Ironhack

Cómo lo que en el papel y por opiniones de colegas que habían hecho el de Web apuntaba como una de las mejores experiencias para cambiar de sector acabo siendo un despropósito.

Vale, Covid. Pero no hacía falta despreocuparse de esa forma de los alumnos que habíamos pagado por clases presenciales y obtuvimos un bootcamp descafeinado, en remoto y con un soporte 0 para la posterior búsqueda de empleo.

El primer día te plantean el curso como algo que hay que currarse, spoiler: MENTIRA, que si no entregas las prácticas, llegas tarde, blabla,...no te gradúas, nada. Que habrá Hiring Fair dónde hablaríamos con empresas y tendríamos las primeras entrevistas, spoiler: MENTIRA.

Durante todo el curso nos cambiaron 3 veces de profesor. Al último, lo soltaron en clase sin darle a penas explicaciones de cómo funcionaba, por dónde íbamos, qué incluía el currículum....Bien, Ironhack, bien. Llega una pandemia a nivel mundial y mientras todas las empresas TEC ya estaban diciendo que teletrabajo, ellos seguían empeñados en clase, con las supuestas faltas de asistencia que podían hacer que no te graduaras si querías quedarte en casa. Soluciones temporales para los primeros 15 días, esto lo entiendo, nadie sabía qué iba a durar tanto.... Pero no sé, ve entrando a preguntar cómo vamos, si hubiese aumentado un poquito el interés por la institución para ver si nos adaptábamos bien o no a las nuevas herramientas otro gallo cantaría. Total, comunicación 0 su parte. Tuvimos que pedir  que se nos informara de cómo iban las cosas. Y aquí entramos en una especie de proceso de negociación en que conseguimos algunos workshops y que nos dejaran repetir algunas clases a modo de compensación.

Se acaba el bootcamp. Llega el momento de la famosa Carreer Week que acaban siendo algunas charlas a través de Zoom. Como no se puede hacer Hiring Fair nos proponen una especie de Tinder donde las empresas podrían hacer match con nuestros perfiles y nos aseguraban un mínimo de 3 entrevistas. De mi promoción cada uno hemos hecho un total de 0 entrevistas. Casi 6 meses después de graduarnos.

Te recomiendo Ironhack si te sobra la pasta y quieres aprender lo justo para ponerlo en LinkedIn.

Despite the promises they made you before starting... the bootcamp does not fulfill the expectations. The level is so low and the lessons are not up to date. They had good hiring numbers because there were a lot of job offers, but the level you get when finishing is not good at all.

In general I'm pretty satisfied with the bootcamp as I was a "0 lines of codes written" student and I graduated building projects using AI and data analytics. 

The main topics I think they could improve:

1. Update the curriculum. There was a lack of training regarding cloud engineering when it came to the point of extracting the data. This is something that I found lacking of when going to job interviews.

2. Instructors: My instructor was heading out of the institution so the general feeling in my class was that there was not a lot of effort in making us learn state of the art topics

3. Job Assistance: I find profoundly unfair that I only have access to interviews with possible recruiters up to 6 months after graduation. If I would have known this I would've probably waited until the pandemic crisis passed. At least in Spain it has been a nightmare.

4. Cohort building: My cohort was a mix between business graduates and STEM careers PhD's which was nice to get to know other people but we probably went more into AI rather than business analysis and this hurted my chances when it comes to job seeking. More business oriented training rather than "pneumonia detection" and "Nasa data" was the main point of discomfort.

At the end what you put in you get out and if you are more interested in the business side I strongly recommend you aim your projects towards business cases rather than "cool look at what I can do" type of projects.

