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Makers Academy is a highly selective, tech program which teaches Software Engineering, Data Analytics, DevOps (or Cloud), and Test Engineering online and in hybrid cohorts at their campus 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. While they are highly selective, they focus on a student's passion for becoming a developer by gauging their coding experience. Makers Academy offers apprenticeships through their bootcamps.
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.
With one of the UK’s largest careers team dedicated to finding students 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.
I’d like to start this on a simple note: I paid £8000 for this course and got a software engineering job between 30-40k per year. Regardless of what follows in this review, that alone makes this course worth the time and money.
As I'm sure anyone looking at reviews is aware, Makers runs a 3 month boot camp course that gets you ready for work as a junior developer. It’s a great course, but I think there are a few things that stop it from being an amazing course. The first thing to kno...
I’d like to start this on a simple note: I paid £8000 for this course and got a software engineering job between 30-40k per year. Regardless of what follows in this review, that alone makes this course worth the time and money.
As I'm sure anyone looking at reviews is aware, Makers runs a 3 month boot camp course that gets you ready for work as a junior developer. It’s a great course, but I think there are a few things that stop it from being an amazing course. The first thing to know is that you are required to complete a one month precourse before you can join the main course on site. After you finish the course, expect the job search to take some time. All in all, the whole process from zero to software developer takes roughly half a year. How you choose to handle the job search is entirely up to you and Makers gives you a lot of freedom here. Some people choose to stick it out, while others go back to their previous employment while they search for a software engineering job.
It’s a great course, but I think there are a few things that stop it from being an amazing course.
Pros:
Learning
The most valuable thing I gained from this course was the ability to learn. By the end of the main 12 week course, I truly felt that learning anything is possible. Makers also encourages you to keep your skills sharp by focusing on your process. They effectively teach you how to break down problems. Generally, it’s a very friendly and diverse community and everyone is very approachable. You’re also encouraged to take care of yourself during downtime. There’s a fully stocked kitchen, ping pong table and beer on Fridays. You’re also encouraged to participate in meditation, yoga and mindfulness in general by the Chief Joy Officer. It helps you to centre yourself and without her this course would be a lot harder.
Hiring Partners & The Careers Team
This is without a doubt the most useful and best part of the course. Help is given for CVs, interview techniques, tech tests, and there are constantly lunchtime talks, seminars, meetups and other useful events about the industry and the best ways to get in. At the end of it all, this is what made me choose Makers; they have valuable industry connections that other boot camps don’t seem to have.
Cons:
Self-directed learning
I think it's important to know that this course is very self driven. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing but £8000 is a lot of money to pay for a course where I mostly have to teach myself. Coaches are on site but their availability hours are rather narrow and sometimes it can be difficult to get the help you need.
Hiring Partners
Makers have a lot of hiring partners which is great because often I found a lot of companies didn’t understand what boot camp grads did or just didn’t think we had enough experience for a junior role. Unfortunately the process isn’t perfect and I sometimes found the selection process of Makers hiring partners to be questionable; even though they had been endorsed by Makers some of them still seem not to what they require from a junior developer. Feedback from hiring partner companies also felt inconsistent.
Communication
This was probably my biggest frustration with the course as communication at Makers can range anywhere from excellent to poor. Naturally, a lot of it takes place over Slack. Sometimes you just need important information and you could either get an answer from someone instantly or not at all. I found myself frequently feeling left in the dark--I think if someone needs help with something, it would be good to just shoot them a reply with something like "I'm still looking into this but I'll get back to you soon", instead of just not replying at all.
Overall Makers was still a great experience and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in starting a career as a software developer.
Pros:
-Taught how to learn, not just given the answer but guided in the right direction and suggested things to try.
-Very supportive coaches that were always happy to help.
-Taught how to pair program, work in an agile team, and solo program.
-Learnt a wide variety of skills (command line, git, searching solutions online, databases, HTTP requests, programming concepts such as arrays,
methods, OOP, etc), which are proving very useful in the workplace.
-Extr...
Pros:
-Taught how to learn, not just given the answer but guided in the right direction and suggested things to try.
-Very supportive coaches that were always happy to help.
-Taught how to pair program, work in an agile team, and solo program.
-Learnt a wide variety of skills (command line, git, searching solutions online, databases, HTTP requests, programming concepts such as arrays,
methods, OOP, etc), which are proving very useful in the workplace.
-Extras such as meditation and yoga.
Cons:
-Spent too long on Ruby and not enough time on the more difficult languages used in the project weeks and then in the workplace.
-Not enough resources available from Makers during project weeks when you start working with languages other than ruby.
-Not always enough coaches for the amount of students which could lead to being stuck without support for a time.
Overall a great experience, went in with minimal coding experience and left having learnt loads and made many friends. Would recommend the course if you are looking to start a career in software development and have minimal coding experience.
I had a brilliant Makers experience. I first heard about the company after placing a Makers Grad in a role while in my old job as a recruiter - immediate validation. I contacted Nikesh at Makers soon after, and from that point on Makers had my complete confidence and haven't given me any reason to doubt them since, I just accepted my first job ten weeks after graduating.
