Ironhack

Moving down to Miami from New York was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life, however I completely underestimated the job market and I definitely would not be where I am today if I had not enrolled in Ironhack.  After researching and getting admitted to the Web Development bootcamp, I immediately felt as though I was kickstarting my life.  A full emersion environment with like minded individuals who all want your best interest was more than anything I had been exposed to before.  Having studied Systems Engineering for 5 years at GWU, I had never received the attention and passion that Ironhack provided me with.  The instructors as well as the TA were extremely helpful and willing to go over any bit of information that I was confused on, stuck on, or wanted to learn more about.  I never thought that in 8 weeks I would fully develop a new skill, and learn multiple new programming languages and be able to single handedly create a full functioning web application.  This is something that made me a more desirable candidate in conjunction with my data analytics and system engineering background.

The journey only begun there, however.  The staff at Ironhack has somehow figured out a way to make each and every student feel as though they are the number one priority.  Whether it was one-on-ones throughout the course to just check on your status and how you’re feeling, all the way to standing strong with me when I was ready to give up multiple times in finding the correct job for me.  Daniel Brito specifically refused to let me give in to my doubts on finding the job culture fit for me.  Although Ironhack was amazing with placing students in positions, I wanted THE position – the ultimate job, and I refused to settle on anything less than that.  I have never met anyone who has more connections in a city than Brito, and it was almost humorous to me how almost every job I interviewed for, someone knew him and always in a positive light, which only made me have more faith.  Ultimately when I began restructuring my job search, it was single handedly the fact that my resume was in the hands of the right people at the right places that I was able to get the opportunities that I did.  And, I would not have had that advantage if I didn’t do Ironhack and have Daniel Brito as a career coach.  Having finally started the next steps in my career at a well known fashion e-commerce company, I finally feel that I am in the environment right for me with the co-workers who can help me in growing with the company and excel in my role.  And as it turns out, I got the interview since my boss had my resume on file from one of his best friends, Daniel Brito, and the with the right knowledge base and personality, I was able to secure the position.  I could not have asked for a better job placement experience, and I can say that I legitimately owe it to Ironhack.

WHY I DID IT

I chose Ironhack Bootcamp because it motivated me the fact of being part of a community rather than just signing up for a course for going to class and then go home. Of course, once you'r there it's up to you to be part of it or just attend to classes. 

HOW IT HELPED 

A bootcamp helps you to put your first step in to the world you are seeking to enter into, in this case the design world, which in Barcelona is very closed. While after university there is a huge gap between where you are and where you want to go, after Ironhack you actually have already contacts in where you want to go. In the bootcamp there will be events, people coming, lectures from interesting companies, but it will be up to you to network with them, nothing will come by itself. 

For example, after the hiring days 6 companies reached me and two weeks after I have offers for working for two of them. But it’s very up to you to have the initiative and search for the opportunities and also to decide which is a fair job deal. 

WHAT I LIKED

I went almost from zero in design. I had audiovisual background and it helped to improve some skills I  already had. But, I did build mostly everything from scratch. And now I feel like I increased 100% my skills. 

Immersive atmosphere it's all about design for 10 weeks. You will find yourself reading design articles while having breakfast and going to bed with design documentaries. 

"Team feeling". You spent a lot of time with the same persons every day. You better deal with it, make the most for getting along with them and encourage them to make things together. You will end the bootcamp with a groups of friends extremely motivate with design. 

WHAT I MISSED

Going deeper in some parts of the curricula. 

More connection with lecturer's job during their classes. 

You are very free to do the tasks as good as you want. I missed more guidance when you feel demotivated in other to get better results for the portfolio. Not just getting task done because there are a deadlines.

Ironhack Web Development Bootcamp in Barcelona was great.
The course had an intense pace, but it was something I was looking for in a Bootcamp.
I learned a great number of applicable skills as a Graphic Designer.

One thing as the curriculum was new for this Bootcamp. The angular 2 part was definitely a good framework, but from the overall look of Barcelona's market, it seems that learning React would have been even more helpfull. As it seems to be overall more used in Barcelona than angular 2 that is a very recent framework that was only made public in November 2016.

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.

if you want to learn to programming you can to start with this one, it's simply but completed, with the classes and homework you will be a Frontend Developer easily. You are learning to use HTML, CSS, SASS, JavaScript, PHP... very, very, very easily.

My experience at Ironhack was very very very positive one.

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).

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.

Ironhack really changed my life.

I was a part of the first cohort for UX/UI Design in Miami. It was only 8 of us in the class each from different corners of life.  I got interviewed by Alia a couple of months before starting the course. Alia is like the gatekeeper of Ironhack you'll most likely meet her first through the interview process and she'll help you prepare and to be ready for your first day of class. One thing I'll point out is the IronHack staff all work and blend together so well it's like they were crafted precisely to work together. It's pretty inspiring to see that, it really shows the passion they have for their job.  On my first day, I knew the decision to go to Ironhack would be the beginning of something new. Though a lot of the work and change has to come from oneself.