After finishing on 25 July my Bootcamp I was very excited to finally get in contact with some companies. I did my career week as any normal student and they told us to read the material in the middle of the zoom meeting, which was a waste of time since you could read the material at home and not use 3 hours zoom meeting. After some days I found out that we would only get in contact with companies after 3 months. They said their new FTI is even better than the quick interviews they provided before... So I matched with two companies two weeks ago but of course one of the companies was only looking for Product Developer (nothing to do with web development) and the other one was a CEO that I sent an email to, of course, did not reply. When I asked about it they told me to be patient... Here is the thing I have been waiting already for 2 months and a half, I was counting on Ironhack to find a job because I am on a work-seeker Visa and they have failed me. I asked for a refund since the course also did lose their quality going online and also did not get anything. If you are looking for a job Ironhack is not enough since most of the companies use other technologies like PHP, SQL, or GraphQL things you don't learn in this course, search for it online and you will see no companies use MongoDB very few of them does. Think twice before paying a huge amount of money since it will not guarantee you a job position.  From 15 persons that graduated our batch only two that I know got jobs because they had contacts. The teacher was very good and professional the only thing that might be worst to pay but not 7500 euros.

Ironhack Miami is a great boot camp with great instructors and TA’s the whole team is great with the exception of Daniel Brito who is the “Job placement”. You can surely get more with a LinkedIn Pro package for a month than he will ever get from him. If Ironhack Miami wants to keep taking this seriously, hire someone in that position that is willing to help not just someone that tells you about all the over 2k+ connections they have but he never connects to the graduates. He will not help you with getting a job, you’ll do that yourself. 

Overall, I'm happy about my experience in Ironhack. To preface,  I had zero technical background and graduated so if I can do it, you can too! That being said, some things to consider ---
1. It is a lot of hard work normally, but especially if you don't have a strong technical background get ready to put in extra work/time/dedication before and after class and through your weekends. 

2. After all that grinding, you are able to produce 3 awesome projects (which you will be very proud of). However,  your overall grasp on web development is still pretty shallow so be prepared to continue learning and deepening your knowledge even after graduation. This bootcamp is a great starting point! 

And lastly, 3. Even though this class is remote and invites students from anywhere, it is still focused towards South Florida particularly during Career Week where they help you search for jobs and prep you for interviews. Although they do teach you how to search for jobs (with this skill it's applicable  to wherever you are), but many of their references to jobs, companies, connections, speakers, fast track interviews matchmaking system, etc. are all Florida-based, so people who don't live there may feel excluded. The career department for all USA students is a one man show - Granted he is very knowledgeable and has much wisdom to offer, but I hope Ironhack hires more people to support in this area as the graduates' career needs are surely growing and beyond the limits of just one person.

Overall, the experience was good, the instructors were GREAT, I cried, I laughed, I learned a lot, and it's worth the money.

Ironhack was an amazing experience and I am thankful for everyone who helped me on my journey! David is very knowledgable in UX design and he is a genuinely awesome dude. Juan, Niko, and Stefan are also great teachers from what I heard from the web dev students and they were always fun to work with! Brito is another amazing person in Ironhack who gives you some tough love but it is all with good intentions! Just make sure to stay focused and keep your eye on the prize. The 9 weeks will FLY by.

My experience at Ironhack was life-changing! Their UX/UI Design curriculum is well structured, robust, yet satisfying, I learned so much in a short period of time. I was hesitant at first because of COVID-19, the Bootcamp transitioned to virtual class sessions. But it was completely do-able, in fact, it turned us into better designers and opened up our network to remote work. They also offered several workshops from UX experts around the world to coding classes and career coaching. It definitely felt like a support system, I'm excited about my new role and if you're ready to start your career as a UX/UI Designer, I recommend Ironhack!

I did the course remotely during COVID-19. Very good instructors. I wish that there was time dedicated to building your portfolio website because you end up with these cool projects and then need to figure out yourself how to organize them. The curriculum is good, but what is most valuable is the feedback of the very knowledgable instructors. Job assistance curriculum is good, but I have found the support from career staff to be lacking. Career assistance staff is spread way too thin and you can tell that they are trying to make some students ineligible for support to make it less burdensome on them based on a "terms and conditions page" that you signed at the beginning. Bottom Line: more job assistance staff is needed.

I have a design background and I've never coded before I started Ironhack. I had an amazing experience during the Bootcamp, with a great content structure and staff support. The teacher was incredible, one of the best that I've had. I've not just learned how to code in Javascript but also how to learn other languages by myself. After two months that I've completed the Bootcamp, I started to work at the developer field.

