Makers Academy
Avg Rating:4.79 ( 102 reviews )
About
About
Makers Academy is a highly selective 4-month, full-time program (preceded by a four-week pre-course) which teaches web development in London, England. Makers Academy is creating a new generation of tech talent who are skilled and ready for the changing world of work. The academy is inspired by the idea of discovering and unlocking potential in people for the benefit of the 21st-century business and society. At the core, Makers combines tech education with employment possibilities that transform lives. The academy accepts only exceptional applicants into the course. And while they are highly selective, they focus on your passion for becoming a developer by gauging your coding experience.
The course has been designed by a team of inspirational software engineers with strong backgrounds in educational psychology, enabling students to master any technology in today's marketplace. As big believers in self-directed learning, students will finish the course as a confident and independent software engineer ready to hit the ground running. There's a focus on life-long learning skills, while the course includes technical tests, working on open-source code or even working with the Makers engineering team on live, real-world, production code.
Makers Academy also offers a software engineering apprenticeship and fellowship as a pathway to a long-term career as a software developer. You don’t pay tuition and on completion of the course, you will become a Makers employee for 12 months and will work on site with a hiring partner with continued support from the Makers Academy coaches and careers team. Fellowship applicants must demonstrate a technical ability that outshines other candidates — Makers is looking to invest in outstanding individuals and a more inclusive tech future.
With one of the UK’s largest Careers team dedicated to finding you a job after the end of the course, Makers Academy will introduce students to over 250 of London’s top technology companies looking to hire (including but not limited to Deliveroo, British Gas, Starling Bank, Financial Times, Compare The Market.com, and Tesco). Also, Makers Academy guarantees a job offer within 6 months of graduation after successful completion of job hunting program activities.
Recent Makers Academy Reviews: Rating 4.79
Recent Makers Academy News
- From Finance to Software Development with Makers Academy
- Become a Developer at these 31 Summer Coding Bootcamps!
- November 2018 Coding Bootcamp News Podcast
Courses
Courses
Web Development
ApplyAngularJS, HTML, Git, JavaScript, SQL, Sinatra, jQuery, Rails, CSS, React.js, Node.js, Front End, Ruby
In PersonFull Time40 Hours/week11 Weeks- Start Date
- August 19, 2019
- Cost
- $8,000
- Class size
- 24
- Location
- London
The course is designed for everyone, whether a complete novice, a computer science graduate wanting practical experience, or an entrepreneur sick of looking for a technical co-founder. Students learn an incredible amount, including: Ruby on Rails; HTML5 and CSS3; Agile and Lean Development; JavaScript, jQuery and NodeJS; along with Git and Heroku, and software design best practices. Students learn through first hand experience, community-driven classrooms, pairing, and project-based work.Financing
- Deposit
- £800.00
- Financing
- Lending partners include PCDL (UK Govt) and EdAid
- Tuition Plans
- Available through 3rd parties
- Scholarship
- £500 scholarship to any woman attending the course.
Getting in
- Minimum Skill Level
- We expect people to generally understand what coding is about and have some exposure to trialling simple coding challenges.
- Prep Work
- To prepare for the pairing session with one of our developers, we would ask people to complete some coding exercises at home and then come in for a pairing session.
- Placement Test
- Yes
- Interview
- Yes
More Start Dates
August 19, 2019 - LondonApply by July 22, 2019September 16, 2019 - LondonApply by September 2, 2019October 14, 2019 - LondonApply by October 1, 2019
Reviews
Makers Academy Reviews
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Makers Academy works hard at maintaining a supportive environment that encourages personal and professional development. The primary focus is teaching you how to solve your own problems and show you what a developer looks like. They place an emphasis on pair programming and agile software development which allows knowledge sharing amongst students. Personally, I found this the most rewarding part of the course - just by having someone to discuss the problem with made it easier to solve. Prior to Makers I held a non-technical management role but this wasn't a hinderance for me. Within 16 weeks I had obtained valuable skills that landed me my first developer job.
PROS
*Excellent use of paired programming and agile development
*Great community - You're a Maker for life and the alumni are always happy to answer any career/life questions. I've definitely made some friends for life on the course.
