Launch Academy

I decided to make a career change after 8 years and on the recommendation of a former graduate I attended Launch Academy.

I highly recommend Launch Academy to anyone looking to learn web development. The staff is enthusiastic, engaging, and incredibly knowledgeable.

While I'm sure every cohort is different the sense of community that grew over our 12 weeks together on campus was amazing.

In addition to the well crafted coding curriculum the career services team does a wonderful job ensuring that you are set up for success on the job hunt. The post-grad support for job seekers is also top notch.

Attending Launch Academy was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

 

I just recently graduated from Launch Academy, so I've had experience with both the curriculum as well as the post graduation support. I can only say good things about both! They crammed as much as could fit in our heads, and have been working hard to find us positions since graduating. The one complaint I have is that the coursework could be a little rough around the edges at times, due to the fact that they're constantly changing it to keep up with trends and new tech. Generally it was minor things like examples not working, or tutorials not being quite accurate. The mentors were always there to address any issues though. I think my favorite part of Launch is that I'm now a part of a really dedicated and friendly community of web developers!

All in all, I had a great experience!

Attending Launch Academy was one of the best decisions I've ever made. I had recently relocated and unable to get any momentum in a new city with no professional network. Coding was always in my peripheral, but I had never actually taken the plunge until I started to look into bootcamps. Launch Academy really focused on Web Development moreso than others, so I dove in.

You'll initially spend 8 weeks online learning fundamentals, slowly ramping up to the 10-week online program where you'll be taking on a different topic each week. The pace picks up really quickly from there, and it's not only challenging, but you'll be surrounded by people who fast become very close friends.  By the time you're done, you'll know enough to build your own small apps and what you do from there is up to you. I personally kept the moment going and started to teach myself other languages I never could "figure out" before without the experience Launch provided.

Launch's curriculum changes very dynamically. Technology changes faster than fashion, and Launch keeps up. After graduating, they've got a pretty intensive job assistance program to keep you busy and active on the job hunt. It's a great experience. 

Hello,

I graduated two years ago from Launch Academy. First of all I loved my experience there. I learned fast and was easily one of the top performing students of my class. I was also 19 and spent all of my inheritance on the program and paying for rent/food during the program. When it was finished I accepted the first job I was offered rather quickly(2 months) as I was then living off of a credit card. The job was a contract for an extremely small start up(4 people). They told me that the company had experience with jr. developers before(which was not true). The lead developer was a 19 year old German college student. Needless to say it was not a growth experience. After the contract ended I was really in need of another job but didn’t receive help from my boot camp. My computer started experiencing problems and I could no longer run Rails. I found a full time volunteering opportunity with AmeriCorps teaching basic CS to students in low income areas and have been doing that for the last two years. I recently enrolled in a QA program for urban youth of low income and am now on an internship and will hopefully find a job quickly after. As I said I loved the experience during classes, but based on my experience I would say it should have costed $500-$1,000 not +$15,000 forcing me to live paycheck to paycheck and have no financial stability.

I, like you, was unhappy with my career and looking to make a large-scale change.  I chose software/web development because of the salary floor being higher than I was currently earning by nearly half, and the remote work/15-foot commute across the hallway was too good to pass up on.

Launch starts nice and slow with 8 weeks at home, part time, learning the basics with decent access to instructors to ask questions, as well as full-exercise live coding sessions.  In several cases you've got access to the solution but encouraged to get as far as you can on your own.  During the 10-week in-person session, you're moving fast, constantly working, and with almost unfettered access to instructors whose feedback can be as detailed, high-level and nitpicky as you're willing to go; they really know what they're talking about.

Post-Launch, you have very robust career support in searching for a job, access to prior Launchers and the network of support they're willing to provide, as well as the backing of the ever-growing reputation of Launch as a place that produces people with the skills needed to land a job.  That said, it is advised to continue working on independent projects and leveling up your abilities during the job search.

10/10 - would not do again because it worked the first time.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic I was an Improv Comedian. I had been looking to develop  another career at some point, but after all the theaters shut down I was left on unemployment without a clear direction. Launch Academy was recommended to me by a friend from my theater and it ended up being the best decision I've ever made. 

