Ironhack

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.

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.

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 !

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.