimate experience because they cared about my concerns, my thoughts, and most importantly my progress. They wanted to make sure I was getting everything I was expecting out of the program; an attitude that was adopted by all of the faculty and staff. Overall the instructors were superb. They were experts in their field, good instructors, and always extremely helpful and very respectful.
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Oscar
My Ironhack experience
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When I joined Ironhack last summer (2014) at their Barcelona Campus I was 17 years old. I joined Ironhack straight out of highschool looking to gain proficiency in modern programming languages so that I could work at a product company.
When I was around 15 I started to like everything related to web design and later applications for iOS devices. Soon that interest lead me to begin playing around. I also spent a lot of time learning how to make an iOS app by learning objective-c listening to postcast and reading blog posts. As my final high-school research I made a website and IOS application about my city.
After graduating from high-school, as I enjoyed programming so much, I wanted to study Computer Science. However I became very disappointed when I saw that students only came in contact with code on the 3rd year at university and that the subjects taught there are very introductory and about outdated technologies. That’s when I started looking for other options, I found Ironhack and enrolled before beginning university.
The methodology at Ironhack is very hands on. We built many little products during the bootcamp that helped me ground and implement many important coding concepts. In addition, most of the time we used Pair Programming (when two students work together on the same project, one program while the other observes and then they switch positions) I really found learning from my peers very useful and effective.
My cohort was a very heterogeneous, friendly, fun and very united group. The best moments were when we went out to eat and Friday afternoon when we had a more relaxed coding&beers sessions. I had and still have a very close relationship with my classmates and teachers. Ironhack is all about community!
Teachers were not professors, they were an equal partner guiding you and helped with everything you needed to understand. They weren’t follow the role of a normal teacher, they were like a partner. The classes were very pleasant and made you the day short.
After Ironhack, I started my Computer Science degree and in my spare time I continue working at my project called Goslost and I keep in touch with my final project’s mentor. I am hoping Goslost to be fully operational soon!
In all, Ironhack was a great experience that changed what I thought about education and that has given me an incredible and useful skill set and a very strong network in the local startup and developer scene. I would recommend it to anyone that is serious about coding!
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Vishal
One of my best decisions
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IronHack has been one of the most incredible experiences I’ve lived.
The professors were very good in their fields, always attentive and very close, although some of them never taught before. The TA (Teacher Assistant) was alumni on the first edition so he could understand our situation and helped us in every moment.
However, the best of the bootcamp were my classmates. The selection process was very good because all of them were very motivated, hard-workers, fast-learners and close people. We helped ourselves in every problem, worked hard until 6am if necessary, and improved our programming skill together.
I highly recommend IronHack if you want to learn programming with top-teachers, incredible classmates and in a short period of time, but be prepared to work hard every day, because when the say intensive, it’s really intensive.
I started IronHack with almost zero programming skills, and now I’m able to make powerful webs by myself. I never thought of learning so much in this time.
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Pablo
My Ironhack adventure
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Hi, my name is Pablo, I was a student of the iOS Development Bootcamp in Madrid (Summer 2014). I’d like to answer why I decided to join this learning path and why I would recommend it.
First of all, I want to explain my background before Ironhack (I will also tell what I did after that, but this will be at the bottom, don’t rush). I studied Technical Computer Science Engineering, and after that I was working for 4 years in a big education company, deploying several learning paths for e-students, mainly MySQL and Oracle courses. After this 4 years, I turned my professional career to development, this time in a small startup in my hometown, developing backend for a website, frontend, database management, and an API to communicate with an iOS and Android app. And this API project was the reason I decided, not to pivot my professional career again, but go a step further. To be honest, once I finished my University studies I never thought about going “back to school” again, but when I heard about this bootcamp, and after reading some reviews and talking to some alumni, I thought it would be the perfect solution I was looking for.