Launch took me from working nights, to a brand new career in the technology industry. It has a challenging but fair curriculum. It also does an excellent job of staying relevant between Cohorts as technologies evolve, and the the culture of the program is as good as the course-work. I've never considered myself a "math" person but with this program gave me the courage to code.

I'm the first person in my family to have the title "engineer" in my job description and it's all thanks to the people at Launch.

I had a great experience at Launch Academy and certainly learned a lot! The curriculum is consistently updated to keep up with version updates and industry popularity. The program is impeccably well run and I learned multiple new things every single day. The program included a 2-week group project and a 2-week individual project.

I chose to apply to Launch Academy for the following reasons and they ring true:

• 10 weeks in-person: Nothing can quite replace the face-to-face technical support, emotional support, and community you build at Launch. Plus, your classmates are your future colleagues in the Boston tech scene.
• Rigor: The program is rigorous yet structured to support both individuals who are new to coding and those with some background. I entered the program with little to no experience and wanted to make the most of my time there. Out of the bootcamps that I looked into, I felt that Launch provided me with the greatest growth potential.
• Career Support and Alumni Community:  Launch’s alumni community of over 1000 graduates is one of its greatest assets. Their community is not just a number but rather active and present in the current cohort’s Launch experience. The alumni come in to Launch to mentor, answer career questions, and support current Launchers every single week of the program. As someone without any (non-Launch) friends who are software engineers, this was critical to my vision of what I was looking for and where my career was eventually headed. The career support is extensive and begins Week 1.

Who should learn at Launch? Anyone who is driven, a curious learner, and self advocates. It requires a lot of hard work and long hours (all of which is genuinely enjoyable thanks to your awesome cohort learning alongside you). If you enter with the right mindset — “I have a lot to learn and I’m eager to put in the hard work” — I’m confident you have a lot to gain from the program.

If I could change anything about the program, I wish it were longer so that we could get more in-depth into some topics and better understand how to do more config on our own.

As I look back on my time at Launch Academy, what stands out to me the most is the community, consistently updated curriculum, and the immense amount that I learned. We’re all a team that celebrates each other’s successes and help each other get there.

Maybe times of changed, but 5 years out I can honestly say LA is a waste of time. After graduating I thought it was a scam, designed to just suck money out of people. The cost is massive and theyre excited to sign anyone up. Job support after was laughable. The career fair is there only get you past the point where they can drain your wallet, without a care in where you land. Most of the people in my cohort ended up in horrible body shop.

The instructors are all very Jr. and really shouldn't be teaching people. Having been in the industry for a while, what they teach you is very antiquated. Since, I have interviewed many LA grads hoping to help pick up the pieces LA have left behind, and in most cases they're unhireable. They just dont know anymore than someone who is self taught, only theyre now massively in debt.

Go elsewhere. I am shocked this place has so many 5 star reviews. 

I had a fantastic experience at Launch Academy in Boston. The instructors were really knowledgeable and the curriculum was both organized and presented well. Launch works hard to keep their curriculum current, so we learned some really "hot off the presses" technology that will be incredibly useful at our future jobs. Launch encouraged pair programming, collaboration, and test-driven development, all skills that are extremely desirable. In the last two weeks of the program, each Launcher independently created a full website as a capstone project. We then presented these projects to a group of local companies who are interested in hiring a junior developer. I received two job offers within a week of graduation, and feel fully equipped to jump into my new career.

Nowadays I love to talk all about how much I love coding. But, it wasn’t always like that. In fact, for all of my college career (this is not an exaggeration), I struggled figuring out what I wanted to do. Every time I switched focus, it still felt like I was taking the wrong turn. I felt horrible about myself. So I signed for signed up for Launch Academy and have never felt more whole in my life. Life makes so much more sense now, and I would like for everyone to know that they won’t regret choosing Launch Academy as their bootcamp. So much that I spent the entire work-day writing this review, so hear me out. (The TL;DR is at the bottom if you’re not interested in a full life story.)