From the get-go the Makers team were explicit about the level of commitment required to get the best experienc...
I had a brilliant Makers experience. I first heard about the company after placing a Makers Grad in a role while in my old job as a recruiter - immediate validation. I contacted Nikesh at Makers soon after, and from that point on Makers had my complete confidence and haven't given me any reason to doubt them since, I just accepted my first job ten weeks after graduating.
From the get-go the Makers team were explicit about the level of commitment required to get the best experience out of the program, and ultimately - be successful in finding a job. Personally, I had always struggled in formal education; school was a non-starter, a-levels were two years of slacking off, and one year at university was the final step on the one-way road to educational disenchantment. So naturally, I was a little sceptical about whether or not I'd be able to maintain the level of dedication required to complete such an intensive course - oxbridge meets the marines they said. Actually, it's not THAT tough, however I think that's most likely testament to the way in which the course has changed since that famous line was written.
The syllabus of the course is split into two six-week halves, the first half consists of weekly modules laid out in a challenge-based system - "here's some information, go and see what you can do with it". I don't think it was the case for everyone who came to Makers, but for me something just clicked. I found the syllabus engaging, and the amount of assistance given is pitched at just the right level, the goldie-locks zone for learning.
The second half of the course I am slightly less enthusiastic about (although still on the whole very positive). My week 7 consisted of the now reenvisioned "lab week", in which you were encouraged to consolidate the previous six weeks' materials, you did have the option to pursue a new technology, however I chose to consolidate. The lack of structure took the momentum out of my learning, and flitting between technologies ultimately didn't offer as much as if I had focussed on one vertical. We fed this back to the coaches and by the time the next cohort rolled around six weeks later, the syllabus had been changed (in true Agile fashion!). The impression I got was that the latter half of the course was going through a bit of a remodel to have more of an emphasis on group projects, which I think will eventually benefit the students, however at the time of my studying there were sections in between the two states that weren't at the same standard that I had come to expect.
Evgeny has done great job of putting together a team of world class coaches, who all share in the ability to translate difficult technical problems into easy to consume explanations (although be warned, the metaphors can get a little silly!). Tackling the fundamental principles of web development in the first six weeks was made that much easier by the coaches, who are infinitely patient and enthusiastic which is remarkable given that they do it every six weeks.
One of the few areas that still needs to be improved I think is the post-makers hiring process, a graduate portal of some form would really help maintain a good level of communication between graduates and the hiring team (rather than the current instant messaging solution). Shortly after the course I moved back to Manchester, and it did feel like I'd dropped off the radar for a while. At present the hiring team is best equipped to set you up with interviews and jobs in London, although inroads are being made in Manchester, Southampton and European tech-hubs. In spite of this reservation, two months after my graduation Ruben set me up with a fantastic company based in Manchester, who knew exactly what they were getting in hiring a Maker. I started last week, and another Maker is joining me next, brilliant!
Seeing as everyone asks about the money, yeah it's £8,000, but it's hardly an issue versus whatever universities cost these days. I've not got a degree, and yet I have every confidence discussing tech with CS students up to a year out of university. And what Makers offers you isn't just modules you aren't terribly interested in, you've probably heard the Makers mantra "learning to learn", my new job is writing in Python, a tech I hadn't used until a week before I was completing a technical test.
To summarise, Makers Academy puts you in an environment where you have every opportunity and the necessary resources to become a Junior Developer in 12 weeks, however without the necessary commitment of time and effort, don't expect to succeed.
If you are on the fence about whether or not Makers is for you, do a couple of open days, and go and visit a Makers graduation event. If it's the coding you're nervous about, check out this link: http://imgur.com/gallery/uGdaN, it's my summary of how I got started (and basically everything you'll learn up to the beginning of the precourse), work through those and you should have a good feel for the practice.
Wow, this was longer than I expected, and has probably gotten a little incongruent at this point, if you still have any questions, do feel free to drop me an email at: mattbridgesbusiness@gmail.com
How much does Makers Academy cost?
Makers Academy costs around £8,500.
What courses does Makers Academy teach?
Makers Academy offers courses like Web Development.
Where does Makers Academy have campuses?
Makers Academy has in-person campuses in Bristol, Cambridge, London, and Manchester. Makers Academy also has a remote classroom so students can learn online.
Is Makers Academy worth it?
Makers Academy hasn't shared alumni outcomes yet, but one way to determine if a bootcamp is worth it is by reading alumni reviews. 410 Makers Academy alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Makers Academy on Course Report - you should start there!
Is Makers Academy legit?
We let alumni answer that question. 410 Makers Academy alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Makers Academy and rate their overall experience a 4.78 out of 5.
Does Makers Academy offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?
Right now, it doesn't look like Makers Academy offers scholarships or accepts the GI Bill. We're always adding to the list of schools that do offer Exclusive Course Report Scholarships and a list of the bootcamps that accept the GI Bill.
Can I read Makers Academy reviews?
You can read 410 reviews of Makers Academy on Course Report! Makers Academy alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Makers Academy and rate their overall experience a 4.78 out of 5.
Is Makers Academy accredited?
No
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