The main thing I found remarkable was the methodology. It is totally different than any I had ever known while I was at the University. It’s really hands on and based on practice, even the theory we learnt (we always need notions of theory) was also based on practice, sometimes several examples, sometimes teachers left us to explore, touch and discover subjects in real situations. During the eight weeks’ bootcamp, practice is quite important since day one. We learned objective-C from the real basics of C (it’s always a pleasure remembering how C works, and why you do things you usually do when programming), then we discovered Cocoa fundaments, in order to be able to develop one single application from scratch since the very first week, and every week we went further on Cocoa programming. Each subject was taught by a different professional, so having a new teacher every week was a motivational experience, as everyone has always new things to teach (I like to name it “secrets”). Relations with teachers were always very close, so this does the learning even more interesting. And one of the most important things I ever learnt: paying attention to clean code. Every teacher emphasized in clean code as much as code lessons. About the colleagues, the youngest was 19, the older near 40. One ecuatorian (he came to Spain just to do the bootcamp), one from the USA and the rest from different places in Spain. We became good friends and each time we can, we meet up again. Eventhough many of us are working in different cities, we are all still in contact. I’d like to share one curious story that reflects very well the Ironhack spirit; the first day we started the bootcamp, Apple showed its popular Keynote, this one with a big secret no developer was expecting: they presented Swift, the new programming language for iOS. Yes, new language. So, what happened with Objective-C? Was it a waste of time? Absolutely not. Everything we learnt was useful for any kind of language that uses Cocoa. But even more… we learnt notions of Swift in the last week of the bootcamp. Yes, the very newest language. That was really Awesome!
On the other side, I would also write one thing I didn’t like so much. Sometimes some subjects needed more time to be learnt than planned, such as some related with Collections Views, or network access and handle of asynchronous responses. The good thing was that while we were developing our project we were are to emphasize these things, and even more: every feedback we had, were applied almost on the following day. So, very good Ironhack team :)
After this bootcamp I was interviewed by three different companies, two from Berlin, the other from Gibraltar, as my main purpose was leaving Spain and keep improving myself. Finally, the Gibraltar company hired me to be part of the iOS team. I’m there since then, learning every day and giving my colleagues my different points of view and experience.
I’d like to explain more and more what I found in Ironhack, what I liked, what didn’t. But I wanted to explain the main points I think you may find interesting. Don’t forget keep learning every single day! -
Alessandro Martin
My Personal Experience
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I have always had interest in programming but I did a very different job for most of my life in another country on another continent; finally I decided I wanted to make a career switch and to software development, specifically iOS, and move back to Europe with my family; I am self taught and my coding skills were already decent (albeit mostly academical) when I joined Iron Hack but I had no prior iOS experience beyond doing some online tutorials and reading a couple of books. My biggest concern was wether I'd be able to absorb all the information needed to have a solid foundation in iOS development in just 8 weeks but I have to say Iron Hack exceeded my expectations. The teachers were great and the program extremely thorough and I ended up being amazed at the stuff I learnt in just 8 short (albeit extremely intense) weeks. A big multinational company interviewd me and considered me to be a semi-senior developer and I am enduring negotiations with a couple of companies to get a job. The great thing about Iron Hack is that they kept me supporting during the job hunting process and I made many contacts thanks to them. 5 stars for me, that's for sure!
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Elena
My Ironhack experience
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Hello everyone, let me introduce myself. I'm Elena Torró, Ironhack Alumni. I studied there for two months during the past summer, in Barcelona. I'd like to share with you my experience as an 'Ironhacker' and answer possible questions you may have.
I had a traditional education mentality, having studied only at a the University, so I was expecting to find more or less the same at Ironhack. But I was wrong, it was much better. I learned so many things that I had never learned at the University. Every week was planned carefully based on previous students experiences. We started from the very basic things a web programmer should know, and the difficulty of the lessons increased weekely. We went form HTML, CSS and JS to Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Test Driven Development and, at the same time, what I enjoyed the most: team work, agile methodologies and project development. We also had the possibility to decide if we wanted to learn something more specific, and the teachers organized activities, additional lessons and offered individual help. That's how we learned to deploy applications in production, how we acquired more advanced programming skills and how we managed to solve problems by ourselves. Furthermore, the Intense programme was really hands-on, something that I really enjoyed!
I'd lie if I tell you it was easy. The course run for around 8/9 hours per day, but then we stayed practicing exercises, it was incredibly intense! But all the students enjoyed these hours a lot. We spent time together, learning from the teachers and from other students as well. Because we were more than just classmates, we became really close, and we are still in touch: sharing our experiences and sharing the projects we are currently working in. We also meet up from time to time. I used to code alone, but after Ironhack I've learned to share and to enjoy coding with someone else.
About the teachers, it was great to meet people who are currently working in different very cool product companies. They all have huge experience in what they tough. What I liked the most was that they were available after the lessons, and also during the weekend: if you sent a message to one of them asking a question, you'd have an answer almost inmediatelly. I had the opportunity to ask them about finding a job, what are the enterprises looking and what are the different profiles in tech companies, and it was really helpful for me.
Right now I'm finishing my studies in engineering and I found a job after straight Ironhack as a frontend developer for Google Actívate online courses. Thanks to everything that I learned about how to work in teams, I fit in the team rapidly. For the future, I've been in touch with some companies in Barcelona, where I'll probably move after my graduation. Thanks to Ironhack and to its strong network, I made a lot of contacts and now I know what I'm looking for and where can I find it.