* Great on course support for stress management (bi-weekly yoga) and daily meditation
*Job guarantee - if you follow the advice YOU WILL GET A JOB
CONS
* Difficult to get coach feedback - I would have benefited from regular feedback on my projects
* Post-course support could be improved to ensure grads are staying motivated
If you want to change your career, learn coding and get a job as a Junior Developer, Makers Academy will sort you out.
Pros:
- You learn pair-programming and how to effectively work in a team.
- You will work in an agile environment.
- You learn Test Driven Development and good code practices.
- Access to some brilliant coaches.
- Super friendly atmosphere and you will make friends quickly.
- 'Job Guarantee' simply if you don't get a job within 6 months after the course you'll get your fees back. I was offered a job after 1 month and some of my colleagues even earlier.
- 'Hiring Partners' each month there is an internal careers fair. Employers attending are well known and established companies as well as small start ups you probably never heard of. All of them are happy to hire Makers and after each fair you can apply to them via careers team provided you have completed the course.
- Once you become a Maker you're always one of them. There's a great support after the course especially from careers team who really want you to land a job. You can still come in everyday like the course never ended, keep on coding, applying for jobs, getting professional advice on your CV or practicing interview questions, tech tests and many more.
- You are not anonymous. Companies know and continue hiring Makers Academy grads.
- Yoga classes are amazing !
Cons:
- Sizes of some cohorts.
- Make sure you know basic HTML/CSS/SASS as this is not covered.
- JavaScript challenges in Makers curriculum are not introducing ES6 or any other latest features.
Having said that half of the course is about team projects during which you are encouraged to fill this gaps.
You will decide what tech you want to use for these. At that point many teams decided to go with MERN stack instead of RoR.
This is a true life change opportunity. I had no prior knowledge/experience in this field and I made it. I strongly believe that with the right amount of effort everyone can go take advantage of this opportunity. Nothing will be given for free, it requires time and effort...if you think you can afford to invest time and effort in yourself then you'll be a perfect fit for this.
My personal experience: I learnt a lot in 4 months time, alone it would have taken me at least the double of time and probably with not the same results. In one and a half month after the course I received my job offer from a great company through the Makers Hiring Partners.
Pros:
- Great and stimulating environment;
- Teaching a process that companies out there are looking for;
- Skilled coaching team;
- Possibility to borrow a macbook in case you don't have one;
- A great building with second monitors for everyone, a nice ping pong table and a kitchen area;
Cons:
- Even if you consider yourself a strong ping pong player, you'll find someone stronger than you there;
- Beers on friday night (is that a cons?! uhmmm).
I've really enjoyed my time at Makers and cannot recommend it enough to the ones thinking of joining a bootcamp. Now that I've attended a few hackathons and meetups, and having met some of the other bootcamp graduates, I'm more convinced that Makers is better.
The philosophy at Makers isn't to teach you a certain technology stack, or framework. Instead, they focus on skills of learning how to learn. They do this with an explicit focus on your process, which leads to progress and results. The sylabbus is designed by some really intelligent people, and it shows because you're still thinking about the things you learn in week 1 when you finish the course (for eg: single responsibility principle) but at a much higher level.
The careers support you get is also very professional and excellent. They will go above and beyond to make sure you have everything you need to go get yourself a job you really like.
To add to that, I've found the coaches and staff to be extremely helpful and friendly. You really feel it in the vibe and community here. Also, I've found that other Makers who might have graduated years ago will go out of their way to help you, give you advice or give you a job. They're also open and radically honest which really helps build trust.
All makers also follow the principle of 'trust over fear', which means they trust one another more than doubt or fear them, which generally leads to happier people who want to do a good job and it shows.
Those are the pros. Here are the cons. It can be difficult to get feedback from coaches and there aren't enough of them. This would be OK, except for the fact that your review process (the process by which you're allowed to apply for jobs through the careers team) depends on getting coach feedback. This is not the coaches fault by any means.
If you're thinking of joining a bootcamp, just come to one of the demo days and speak to as many students as you can - it's not easy, and it's very intense but you will thank yourself for joining.
Makers has gifted me with one of the most intense personal journeys I had ever experienced and it's not over yet. As I write, I'm a very recent graduate, about to start her job hunt. I am still coming to the office to get motivated everyday, but I already miss the vibes we had during the course. The academy is very young and friendly, the coaches are approachable, but not too much! They want you to struggle a bit first, to build solid basic skills and forge your ability to learn on your own, which is the actual golden potential we advertise once graduated. The community around you during the course is a real gem, both as a resource of knowledge and also socially speaking.