I feel obligated to write a review for this course because I have very mixed feelings about the experience. I will try to be as honest as possible. 

Before the course starts, students must complete prework assignments based off an online learning platform. The platform was a good start but didn’t always provide all necessary information or enough examples to completely understand the material. The TAs are available to help, but in my experience they didn’t always get back to me right away (I later learned why—the TAs are extremely overworked). The prework needs improving because there’s no good way to accurately see if you’ve learned enough before the course starts, even by completing the two assignments. 

As for the course itself: class was from 9-18:00 but if you’re taking it seriously, you’ll stay several extra hours to complete the lab assignments. It’s lots of self-learning. The website is accurate in its structure of the day, with lectures and labs interspersed. They’re good at giving you lots of breaks, which you’ll need. The TAs are amazing and work hard to help you, sometimes sitting down for long periods of time to debug your code. Personally I think they did more than the teacher and deserve more pay/credit. 

On the other hand, the fact that TAs can help you whenever and assignments are often done with partners, it’s hard to know if you truly understand the material. You might be completing assignments after receiving help from others, so it’s hard to gauge whether you’ve comprehended it all. Personally I felt like my TAs coded my entire first project because I didn’t understand any of it, while the feedback from the TAs was very positive. I therefore felt there was a huge discrepancy because they couldn’t truly see how people were doing. When I tried to advocate for myself, they always just told me I was doing fine. 

The projects overall are a great way to break into a new career. You’ll learn a lot and add to your portfolio. Additionally, you’ll do 1-2 daily labs, mini projects, so you’ll build up a good foundation. After the bootcamp I think learning online would be impossible. IH barely scratches the surface of what a developer needs to know (just because it can’t in such a short time), and to learn the same amount without a bootcamp would take years, especially without help from peers. 

On the other hand, I personally think IH isn’t the right bootcamp anymore. Perhaps it once was, but its career services leave something to be desired (in the case of my class: a career). Our hiring week took place right before Christmas, so it might as well not have happened, as no one hires then anyway. After that, we received only a couple emails within the three months after graduating, not nearly enough compared to the services promised. They also weren’t overly available for meetings so scheduling usually wasn’t instantaneous, and my meetings were short and seemingly unproductive. They told me things I already know. More frustrating is the fact that of all the people in my class looking for a new job, only a small number got hired within those three months, probably well below a 50% hiring rate, or even 30%. I don’t want to give a solid number but can say that the majority of students looking for a job from my class still has not found one.  

Overall, a bootcamp may or may not be a good decision, but for the financial and physical and mental health costs, IH is not the best choice. 

Great teacher, relevant course content, good atmosphere.

Good course if you have no experience in programming. After the course you will have the basis to learn new concepts.

I was like many other people, skeptical about Ironhack and even coding bootcamps in general, but I did my research months before I joined. My experience has been that before, throughout, and after joining Ironhack, Ironhack is definitely the best coding bootcamp in Miami, FL (comparing it to Wyncode and UM). Not only is the building and location great, but the staff and fellow classmates make it every bit worth the while... plus career services!

The material taught for Full-Stack Web Development is very relevant to the Miami tech community and for many locations nationally. I’m not going to say that I enjoyed every single thing that was taught because some of it (small portion) turned out to be irrelevant, but what’s great is that they take your feedback into consideration and can update the curriculum. I know the curriculum was updated to remove the irrelevant material and was replaced with better material for the cohort that followed mine.

During, and after you graduate, you have extensive job assistance opportunities like (Linkedin and resume help and a career fair), you just have to make sure you’re putting in the effort. No one is guaranteed a job, nowhere are you really it’s all about your efforts in the job hunt, but you are guaranteed the skills and tools that will be relevant in the workforce for a Full-Stack Development job. I know the price is a factor for a lot of people, but you’ll find that it’s much cheaper than studying at a college/university and you’re done a lot sooner with a large skillset under your belt.