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Arslaan
A student opinion
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Hello, I'm Arslaan one of the students of Ironhack Barcelona edition 07-2014
I will try to explain my experience in the bootcamp focusing in 6 main points (if its too long just skip to the 'personal opinion' part):
1. Learned subjects:
At the beginning the classes were easy to follow (well HTML and CSS is not rocket science...). After the easy part we were initiated to Javascript and suddenly shit got pretty serious: we started backend programming in Ruby with Sinatra and as a non formal programmer it was mind blowing sometimes. Then, when we felt confortable with Sinatra we changed to Rails and it took us just a week to understand the whole MVC thing (Martin from XING did a good job). Once we understood Rails we got back to advanced Javascript and then again to more Rails.
2. Methodology
Each week of the course we had a different teacher that explained the subject from 9 to 17:30 (not totally accurate because sometimes teacher stayed a little bit more to explain things that weren't totally understood). From 17:30 to 19:00 we finished exercises that teacher left for us or just keeping up to date our work. Also we had 2 assistants who were full time dedicated to us and gave extra classes on saturdays or sunday to learn something different(TDD with Jasmine, How to contribute open source...). After 19:00 we had a talk gave by someone outside ironhack about jobs, startups, bussiness models... Every monday and friday we filled some surveys about our teacher and teacher assistants (I have to admit that a couple of times I filled the survey with all the answers as an 8 just to finish it and start coding...)
3. Background
I just explain a little my background to give the reader a full picture and understand better my answers.
I am an electronical engineer student that liked programming and wanted to get to the next level with his programming skills. I played with Java and did Mathlab, Maple and Pascal in my first 2 years of university.
4. Colleagues
We had from a 17 year old high school student to a 40 years old hardware technician, we had people from Philippines to Norway. We had diversity and it was amazing, some of us, even teachers assistants, still hang out on Saturdays.
5. Teachers
They were good at what they were doing and we knew that.
6. My actual job
Well for now I'm working part time with a startup building a restful API to manage cargos on air flights for a couple of months. Also I'm being interviewed from other Startups (wish me luck).
PERSONAL OPINION:
Ironhack, the bad parts:
I think the subjects were the proper ones to study (after all its a web development bootcamp) but not the order, I would have started with ruby and once we were prepared start with TDD because doing TDD at the same time we were learning Ruby was frustrating.
In my opinion, Ironhack should push us a little bit more after the main teachers left and give us more things to do. Also on weekends, even with our teachers assistants extra talks we could have done more, after all, Ironhack killed all of our social life. We studied in a coworking space and it was very cool to know new people that were working in the Tech field but when it was loudy it was difficult to hear the teacher sometimes and it was not pleasant.
Ironhack, the good parts:
Being a university student in Barcelona made me realize how fucked up the actual education system is, don't get me wrong, I like what I'm doing as an engineering student but the Ironhack methodology is by far, more evolved than the actual system (in my opinion of course). They listened our fridays reviews and tried to change what could be changed. Also we learnt things that are used in today's companies and gave us advise about our job research. They cared about how we felt in the course (or at least the were very good at pretending that :P). It was not about the grades, it was about our knowledge and when 16 persons meet in a room to do what they love it just feels good. I never knew if I was able to work as an electronical engineer once I finish my studies but after this adventure I know for sure that I will work programming (mainly because I'm getting paid for doing that now). -
Emily
A frustrating but fun experience, scaled depending on your needs
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Pros:
- Barcelona: The location is beautiful and affordable. I enjoyed living there immensely, was able to meet a lot of locals, and lots of great people in general. It's also relatively inexpensive and very walkable.
- Staff: People are really friendly, and I want them to succeed
- Instructors: About half of our instructors were great to fantastic and we learned a ton during their weeks.
- Class size: We had just 10 people in my cohort and we really felt like a family by the end.
- Atmosphere: It's very laid back, and a comfortable and safe feeling space.
- Network: They have a good Barcelona network, which is great if you want to live there and have an EU visa.
- Job assistance for EU citizens: They have a strong network in Barcelona and can get you interviews. Instructors and speakers will also be looking out for you and helping make connections. However, once my colleagues who are EU-citizens left Barcelona they found that assistance dropped off like a cliff and there was minimal communication.
- I learned a ton.
Cons:
- Staff: Despite their friendliness, commuication was a huge issue. Even before class started, I missed most of the Hangouts because I didn't realize the times were being posted to Slack. Emails were not returned in a timely manner before, during, and after my session. People were defensive when offered feedback. I was often told "So and so will contact you about your concern." and then silence.
