Ironhack

My background:  I finished my computer Science Engineering 10 years ago, since then I have been working mainly as systems Engineer , having very little programming involved at my work.    I´m a very practical person whow has always pretty clear my objectives , so the decision to go to Ironhack was taken after months of  careful research pursuing the best option and valuing what steps should I make on my professional career.   Just before the bootcamp  I was working as an IBM Presales Engineer in a mixed role : half technician / half commertial). The technical part did not involve programming .     IronHack has fullfilled the expectatives i had for the bootcamp: First getting used to programming and  the new technologies  used by the market at this day, Second  find a Job right after  the bootcamp so I could start as soon as possible to program and keep growing as a programmer, I acomplished both at the end of the bootcamp ( on the job part  I had 2 offers just by one week of interviews).   I would recommend the experience , even though a minimal comprension of programming is required , any person with passion and hardwork can pass it through. I enjoyed mostly every day with new practices and new things to learn and hard challenges to confront everyday , lets be clear about this ,Ironhack its not easy and is very intentse, but  the benefits adquired through strugling and frustration are more rewarding with the system it has ( having to do a weekly proyect on week 3 already).   I´m currently working as a FrontEnd Developer developing an application running in Angular ( one of the technologies covered by the bootcamp)  at a digital marketing company that develops its own solutions. Having done several proyects at IH made my integration at the developer´s team very fast and within the first month I was on the same programming path as my companions.   About the staff and professionals that works at IronHack i´ve got no complains as they were trustworthy and had the knowledge I seeked to fulfill my goals. I also had luck having great fellow students that were encouraging each other whenever one got stuck over difficult issues .    If you are researching IH I think the best way is to ask one of the ex-alumni that are over internet, linkedin or even in person at the events. They would probably tell you  that they dont regret the experience and solve many doubts you may have.

Before attenging Ironhack Madrid, I worked in Miami for a company related to technological products and LED illumination, named Airis USA. I was the Operations Supervisor and was in charged of the whole operations of the company since the Operations Manager was not in town always.

My experience at Ironhack was amazing. Amazing because at first I was lost and thought that I have made a mistake, but as time passed and I learned more, I was so amazed with my abilities and my coding, that I couldn't believe. 

I learned to learn from mistakes and that to be an expert in something you need to practice and never give up. The best aspect of Ironhack was the environment in which you learn to code. The teachers, assistants, managers, and collegues are always so open to help and motivate to give the best effort always. 

Right now I am back at my home country, Ecuador, working in a digital consultancy company. I work as Digital Account Manager, although it sounds more as a business related position, I am always in touch with programming and programmers in order to deliver the best project. I am not 100% of time coding, due to the fact that I have a business background as well, but I continue learning from the programmers in the company. 

I attended Ironhack in March 2016 and it was probably the best move I've taken in a while. I was able to learn a lor of great tools that I always wondered about in Web Development as well as reinforce some of my self-taugth knowledge.

The instructors and TA were amazing and always ready to help. The staff gave us their full attention and helped us navigate the areas wer struggled in in order to maximize our time at the bootcamp.

The facility and location are both great and the environment at BUILDING.co was fun and inviting.

It was really demanding, but it was exactly what I was hoping. I really enjoy being under pressure every day, giving the best. Obviously some days it was really frustrating, because you can´t overcome an issue, but that´s part of the course, you need to learn to surpass the frustation. Without notice, I learned a huge amount of things, and after some weeks I felt ready to confront any challenge. On my personal experience, I learned a lot about coding environment . I came from a super different background, where almost everything has really similar ways of doing things. What is awesome about coding, is that you have thousands of ways to do things. So I can say, I learned to learn, and take my scares off about coding. The best? The everyday environment at school, it was awesome, the classmate and the staff was incredible and make a huge working making the 12hs a day really bearable. I really enjoy the hiring week, unlike any other I have had, I think the key about this one is that you got 10 minutes with every employeer to show your projects and talk about your working expectations. This is awesome, because first of all, it force you to talk to every company, and in the same way, force the employeers to pay atention to you in those 10 minutes.