I hope this helps remove any doubts you might have about joining Ironhack! :)

 

- Ironhack Alumn that's now a Front-End Web Developer

Ironhack was perfect for the moment i was living when i first got here. I was looking forward to change my career completely. The school gave me new perspectives of what i could be and do and amplified my horizon through the events, talks and people that i met.
Now, down to the chase:
Positives: the content of the course is very complete (you get to know a little bit of everything), people that work here are awesome and eager to help you to have a great experience
Negatives: disorganized (information, payment, etc), there's a sense of community that happens locally, but i don't sense it is a global community (something that they "sell")

 

The Web Development Bootcamp was the best experience of the past years of my life, both professionally and personally. The teachers and TAs are very competent and helpful. They put a lot of effort into making sure the curriculum focuses on the most relevant/current topics and technologies. Mili and the career team are amazing - they support you from day one. The whole team really creates a positive and supportive learning atmosphere, so you never feel embarrassed to ask a question or ask for help when you're struggling. And in the end everyone celebrates everyone else's achievements in the projects and job hunt! I got two job offers within two weeks of finishing the course. I took a job in Vienna with a starting salary of €42K annually plus benefits and a relocation bonus. This course really empowered me to believe in myself as a coder and change from a career where I felt very stuck, undervalued, and unhappy.

I decided to do a bootcamp in data analysis at Ironhack and it was one of my best decisions ever!

 

I did this bootcamp far away from  my hometown, because I wanted to have a total change. And it was good. Away from home, away from distraction of my daily life, I could focus 100% on it. But this is also neccessary. You don´t only spend 8 hours a day there to become a data analyst, you put your whole effort on it (and this means always more than 8 hours working). However you spend this "working" hours with your new colleagues, your new friends, your new family! The great thing is, they are all so interested in achieving your common goal - to become a data analyst in 9 weeks, that the way towards this goal is also a lot of fun. Sure, the time is very hard and I got to my personal limits, but when you organize your daily life well, focus on it to 100% and get this great support from your team mates and the amazing ironhack staff, you will do it! 

I´m still impressed what I was aible to achieve during this 9 weeks. I never expected this. I had no previous knowledge, now I´m able to write codes in python, create beautiful plots in tableau and predict future sales based on machine learning and many other cool new things.

If you decide to do a bootcamp at Ironhack, I recommend you to ask who´s going to be your teacher, ask previous alumnis or the ironhack staff, because this teacher will teach you the whole 9 weeks and since there are a lot of other campus in the world, you can choose this one with the best teacher, to get the best results.

Nonetheless I have to say that the ironhack staff supports you in almost every thing when you have any trouble related to this bootcamp, they try immediatly to change things to create such an enviroment that you are able to focus again on your work to 100%. I never had this before in a previous job nor university.

So great job! thx!

Excellent course and methodology.  They make you go deep into the design approaches in order for you to create your own portfolio and learn by doing. We walk through all of the design thinking steps and also the UI too. Every week you have to deliver a project in order for you to put what you learnt to work!

The truth is, as an attendee in Ironhack, I was beyond surprised with how the bootcamp developed. I learned the tools ready for the job market and I feel more than confident with my skills to learn, implement, and practice any project that a company or business requires. The staff in Ironhack Mexico was beyond excellent, I was surprised with the continued support that everyone in the staff provided. I do recommend to anyone that wants to attend this camp has some previous learning in order to get a better experience. Do the prework that they require but also go beyond and try to learn more programming. If you expect going into the bootcamp without having any interest in programming you may discover that programming is not for you, but this won't be the bootcamps fault rather than yours. Ironhack offers great tools for the job market, a great career work support, and an amazing staff that will become your family. In truth, they do their best to prepare you but most of it falls on you.

When I first started my web development bootcamp, I was kinda scared about the enormous amount of information that we would be learning during the following 9 weeks.  I seemed huge...extremely difficult! However, as we started our classes and got to know our teachers, I realized that I didn't need to worry. We had the best teachers who had the best attitude towars us. We learnt more than what I thought was possible. And we also became a part of Ironhack's family. This is a great option for someone who wants to become an excellent developer and who want to face new challenges.