- Instructors: Two of our instructors were awful and it felt like they just wasted a week of our time which is a big deal when you are only studying for 6 weeks. We basically had to relearn everything we learned from our first JS teacher. They made up for the bad CSS class by bringing in a great instructor later on, but it meant we lost a day of working on our final project.
- Curriculum: It was frequently commented by my colleagues that it felt like we were being experimented on too much and I agree with them. We alternated between JS and Ruby instruction and the context switching was very confusing. They started us off the bat with Ruby and OO which was completely overwhelming for most people our first week.
- Visa sponsorhip for non-EU: You will probably not be able to find someone to sponsor you for a visa. I wanted to stay and it seemed like it should be doable (I was one of the strongest students in the cohort), but even though there was some interest ultimately what I heard was it's way too hard to sponsor and very few companies are willing to do it. You are limited to large foreign companies and even then it can take 3 months.
- Job Assistance: Good or bad depending on your needs. I'm going to move this out of the bullet, so read on below.
- We lost internet for a few days and last a ton of class time as a result. They didn't have a contingency plan so we had already lost almost two days before they found us a temp new space. Internet was pretty consistently bad the whole time we were there.
Job Assistance:
They were great while I was still in Barcelona, but as soon as I returned back to the states they went silent. I had previously decided with the cofounder that we would work on Barcelona until I left and then switch to SF. After two weeks of silence (I pinged a couple people during that time), I sent another email and this time they apologized and said it was a new guy's responsibility.
I scheduled a Skype call with the new guy and I thought maybe things would improve. Well, he sent me a list of sites with job postings. And then the next week he sent me another email with one more site with a job posting. In the meantime I was adding the jobs I applied to on to a spreadsheet so they could see my progress.
I did know that they would have less of a network in the states, but the cofounders are well connected. So I knew that it would take more effort on my part. However, job placement is absolutely crucial for any startup bootcamp, and Ironhack is expanding in to Miami. To succeed in the more competitive bootcamp market in the US, you need to cultivate relationships with companies that are specifically interested and willing to hire bootcamp students.
My expectation was that they would reach out to companies and pitch Ironhack and their students– in other words be proactive. What actually happened was they checked my spreadsheet and if they knew someone there they put me in contact. Which is helpful and I don't want to discount that, except 2/3 of those contacts were for companies were I had already gotten myself an employee referral and since their contact wasn't in a position to hire me they couldn't really provide me any assistance. In my opinion this just isn't aggressive enough because if they can't hit a high placement % then they are doing good enough.
Ironhack's response is that they are working hard and this is what they told me I'd get, so if this meets your expectations you wil be fine. If not job placement is really important to you, you may want to look elsewhere.
Tl;dr: Can be good depending on your needs. They can help you get jobs in Barcelona if you are eligible to work there, but if you want a lot of help for a non-EU job search they are limited to providing contacts to companies you've applied to. So far from my cohort the only person placed through Ironhack was hired by Ironhack.
Summary:
It was a fun experience overall, and I don't regret it. I did learn a lot despite the hiccups. However, I can't help but feel like they could have done much better and the communication was consistently a huge issue. I felt frustrated by the time wasted because of bad or unprepared instructors and bad internet. I felt like they missed a lot of important topics such as code reviewing and interview prep. And job assistance didn't meet my expectations at all. So yeah, YMMV. Living in Barcelona though, that I can recommend with no hesistation.
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Christina Douzmanian
Great Learning Experience Abroad!
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I came to Ironhack with very little coding experience; although I had always had an interest in it, I only managed to pick up a few concepts here and there through various online tutorials. I had already applied and gotten into a few programming bootcamps (back in the US) when I heard of Ironhack. I was attracted by its location- Barcelona is a beautiful place-, the fact that they had scholarships for women, and the overwhelmingly positive experiences the graduates seemed to have.
My first few weeks at Ironhack proved to be extremely difficult- a good portion of the people in my program had much more programming experience than I did, and it took some work to catch up and learn the materials at the same rate as my colleagues. Luckily for me, the entire staff at Ironhack- the teachers, TAs, administrative staff- were all extremely helpful in making sure I caught up and had the support necessary to make some progress. Ultimately, I ended up catching up- and although the program was constantly challenging (for everyone!), I learned so much more than I could have ever learned on my own... and my final project was selected to be in the top 5 projects of my cohort!
The staff were all wonderful, responsive and helpful; the curriculum was difficult and set at a fast pace, but it was thorough and I never once felt like I lagged behind or didn't learn a concept well enough.