 

The most imporant skill that I learned at Ironhack, other than coding, was being able to pick new technologies fast and being able to understand complex technical manuals.

Nizar was the most patient teacher I've ever met, and he always was able to explain things in an easy-to-digest way, a true guru!

The Ironhack staff was also amazing, everybody is bright, has a cool story to tell and can help you in several ways. A special thanks goes to Daniel Brito, the placement manager, for going the extra mile for me and assuring I was keeping good relationship with the employers.

The classroom environment is futuristic! You are catapulted into the Miami startup world, and every piece of furniture and color shows an environment full of energy.

IronHack jumpstarted my career and gave me amazing opportunities stright out of graduation. I suggest it to all!!!!!!!!!

Took the program about a year ago. 

Pros :
The environment was great
People you meet along the way really make the experience that much more enjoyable. 
Challenging. You will end the program feeling like you can do anything. 
     (Learning this from scratch takes a lot of determination but it's doable.)
Very lucrative field of work

Cons :
- 20 Students in a class with 1 Teacher and a 1 TA seems a bit ridiculous for a group of      people that, for the most part, have never seen this material before. 
- Only 1 person with more than 3 years of experience in the field helping us
- Majority of the course material you do in the course is available on the internet for free      through other sources
- Once the course is through, no friendly interaction from any of the staff. Plenty of        marketing emails though.

You basically get an introduction to a lot of different things. Before you fully grasp anything, you are on to the next thing. It's fast-paced, and you will have much more studying and learning to do after the course. (Not in the lifelearning type of way, but more in the playing catch-up on 2 years missed experience type of way.)

Placements manager knew his stuff and gave a lot of insight into what the recruiters are looking for. He provides you with plenty of resources and does a great job following up and staying on your ass. Do all that he says and you can't go wrong.

When i had decided to attend Ironhack i had already been considering similar bootcamps for a few months. I had read great reviews about it online and they touted an excellenct job placement record. i find it's not very good to take information like that for granted, and so i enrolled with a healthy amount of skeptisism.

The course was fast paced, but not so much that it felt overwhelming. The way the course is structured encourages teamwork among the class, and fosters a sense of "we're all in this together" that adds to the learning experience immensly. I met some fantastic people in the course, some of whom i remain in business with today. Everyone has their stengths and weaknesses. When someone in the class felt like they were losing grasp on the material the teachers and staff acted accordingly, spending time and focusing on the individual learning needs of each student. By the end of the couse even the most technologically adverse students were competent UX/UI proffesionals.

Less than two weeks after the end of the program i was one of the first in the class to get hired thanks to Brito (the job placement counselor) who is very well connected in the Miami tech world. If you think of this class in terms of acheiving a return on your investment, i dont think you can really beat this. 

Last year of college, studying accounting and preparing for a life filled with debits, credits, and T-Accounts... Decide to pursue a scholarship opportunity in a field I'd always wanted to study but was never taken serious about it by others. The scholarship was being given by Uber to attend ironhack's school of UX/UI .  I Make it past the first round, then the next, then the next. A month later I actually win it, and I'm in an amazing building (literally called building) surrounded by dozens of like-minded individuals that all share the same passion for entrepeneurship, design, and development. This is the place I'd meet my future UX Design lab co-founders, the place I'd meet the best career placements manager in all of Miami, and the place I'd unlock my hidden potential I've always been too scared to chase. From the instructors to the management, Ironhack was trully a gateway to an industry I thought I'd never be apart of.