Here are some of the "wrong turns” I took before being saved by Launch Academy:

• 2014: Started out as a business major as the “default” college route at Northeastern University. Was not for me.
• 2015: Switched into Design, hoping to get some creativity in my life. Felt like an imposter. Stopped trying.
• 2016: Switched into Computer Science, guided by my interest in math and problem-solving. Plus being a girl in the computer science department just sounded impressive. Instead, encountered an outdated curriculum heavily skewed towards theory. Very little student passion or collaboration. Grades were prioritized over knowledge. Impossible exams designed to make you feel stupid: “Now, the exam is this Friday and no one should expect to get above a D. But don’t worry, there will be a curve.” I sacrificed my mental health on so many occasions to study for these exams (going to bed at 3-4am was not unusual), and it was always a huge slap in the face to get handed back a C-, no matter how hard I tried. Somehow, a piece of paper made me feel so unworthy.
• 2017: I started to realize that my thrive for learning dissolved a little more each semester at Northeastern, and this was painful to watch. The dread of simply going to class overwhelmed me. One day, I asked myself, “if I have to deal with this pain every morning to go to a class I don’t even enjoy, is it even worth it?” The cost and value of my Northeastern education were severely misaligned and I was desperate to feel passionate about something.

Enter: Launch Academy.

Now, here is where I will speak about how Launch Academy changed my life (again, not an exaggeration). At this point, I had already spent 121 university credits in sporadic, unstructured classes I simply wasted away, with parents who reminded me regularly of the hardship they go through in putting me through school and how obnoxiously expensive each class was. I developed a strong sense of failure and could not accept this feeling any longer. For those who are regretting their major, especially Computer Science majors brain-washed into thinking that their coding potential lies in their ability to understand digital signals, circuitry, and every algorithm out there, I understand how extremely painful it is to suffer in silence, to drown in your lack of passion, simply because you haven’t found the right environment. I’m not trying to sell Launch to you, I just truly believe that the program saved me from this self-deprecating, unhealthy mindset I had harbored for so long.

(TL;DR) Now, here’s why:

1. Waking up in the morning became so easy. I looked forward to being greeted by my peers the moment I walked through the door, all of whom were already hacking away at code. I enjoyed every moment with these people: from the late-nights spent dissecting lines of code with them, and the cheering that happened afterward, to our frequent karaoke nights (work hard, play hard, am I right?) The people at Launch became my best friends and life mentors.

2. There was none of that Big-O notation crap. The morning mentor groups, facilitations, clinics are all carefully structured to ensure that we learned only the necessary tools needed in web development. You become well-versed in today’s world of web development; eventually you’ll find yourself using geeky “coding” terms and phrases on a regular basis.

3. It was a judgment free-zone; I felt zero shame if I couldn’t get my head around a certain programming concept. There were no “dumb” questions. Our mentors (who are geniuses in my eyes) never made it feel like they were above us. They always stopped what they were doing to help you out, whether it be over solving a config issue or simply moral support. Even though I was much younger than everyone else, I never felt out of place. We were in this together. We learned from each other.

4. Yes, it was challenging, but in a good way! Solving a problem made you feel so good. It gave you the motivation to keep going. Launch also helped me embrace the discomfort. At orientation, we were told that “the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing the solution is only a precursor to the exhilaration of solving the problem.” This is something I still carry with me. I gained the confidence to make mistakes. You can only move forward if you acknowledge that you don’t understand something.

5. I’m a lot more independent than before. Thanks to Launch, I now know how to read documentation on technologies I’m unfamiliar with. Self-teaching is key in web development.

6. This is an obvious one, but it’s career focused. And not just for those who “come out on top.” I learned how to network and how to job search efficiently. It’s only been 3 months since we’ve graduated and most of us are already working full-time, continuing to build on our skills at a full-time position in web development (while getting paid!) Launch Academy was exactly the push we needed to begin this lifetime devotion to learning.

7. Some bonus things: our meme slack page, the “Launch” superlatives as a resource for our inside jokes, our karaoke nights, the unique insight you get from being around people different than you, yet the extreme closeness you feel over having similar motives… all of these things made Launch feel like home.

2018-present: There is not a day that goes by that I don’t feel extremely grateful for the person Launch helped me become. I look back at my Northeastern days and laugh, because all I was missing was the community and support I found at Launch Academy. Till this day, post-graduation, we all still have each other’s backs. In fact, we even set up our own book club that still meets every week because we can’t get enough of each other!