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Anonymous
A demanding experience
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Ironhack offers an intensive course that covers a broad range of data analytics topics, with a particular emphasis on Python coding and Machine Learning. The curriculum is organized into weekly clusters, helping students navigate the extensive subject matter in a structured manner. Over nine weeks, students become familiar with all key areas of data analytics. However, retention of information may vary based on individual backgrounds, prior skills, and predispositions towards IT.The course aims to comprehensively introduce various topics and is responsive to student needs. However, it tends to prioritize breadth over depth, focusing more on presenting numerous topics rather than on thorough teaching. As a result, students are often shown examples of code and skills rather than receiving detailed instruction. Graduation from the bootcamp depends on the completion of "labs"—exercises based on the covered topics. These labs can sometimes feel outdated and are often challenging relative to the level of instruction provided.
In conclusion, the Ironhack bootcamp is a valuable experience for anyone aiming to apply for Data Analyst or Data Scientist positions. Graduating from the bootcamp can facilitate access to the hiring process. However, it is important to note that the bootcamp alone may not fully prepare you for the job. It is highly recommended to supplement the bootcamp with personal study and further preparation to meet the requirements of hiring companies. -
Anonymous
Intense
Learned a lot in 9 weeks. Changed view about a totally new topic. I’m excited to go out and put to the test my new knowledge. Though if the course was 1 or 2 weeks longer, I feel that those learnings would stick more. -
Anonymous
Amazing experience
I've done Data Analytics in lisbon campus on the part-time format.
It's was an intense and immersive experience but it worth it! Amazing staff and teaching staff.
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Anonymous
Disappointing
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Very disappointing and complete waste of time and money. Lack of support and resources. Campus facilities in bad condition. The overall feeling was of just studying alone and paying for info that I could have found on the internet for free. Teaching stuff mostly uninterested in what they are doing(some exceptions of course), and unwilling to challenge themselves and try to provide better answers or explanations, rather they just give you copy paste answers that are not applicable to the projects you are working one. Overall, I am left completely dissatisfied with the experience and feel unprepared for a future job in WebDev -
Anonymous
Intense learning experience
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I just finished a full-time ux/ui design BootCamp at Ironhack Portugal and I gotta say the best word to describe it is intense: one day there feels like a week of learning and one week feels like a month. It's amazing how many skills you can learn in such a short period of time.
I recommend it to whoever wants a fast career change, but I warn you to the fact that you need to be 100% committed to it. I mean, you don't need to but its one of those things in which you get out as much as you put in, so bear that in mind.
The first weeks I was fine with just working during campus hours but when the solo projects started, around week 4, I arrived home and had to continue working, in order to not let the tasks pile up.
It's a tiring and intense experience but 10/10 would do it again. -
Anonymous
Good classes, really bad "career service"
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The classes were phenomenal, in my case my professor was outstanding, very patient and always glad to help anyone who needed it. As for the 2 TAs, one was better than the other, but they both still tried their hardest to help you in anything they want. So in the case of learning how to program (I did the web development bootcamp) it really was a nice experience where you learn a lot.
Here comes my issues, the career service. They promised in their old website a really high chance to get a job after finishing their bootcamps (+90% of students found a job in less than 6 months supposedly), and they claim to have contacts with over 600+ companies, which does not really seem to be the case. The career service is only valid in my opinion so you can learn how to set up your LinkedIn, the rest of the stuff they organize/offer, is really not up to any kind of standards that you would expect, specially when they sell themselves in such a nice way, and for the cost, Id rather pay 50% just to go to class, and just skip the career service. They start bombarding you with e-mails, asking for job updates and what are you doing, and in my case, even after answering all of them, since I needed to find another job to sustain myself. I can not part-take in any of the events they organize even remotely in 99% of the cases, and seems like if you do not part-take in this kinda sect you are not welcome.
So, finishing up, I would recommend that you go to another bootcamp if you just want to learn and want to avoid being sold smoke. -
Anonymous
Changed my life
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The whole experience changed my perspective on how to deal with problems and how I see teachers. I've got really lucky with the teaching team, they were all very keen to help, and make everyone feel comfortable by asking questions and failing. So the intensity of the bootcamp was a bit lighter. Everyone at Ironhack knows you've made a commitment and a risk decision by taking the course and they deal with the situation with that in mind. -
Anonymous
Ironhack web development bootcamp
I enrolled in a 9-week full-time web development bootcamp and it was a great experience that also helped me land a new job. though it was intense but worthed course was very well designed and covered within time also their instructional staff was eager to help.