I made the mistake of not pursuing a degree in graphics/design 3 years prior, but this one decision made it all worth it. I was able to apply years of business experience to a user centric design role and excel in all my course work. The instructors guided me every step of the way, particularly Joel, a master of his craft. Here I learned the foundations of good UX, and the ebb and flow that ties it with UI. I was given foundational lessons on industry standard software, that I would then go on to master on my own. All while never forgeting the last thing Daniel Brito (placements manager) said at our orientation. "You get what you put it." Boy was he right. Hours upon hours, days upon days. I grinded and gave it everything I had. I built a portfolio strong enough to challenge senior positions. I built a company with classmates, good enough to be contractionally hired wihin a week of incorporating. I began a path I'd never look back on, and In the end, it was only right that Daniel Brito would be the one to connect me with what would go on to be my first professional full-time (benefits, and a hell of a starting salary) job as a UX/ UI Designer.

My names Daniel Rodriguez, and I am an Ironhacker. 

Iron hack was an excellent experience for me, the most important thing I gained was the high level understanding of development and the current technologies that exist within web development. Now if I hear a client say they need xyz I automatically understand what tools could provide them with a solution. When I look at a website I understand the components that make up that website. 

The instructors are extremely patient, the T.A.s are very helpful and the staff in general (including one of the co-founders who could be seen there regularly) make you feel very much like you are part of the Iron Hack family. This school is effectively filling in the gap in an industry that badly needs it. While many online courses will teach you syntax and many college courses will teach you theory, at Iron Hack you will gain the practical skills necessary to enter today’s workplace and build a portfolio of your work.

One of the most valuable parts of Iron Hack is the Placements Manager Daniel Brito and the services he provides. These services go beyond job placement, you will learn how to become part of the South Florida tech ecosystem (which I didn’t know existed before this course) which is essential in the development of your career. Here you will meet other developers, business owners, marketers and entrepreneurs. 

A word of advice for people who want to take this course however: you need to learn more than just coding syntax prior to entering the course if you want to really take advantage of everything it has to offer. Prior to taking the course you should be able to solve problems using programming (javascript would be great but if you can do it in any other language it will be extremely helpful since you already understand the logic behind problem solving using code).  Also, be prepared for very long days, as they say, “it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” 

I’m a civil engineer with great interest in learning new technology and I made a total professional reconversion as web developer doing Ironhack, in Summer 2014 in Barcelona.
Ironhack is an  intensive 8 week Bootcamp where we developed different skills based on front-end and back-end technologies (HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, Ruby, Rails, git, TDD, agile methods).
Ironhack allow me to find a job as web developer quickly and this was the most important for me.

The most interesting for me was that the teacher are profesional. They come from Spotify, Ebay and Xing and they teach us how to code, but also how to do a job interview, how they work, some tricks they use all the day.

It has been also very important for me, that they teach me how to test code and agile methodologies.

The staff has been a very big support for me. It was composed by the TA's(Teacher assistant), the bootcamp manager and the funder (Gonzalo). They help me a lot to improve my professional profile and making it attractive for the IT ecosystem.

In terms of  installation, they  was pretty good. The bootcamp was based in a Co-working space. Right now in Barcelona, the bootcamp is based in the Ironhack space, and it's amazing space.

I graduated Ironhack's fulltime full-stack web bootcamp December 2016, and it was perfect for greatly accelerating my ad-hoc career in tech. As someone who already felt comfortable with code and in the process of teaching myself web development, I was initially dubious of the value Ironhack had to offer me. However the friendly/talented/awesome staff and general atmosphere won me over, and I've never had any regrets. I've learned much more than I could have hoped to with an equivalent amount of time on my own, and made great friendships and connections throughout the process. Both in Ironhack and the local tech scene, which they are very well integrated with (Go Brito!).

I highly recommend this course to almost everyone desiring a career in or related to software development. I say "almost", because it is absolutely essential that you be a passionate self-starter. This course is a shortcut only in time, not effort. If you expect to put in minimal effort and get a job immediately upon graduation, especially with little or no prior programming experience, you will be sorely disappointed. However, if you commit yourself to mastering the material and putting in the long hours not just to practice, but to network in the various tech events they make you aware of, there's truly no limits to the number of opportunities that you will be presented with.

Ironhack will set you up for success. It's up to you to take advantage of it.