If I have to mention a con, I would say that the technologies learnt are not of the most popular ones, once one starts applying for jobs, however, as said above, the real goals of the course are having solid basic knowledge and knowing how to learn.
I have just started job hunting and the careers team is available for advices. They do a great job in getting companies in, to meet us. It is still very important to also apply to outside companies in order to get as many answers as possible.
In summary, I would recommend Makers Academy any day or the rest of my life.
TLDR: Tech is great, Makers is great. If you're reading this, change your career and join Makers already.
My previous career was in psychology. I left not because I hated it but because I did not feel fulfilled or challenged in the right way and I couldn't see myself doing it for the rest of my life. Leaving it and joining Makers was the best decision I've ever made.
Pros:
- Great atmosphere to learn and challenge yourself. They seem to have nailed providing a relaxed environment that encourages you to work your hardest for yourself, not for anyone else.
- Coaches make you really think about the questions you're asking and help you understand the more fundamental issues with whatever your problem is. This can be frustrating at the time but when you're stuck alone on a problem with no one to ask for help, you'll appreciate it.
- The syllabus is excellent. The reasons I know this are 1) people interviewing me for jobs after Makers were often impressed by our experience and understanding of key concepts 2) I now feel completely comfortable picking up new technologies and attaining a job using them.
- The careers team are really something else. A lovely bunch of supportive, enthusiastic and knowledgeable people that go the extra mile every time to keep you motivated and ensure you land the job you're happy with.
- I'm not sure if it's because of the standards Makers set applicants but the vast vast majority of people I've met on this course have been well-grounded, smart and generally very fun to code and learn with.
Cons:
- Getting code reviews from coaches occasionally took an inordinate amount of time. I believe this was a consequence of implementing a Viva process with too few staff or too little organisation. They seem to be remedying this now so maybe it will be less of a problem for future cohorts.
- I think they could do with getting a couple more coaches in general to meet demand.
Having spent my time with a friend deciding what schools would be good for us to learn code, I really gravitated towards Makers and since I made the decision to join the course have not been disappointed. Am really happy with the community feel of the course and the willingness of not only the coaches to help improve you but members of your cohort as well. The 12 weeks can be intense at certain points, but once you have found a rhythm you are comfortable with, you will settle in quite quickly. The activities provided also are very helpful, and I never thought I would take to Yoga as well as I did.
The community feel doesn't stop after Makers and this has been a really great feeling. With them willing to help you by putting on Careers Fairs, as well as chances to meet and talk to other former Alumni really beneficial. Can not recommend it enough.
Having worked with and spoken to developers who had graduated from Makers Academy, I had very high expectations going into the course. I can safely say the course met my lofty expectations in terms of learning how to code, but easily smashed them when it came to the quality of the coaching and careers teams. The coaches are some of the smartest, most accomplished people I have met; they are genuine top coding talent that has come to Makers due a love of teaching others and the flexibility it gives them as coders to also pursue personal project. The links the careers team has with tech organisations is also incredible - they place into prestigious companies month after month after month. They even have streamlined recruitment processes into their hiring partners, with one hub application providing access to multiple companies. Meanwhile, they have a fantastic support system to keep you going through what will be an intense few months. Overall - a fantastic, enjoyable curriculum and an organisation that also has the teeth and tenacity to get you hired.
Makers Academy is quite the experience but it's not for the faint of heart. The course provides a intensive experience covering programming best practises such as pair programming and test-driven development, helping students gain the skills to get a job as a junior software engineer and be an effective member of a team. The support provided from the coaches and Chief Joy Officer throughout the course was fantastic and the careers team were brilliant, helping me find a job within a week of finishing the course. It's a great choice if you want to become a software engineer.
Makers has completely reinvigorated my relationship with learning and instilled within me a belief that I can achieve whatever I set my heart to.
The couse itself is challenging and is designed to acquaint you with the feeling of unknown. If you're looking for a formulaic, spoon-fed experience similar to University/School this may not be for you. You are often given the bare minimum information to fulfill each week's task which can at times be frustrating but empowering at the same time when you ultimately succeed. By the end of the course I felt like I could learn absolutely any language/library/framework independently.