The first instructor to get us going was Jacqueline and the best person for the job to introduce us to user research. She was a force of positivity and encouragement in the class. I really appreciated that.  Joel another instructor had such a way of keeping one curious kept me always wanting more. Mr. Marcelo the instructor who came in after Jacqueline an amazing designer. All his vast amount of knowledge was golden. Josh our final instructor for the Front-end proportion of the course probably with highest difficulty part of the class but, still he helped us make it through, made it enjoyable, and fascinating overall.  

The classroom environment is really open and if one feels like they won't be able on the level with everyone else that shouldn't be a concern. All the students come from different backgrounds in a way that really adds to the experience overall and benefits all the students. The course is designed in a way to be accessible to all, but it is a large amount of information to squeeze into a small time frame. There were times throughout the course I felt one week feels like two weeks in one. It's partly due to the amount of information one absorbed in a small amount of time. One really has to be fully committed to doing this. Overall the people in the class helps one stay motivated and encourages everyone to really push oneself and keep going.  

The person to oversee everything in our class was Alida she made sure the class and everyone was on track all the way to career week. The preparation to career week can be a stressful time but the person to help you through it is Daniel Brito he is your cheerleader, advisor, mentor, best friend, and sensei all in one. It all ends with the Hackshow where everyone is put to the test and show's their final project to the tech community and is to judge. The journey does not end with Ironhack though, one has to continue learning once competition of the course. One shouldn't expect to master everything at their time at Ironhack it's all a process and like I mentioned it before a lot of the change has to come from oneself.

Overall Ironhack really has opened the door to the tech community for me. A month and a half after Ironhack I started an internship as a UX designer at a digital agency located in Wynwood. It was intimidating at first, but eventually, it'll all come together. Am I a Ux experts now? No, but, I'm a step closer. If I had the chance to do it all over would I? Of course!

When I starterted IronHack I was a bit nervous about how it would go, as I didn't have any coding experience other then the pre-work. But these 9 weeks have been truly amazing, and I never had a feeling that it was to hard. 

The pace of the classes can be fast at times, but because all the other students are facing the same it takes away pressure. You have a feeling you're doing it together, and it's super nice to be in an enviorment where everybody has the same goal. 

So yeah, it's been a great expierence! 

I attended the first Javascript Bootcamp in Barcelona (Jan/17-Mar/17) focused on MEAN (Mongo, Express, Angular, Node). Before I already worked with RoR and had already some knowledge of CSS. HTML, Javascript, Elm and React. 

For me joining the Ironhack was mostly a way to learn more Javascript and to verify my expertise for possible employers as the bootcamp has a really good reputation. 

When you are thinking of joining the bootcamp my recommendation is to start working on your skills as early and as much as possible as the pace during the course is high. Even with my previous knowledge some parts took a lot of effort to wrap your head around and I saw more than one in my co-hort struggle intensively. There is definitely a reason why it is called "Bootcamp". 

There was only one real downside of the course. We were actually the first Javascript course so this sometimes gave you the feeling to be a beta tester as not everything went smoothly. 

Especially when it came to Angular2 as later during my job interviews non of the companies were interested in it, instead everybody asked me for React. Nevertheless I got a nice job offer and will start beginning of April in Barcelona. 

The Iron hack UX/UI cohort was a great experience and I would recommend this coding bootcamp to anyone that want to push themselves to achieve invaluable skills in a condensed learning environment. The most important skill I learn at Iron Hack was the visual and graphic design tools and point of views that that i was introduced too. I learned the important relationship between art, creativity, style, and the internet. The instructors were both very helpful and informative during the learning process, bringing two different perspectives and professional focuses that were all one in the same sharing equal importance in the UX/UI field. The environment and staff that is provided by Iron Hack creates an ideal learning and thought provoking atmosphere. Upon graduating from Iron Hack I began interning with a fitness/tech start-up based in florida. This bootcamp has had a positive impact on my career and I would say if you’re thinking about it go for it.

I attended the first co-hort of the UX/UI Design Bootcamp at Ironhack from October to December 2016 in Miami. Joining the UX/UI bootcamp at Ironhack was the best decision I could have made. If you are thinking of doing it, I would totally recommend it!

I became interested in coding and UX design after attending the Women’s Code Weekend where we learned basic front-end development. From that event, I fell in love with coding and Ironhack’s staff. From the founder (Ariel) to all the staff, you can tell they enjoy working there. So there was no hesitation that this would be the best coding school option for me. After that event, I attended a couple of introductory events and an open house event were admissions (Alia) was able to help me make the right decision.

The co-working space (building.co), where Ironhack is located, is an amazing space that also hosts Tech startups. They host events that you can attend and this helps you become part of the Miami tech community. Also, Jenny, the co-working space manager, is amazing! 