Feel free to leave a comment if you’d like to hear more insight about the program. I’d love to share Launch Academy’s saving grace with my fellow aspiring web developers.

I graduated the LA program as part of the Fall 2016 cohort. Overall, my experience was terrific - the staff, curriculum, environment - everything exceeded my expectations before I joined. I originally signed up to launch academy as a way to change my career path - I had been stuck in the same job for a few years, and it felt like the right fit. The school did a great job introducing basic concepts and easing students into the course with the part-time program before the on site weeks, but that being said it might have been nice to have one or two meetings before hand as well.

Once the full time program started, the pace really ramped up - each week is focused on a new aspect of web development, and the program did a great job breaking the weeks into learning, doing and testing. By the time we were getting started on our final demo projects - I had felt like I'd learned more in the weeks prior than I did the 4 years I was in college! The project portion of the course as good, although I will mention some issues below. Preparation for the final presentations was very helpful - I think this was more useful when it came time for interviews than for when we did the presentations.

Before starting, and in the weeks we are learning the development skills - the final presentation/career day is billed as really being a big part of us getting a job after the course. When the time finally came, it was a little disappointing seeing the number of recruiters/companies that came to visit the school. I'm not sure if the program and companies are 100% aligned on this format, there might be a better avenue in my mind.

So all told, the course was very strong - I learnt an incredible amount, and most importantly the school embedded the idea that to make it in software, you really have to never stop learning. It is a huge 'get out what you put in' type of place, they give you the resources and time, but you really need to make the most of it. Stay late, read extra, work on the weekends - it all pays dividends by the end, and carrys through to the post-graduation phases. Keep trying to build things even when you dont think you know how, you'll be surprised how much the base level skills can translate in to some much higher level concepts.

Most of the people in my cohort were not hired/interviewed after the career day. Luckily, there was a group of us that spent time meeting in the city and working together - keeping skills sharp and creating new projects was important for hiring and interviews down the line (keep those git commit bars green!!). I can't imagine trying to pitch a breakable toy to a hiring manager 3 months after graduation as being a great way to geat picked up. New ideas, quick projects - this seemed to be what got attention from companies and I started seeing more responses to my applications. In the end, I was contacted directly by a recruiter from a software company, and I went through the process independant of LA - that being said their skills in sharpening resumes and online profiles really went a long way, and their push to get you to events helped me feel comfortable just talking to people about technology. I thought the post graduation curriculum was great.

All told I was thrilled with the program, but there were a couple issues. As mentioned above, the format of the career day was a little off putting, and didn't seem to get much traction with the companies attending. I was also a little disappointed by the project I was encouraged to work on - we were asked to present two or three ideas, the first of which really pushed my own boundries, something I thought was cool and was very different than what we had focused on. In the end, the staff pushed me toward what was essentially a rehash of the projects we had worked on during the course, and when that happens across 30+ students, you get a lot of similar looking projects. I wish they would have let me push my boundries a little more, potentially fail, but have something unique and a little different to present in the end.

The culture at Launch is interesting, and as mentioned in a couple other reviews was at times a little heavy handed. We were all big boys and girls in the program - and sitting down an entire cohort to walk us through 'mansplaining' was a pretty eye-roll worthy experience. The post-graduation Slack channel was also a great encapsulation of the programs approach to points of contention - when friction developed between two graduates, instead of the normal approach of muting or banning the trouble maker,  or asking evryone to remain civil/explain why what they were doing was wrong - the entire channel was shut down. Not great, especially with the way graduate community it was touted before starting. It was really disappointing also to hear the head of the program while we were there was leaving, but the staff overall were really fun and knowledgable.

Finally I want to stress again how much I enjoyed the program - but being out in the industry now, there was a bit more of a relience on packages/frameworks than there should of been. The big two that stood out were Devise for authentication, and Foundation for CSS/styling. Relying on these to quickly get things set in a project was understandable, but there wasn't much of an understanding given to us as to what was happening under the hood. 

All in all, I have encouraged friends and coworkers to attend Launch Academy multiple times, I think it was a great course - well designed and executed - and it helped me make a drastic career change. I have been back to events held there after, and its encouraging to see the community grow - I hope they can continue on the right path and build on the success they have had.