Content-wise there is a huge emphasis on best practices (e.g. test driven development(TDD), pair programming) which, having spoken to people from other bootcamps where TDD is not covered, would perhaps set you apart and better prepare you for life as a software developer.
The coaches at Makers are amazing. They offer plenty code review to push your skills to the next level and are masters of extracting every ounce of learning possible every time you are stuck/need help.
It could not be emphasized more that the Job Assistance that you receive after the course is invaluable. The careers team helps to find you ample opportunities to apply to whilst providing coaching to help keep morale, motivation and belief high until you finally find your first software developer job.
Overally Makers has been the most valuable experience in my adult life and I could not recommend it more.
Makers Academy lives up to its promises. It has a great community of software developers connected to the place and really encourages you to get involved with it. It has a firm focus on learning to write high quality code, and you end up with a portfolio of a variety of projects built with ruby and javascript.
It is intense, but its not too hard in terms the learning curve and at the end of it many of our cohort got a job within 2 weeks - including me. They have a good careers fair where students can meet employers, who end up hiring many of the students finishing a cohort.
The teachers are very knowledgable and supportive, this course does demand some independent learning as well, but if you ever feel you are struggling there is loads of help. It has a large focus on group and pair work, to prepare you for industry, and helps give you confidence for job interviews. If you are thinking of becoming a software developer and get a job quickly then go for Makers!
I loved the course and the people are amazing. It is was life changing for me. It made me push my boundaries, be polite and comfortable with being uncomfortable. The curicullum is really good and in depth. Completely worth it!
I attended Makers in search of a career change, like many others. After quite possibly the most difficult 12 weeks of my life, my search is over.
Makers is difficult. Very, very difficult. It doesn't matter if you've never written a line of code in your life, or if you're a hobbyist developer wanting to take your skills to the next level - Makers will be difficult for you. It is a bootcamp in the purest sense of the word. Expect to put the rest of your life on hold for 3 months.
That being said, it has been a fantastic experience for me. The course content is fantastic, the coaches are fantastic, the staff are fantastic, the careers support is fantastic, and your fellow students will be fantastic as well.
Makers sets itself apart from other bootcamps by its course content. While marketed ostensibly as a web dev bootcamp, there is a strong focus on writing high-quality code, which is valuable to any software developer. The cirriculum at Makers will prepare you for any software development job, which I believe is a huge plus.
You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll probably dream in code as well, but at the end of the course you'll look back with amazement at how much you can learn in 3 months if you put your mind to it.
Makers is a life-changing experience.
Makers was a fantastic experience, albeit very intense! They do a lot to foster a sense of community, I met so many lovely people both in my cohort and staff members. This really pays off during the course as it is difficult and you are really pushed so having a support system within the course makes such a difference. There's also a lot of effort put into student well-being with yoga and meditation classes. The course focuses on helping you to teach yourself, you are not spoon fed very much beyond the very first steps and are taught how to find the answers yourself. Beyond coding, you also learn good practices to use while coding which I found invaluable, this works as a framework for everything you pick up. I think my only criticism would be that there is a lot of self-learning, but with perspective, it has helped me so much after graduating when I'm working on my own.
As for employment the careers team were lovely for me and supported me all through the process. They found me relevant jobs and chased up companies who were dragging their feet.
I came to makers with no tech background and now have a job as a developer! If you can afford it and are a hard worker I would definitely recommend it!
If you're serious about a career change and are up for a challenge then Makers Academy is for you!
The entire course is pretty intense, 3 months of weekly topics followed by weekend challenges to really make sure you learn as much as humanly possible. It was amazing!
This is not to scare you off but equally if the above doesn't excite you then you might struggle because every person who makes it onto the course will have signed up to this and be raring to go!
The course: Like many people I wanted to make a switch into development and doing tutorials at home wasn't really cutting it. The course itself is great, every week (well most) your coach starts the week of introducing the next topic. Sometimes this may involve whiteboard sessions, talking through syntax and others just pointing you and your pair to the repository for that topic. That week you then spend working through a specific challenge focused on teaching you about this topic. Each day you switch pairs so you have the benefit of looking at different code, different ways of thinking and learning from one another.