Before starting classes, we had a week of pre-work to get started with the basics of design. My class was a small class (8 students) so we received very personalized attention. My classmates came from very different backgrounds and we all had different strengths which was nice. We had two amazing instructors (Jackie and Marcelo) that each have over 15+ of experience. During the bootcamp, we had lectures during the morning and hands on practice during the evenings, which in my opinion is a great way of learning.  I think the curriculum was very thorough. And also it is nice that every other week you have a one-on-one meeting with the staff to make sure you are doing OK. Alida, the operations manager,was there with us to make sure everything ran smoothly. 

Wednesdays were my favorite day, because we had guest speakers who had years of experience in UX Design. Through the bootcamp, I was able to make great connections and to meet a lot of people involved in the tech and startup community. 

We had one week of front-end development (more specifically HTML5 and CSS3) which I wish we had more! Josh was an amazing instructor. 

We had a career week, which was a great experience. Daniel Brito did an amazing job bringing companies to interview for UX design positions and preparing us for these interviews. After this I received a couple of offers and at the end landed a great job at Visa. Now I am looking forward to having the time in the future to join their Web Development Bootcamp. 

Where do I start? Let's see.. I was a creative millennial 5 years deep into a dead-end executive recruiting career . The cubicle life  (with the added pressure from the sales position I was in) was something that literally ruining my health.  I've always been more of a creative, artistic type of person so the 'old fashioned' corporate environment  was something that was hard to adjust to and, quite frankly, seemed outdated. My passion for creativity has led me from quitting my recruiting career to enrolling and completing IronHack’s 1st ever UI/UX Design cohort in Miami this past December. I found out about Ironhack through my Tech Recruiting network and my life has drastically changed for the better.

My UX cohort at Ironhack was one of the best things for me, partly because I was introduced to a small group of like-minded people who all wanted to have a career in the tech world. Every single person on the staff is amazing and thanks to people like Alia and Alli, (two people I interacted with on a daily basis) the environment felt genuinely warm from the very beginning.

For 3 months I went to class and learned how to become a UX Designer. I used Ironhack's facilities, met awesome classmates, ate plenty of free food, and partied plenty during the long weeks of learning UX Design. Not once did I dread going to class, because I was learning something that was more inline with my skill set. The instructors Jacqueline and Marcelo were absolutely amazing and made sure to spend extra time with everyone individually to make sure they were up to speed. I cant say enough about how well the curriculum was put together.

I know it is very possible to learn programming, coding, and even UX Design on your own, but no amount of studying is going to introduce you to the network of of Developers and Designers that Ironhack has to me - and that I give a lot of credit to Daniel Brito, the Placements Manager at Ironhack. He's the one who not only finds our instructors, but he works his butt off to find you a job once you have graduated. Like seriously the dude loses sleep because he grinds so hard working with CEO's,  Sr. Developers, and other Sr. members of the tech community JUST TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A JOB. My professors and instructors were leading Sr. UX Designers in the industry who have not only helped me in the classroom, but also to this very day, well after graduation. They were awesome and really great job giving you information from experiences that researching Google could'tSo if you are worried about taking that leap and being able to find work , rest easy knowing that there are people like Daniel Brito who have your back.

After completing Ironhack it took about 30 days to find a job making double what I was making before, with none of the stress. I do admit I was blessed, obviously every story doesn't have a happy ending. But I do know I would not have been able to make the strides or the money that I'm making now if it were not for Ironhack. I encourage anyone who is having second thoughts or who is afraid to take that leap into the tech community check out Ironhack. Theres too many people in your corner for you to fail.

I loved everything about IronHack, the facilities, the location, the materials learned and especially the teachers/staff. Jackie and Marcelo taught us everything they knew. We were able to form meaningful bonds over the time of the cohort which grew from a teacher/student relationship into a beautiful friendship and mentorship. Everyone in the industry spoke wonders of them and it was an amazing experience learning from some of the top talent in the industry. I truly felt like this was a once in a lifetime experience. The staff at IronHack always went above and beyond what was expected. It is a rare chance to see such a well functioning team. You can tell each and every staff member loves what they do and are so happy. That was not always my experience. Having people doing what they love makes all the difference. They never missed a beat AND in the rare occasions where there was a hiccup, they remedied the situation almost immediately. The classroom environment was a very pleasant learning environment. What I loved most was how everyone came in with such different professional backgrounds. It was a very collaborative learning environment and not competitive. We all had the same goals which was to learn the material so it was nice to see such a supportive environment amongst the students. Months later, and I am still so happy that I joined this cohort and learned all these valuable skills. I am currently in my first semester at MBA school and I feel that this has given me such a unique skill set that definitely sets me apart from my peers. It has come so much in handy in all my classes as technology is such a key part of all business industries. I would never take back this experience and am so happy I found IronHack!