This is ultimately the key thing that makes Makers Academy so good. They get a whole bunch of passionate people from diverse backgrounds together, set them a challenge and support where necessary. Makers isn't an onsite tutorial because if it was you really wouldn't understand the content. If I didn't have to figure things out myself (or with my pair) I honestly don't think I'd remember half of what I do now.
Career support: They have a great careers team who do everything they can to support you in your job search afterwards. But just like the course, this is driven by you and you have to be prepared to put the hours in.
I loved Makers Academy, but be warned, this course is not for the faint-hearted! It is really intense - it has to be, it's only 12 weeks long! So you have to be prepared to commit utterly during that time, including weekends, if you want to make progress.
I chose to do Makers Academy because I felt that just doing online tutorials by myself was difficult to find time to do while working, demotivating and left me with a lot of questions. Makers Academy did not disappoint. The way that the course is structured means that you're not spoon fed a 'how to be a developer' syllabus but rather led to discover yourself how to be a developer - you're given signposts, if you will, rather than an actual map. So we were taught concepts, skills and behavioural practices (Agile, XP values) over the concretes of how to actually write code, as the latter is usually quite easy to find yourself. The focus is put on learning how to learn and learn quickly in order that students can leave with a certain level of self-sufficiency when coming across a new language or coding practice after the course is over.
We pair programmed throughout the duration of the course - this is great for honing communication skills, for learning how to talk clearly about unfamiliar concepts and enhancing understanding. Again, this is not for everyone - if you're a lone ranger, get frustrated at others for being slow or resentful of people being ahead of you, then you should probably look into other courses.
One of the really great things about Makers Academy was that we were being taught best practices on real-world applicable projects from day one. It meant that right from the beginning I knew that what I was learning I could actually use once the course was over - which sounds daft but I did a degree and have not used it since graduating.
I also appreciated Makers Academy's attention to the wellbeing of their students - it could be easy to burn out in such an environment, but daily meditation, twice weekly yoga and the support of the Coach and Joy Officer kept me simmering at an optimal learning temperature rather than boiling over.
Conclusion: do this course if you want to be a software developer, are happy to put in the time, are cool with self-learning and enjoy collaborating with people to build awesome things.
The good stuff:
- Most of the coaches are very helpful and pretty knowledgable. If you push for it, you can get some useful support/critique of your work. It would be great if there was more of this, but presumably, the course would then cost more.
- I think the course gives a good mix of learning stuff on your own, pairing and agile group work and covers some key technologies.
- I enjoyed some of the softer side of the course - focus on learning techniques, meditation, yoga, blogging workshops etc.
- They've recently introduced a Review which is basically a document you need to fill in about how you've achieved the course goals and a pairing session. I found this a really useful way to consolidate my learning from the course and to know I was ready to apply for jobs.
- I got the job I wanted after the course, so it seems Makers gave me the skills necessary to be a credible candidate in the job market.
The bad stuff:
- There was little if any support on the pre-course (4 weeks work from home) and you need to pass each challenge before you can see the next. That meant it was incredibly stressful if I got stuck on a stage - sometimes I didn't move forwards for days. Coach responses were disorganised and unhelpful e.g. the Friday before we were due to start, a friend of mine on the course got told that she wouldn't be allowed onto the on-site course but wasn't told why. She had to re-do the whole of a weeks work in a weekend and found that she had named a file wrongly, and then was allowed on.
- Be wary of claims that you'll be job ready in 12 weeks. There is an additional 4 weeks from home before you start the course, and students take up to 4 weeks after the course to complete the Review (so they can start applying for jobs through Makers), although motivated students usually complete the review in a couple of weeks.
Some advice if you join:
- Do as much coding as you possibly can before you start the course (see if you can get hold of the curriculum and prepare for that). In my cohort, about half of people had done some coding before meaning that those who hadn't started on the backfoot and it was difficult to make up ground.
- Overall I found the course incredibly stressful - I think in large part due to the way the pre-course was handled as well as my own anxious tendencies during big life changes. If you are prone to stress and anxiety, have a think in advance about how you can manage the course in the best way for you.
- It can be difficult to get time with coaches - you have to be persistent and assertive to get feedback on your work. It's well worth it.
- You will get the most out of it if you really take ownership of your own learning - look at the curriculum and goals each week and plan how to meet them
Makers is an amazing 12 week bootcamp that teaches you so much about coding. I would highly recommend it if you are thinking of making the move. You get support when you need it and the curriculum is well thought out to teach you certain skills. You will be in awe of how much you can learn in such a short amount of time at Makers and it is the best thing I have every done. To go from not having much coding knowledge to producing a group project in less than 2 weeks is unbelievable.
The only thing that I found slightly difficult to adjust to is in Makers you make a lot of your projects from scratch and they are very small projects but once you are at your company you are working on much larger code bases and finding your way around legacy code can be a bit difficult to grasp.
The Makers Academy bootcamp was amazing. I started with absolutely no coding experience, but in just 12 weeks I am comfortable writing programs in various languages. Makers Academy had a very clear structured course, and offered lots of additional reading and practice outside of their course. The coaches were very supportive and always happy to help with any problems we were having. The environment at Makers was great too, it was very relaxed and strongly encouraged self-learning to enable us to continue learning after we finished the bootcamp and moved into a work environment. I would definitely recommend Makers Academy as a place to learn how to code to anyone looking to make the move into software development.
My background
Before Makers I had no coding / STEM background. I studied Fine Art at university and before that my A-levels were Philosophy, PE and Art.
Pre-Makers
I started coding on my own for a few months - Codecademy, Odin Project etc. - to see if I could do it and if I enjoyed it. I found that I loved it (and was not terrible at it) so started looking for a course. I chose Makers on the basis of people I knew doing the course and enjoying it, Makers' teaching ethos and also their work on increasing diversity in tech. And maybe also the misc. good vibes that seemed to come with pretty much all the material that surrounds them. After doing most of the recommended prep materials and submitting my cover letter I was asked to come in for a pairing interview. After a brief chat on my background, why I was interesting in coding etc. we jumped into some pairing. I didn't have the answers to all the questions but I had a systematic approach to solving the problem, was ok with not knowing the answer to everything (which came in handy because there were quite a few things I didn't know!) and was able to communicate my thinking. At the end of this the interviewer told me that Makers would be happy to offer me a place.
Now
I'm writing this review a day after accepting a full stack role in a software consultancy that I'm really excited about.
Makers understand the course is incredibly challenging and do what they can to encourage devs to look after their wellbeing. This comes in the form of onsite twice-a-week yoga and daily meditation (led by the absolutely amazing Dana - believe the hype) and workshops giving you a crash course in how you can best look after yourself. Oh and there's a table tennis table for keeping you moving during breaks from the screen. Am now a complete yoga and table tennis convert.
Makers selection process means that if you're on the course you'll likely be surrounded by a group of driven, diverse and collaborative peers. A lot of friendships are made here and if not that, at the very least you'll have a strong network you can lean on in the future for information and advice in your new profession.
- Industry best practices and skills.
That being said, what you practice your learning-how-to-learn systems on are exactly what the industry is after. The Makers business models relies on them producing developers who get hired. They ensure this happens by asking their hiring partners what skills and outlooks they most value in junior developers. This feedback is then implemented as content for the course. Knowing this gives you confidence that what you're learning is desirable and valued by the industry.
The focus on independent learning, the difficulty of the problems, the lack of time to solve them all make for a super intense learning environment. The upshot of getting through this is that you come out with stronger processes for learning new things and your growth mindset becomes more ingrained, you're less bothered by not knowing the answer immediately or coming across a project that you have no idea how to do - you just get stuck in with the processes and mindsets you learnt on the course and you can lean in hard on these to iteratively solve each problem one by one until the project's completed!
You kind of have to put your life on hold for the duration of the Makers in order to get the most out of the course. Even with reducing a lot of external commitments it can still be difficult to balance the workload with what you need to stay healthy and happy (sleep, exercise, socialising, general downtime etc. ). Sometimes you do just have to have faith in the system, because everyone has their moments when things are looking pretty bleak!
Me:
I came to Makers with a non-technical background after teaching abroad for a couple of years, but otherwise having no graduate experience. I'd tried some online courses but only picked up basics, and didn't seem qualified for anything. I got a job offer in my fourth week after the course, with a company who had hired Makers grads before.
Course Pros:
- 1 month pre-course gets everyone familiar with basic tools like command line and git, as well as basic Ruby programming
- Solo weekend projects consolidate and build on what was learned during the week
- Intensive, you will learn a huge range of techs needed to make you full-stack in the first half of the course, and apply it in group projects in the second half
- Largely self-directed learning and group projects so that you learn to rely on yourself and your teammates, not the coaches
- Gives you all of the skills that the industry wants, like TDD, Agile, pair-programming, and the ability to learn new things quickly
- Immersive extras like regular lunchtime talks from companies, and evening/weekend events e.g. Makers unconference
- Ongoing post-course support and access to Makers
- Careers team experienced and visible
- They're always trying new things and ask for honest feedback about everything
Broader Pros:
- Generally transparent
- Lots of companies want to hire more Makers grads
- Some companies retrain employees through this course
- A really positive atmosphere, and everyone is always happy to be there
- A supportive community with lots of resources so you can find whatever you need
- Focus on self-care and longevity so that you don't burn out (meditation after lunch, yoga, table tennis, game nights, cheese and wine, beer and pizza, Monday night climbing group)
- Free bread, cereal, fruit, nuts as well as the usual tea, coffee, water coolers
- Shower facilities, bike storage
- Generally life-enhancing, you will learn how to learn, how to work in teams and pairs, how to push through tough situations
Cons:
- The course is always being updated, so it can be hard to get the information you need
- Things like the portfolio and review process can be unclear; an infographic would be great
- Full on due to the weekend projects on top of the full-time course
- That table-tennis table is in high demand, as are the rooms it's stored in
Overall:
I recommend this course to anyone who wants to start/resume a career in tech, as you are so much more employable once you've graduated Makers.
Be prepared to put in a lot of time, and to not be told all of the answers. It's hard, and it's up to you, but everything you need is there.
I was a professional developer before having children but found returning to tech almost impossible.
Recruiters didn't know what to do with me and my skill set seemed to be out of date.
16 weeks at Makers taught me about all of the current practices and 2 languages I hadn't used before.
That is the vanilla answer but the broader experience was considerably more enriching.
During the 12 weeks on site, I learned many things.
I learned more about self-teaching than either of my degrees, more about working in teams than I ever had working in teams and how important self-care is.
By the end of the course, I felt confident re-entering the tech world and secured several offers within two weeks of completion.
The Makers environment is one in which you are expected to be in control of your own learning. There is no one chasing you up, there is no hand holding. But there is a lot of support when you need it. I loved the environment of Makers academy - I think I thrived by being in a structured learning situation where you have the freedom to explore, make mistakes and choose your path. Being surrounded by people on the same journey as you is super inspiring, and there's an energy and drive like nowhere else I've ever studied.
The coaching team has some truly excellent teachers with a real depth of knowledge. They spend their time answering your questions with more questions, which is really effective when they lead you in right direction. The course structure is varied and the focus is less on teaching you about a particular language and more about learning how to learn effectively. One aspect which is less positive is the eternal hunt for feedback. Feedback, especially coach feedback, is something which Makers places a really high value on and is necessary for passing your portfolio and review (the metrics by which you get access to the careers team towards the end of the course). Actually getting this feedback can be really tricky and drawn out, which can be frustrating. When you do finally get it, it is usually very helpful and incisive, however.
The careers team work with you from midway through the course, increasing in contact time. There is advice on how to find jobs, how to write a tech cv, technical coaching and general wellbeing chat. I feel like the careers team are as valuable as the coaches and were so helpful with me finding employment after the course. They support you and care about your journey beyond Makers, which is a real shining light when you are struggling to motivate yourself whilst job hunting.
The MVP of Makers Academy is the Chief Joy Officer. Before I started I was so skeptical of this job title, but my opinions changed swiftly. She is in charge of student well being - there for personal coaching/therapy, leads yoga classes and meditation, and is just generally a great presence. So appreciated in a highly pressured, fast paced stressful environment.
The Friday evening drinks, the ping pong, and the events that they put on (free and with pizza, normally) show how much they care about the Makers/tech/learning community. There is a vast network of Alumni, many of whom are open and willing to help each other out which is really helpful when you're struggling with a new technology or need some advice from someone further along the path than yourself.
What I've learnt at Makers is obviously applicable to coding, but I also think that it is applicable to almost anything I put my mind to. I think applying to the course was one of the best decisions I've made, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who has the drive and energy to work hard and learn loads.
