Makers Academy

It says a lot about Makers that their open days for the course are also students final projects. The confidence is well placed as well, I graduate confident in my abilities and keen to start my new career. The curriculum is fantastic, focusing on your own independent learning but the real strength at Makers lies in the environment. Coaches and fellow Makers are friendly and helpful, meditation and yoga adds some relaxation to what could be a stressful time of your life and the building is a wonderful place to be. You can sense if from the moment you walk in but if you doubt me, attend demo day and see for yourself.

I decided to move into software engineering as I was looking for something more challenging and focussed on problem solving. I was recommended Makers by a friend who already worked in engineering; he worked alongside Makers Alums who had been hired by his company after the course, so I knew going in that their methods worked.

The Makers course encourages you to get into the learning mindset, without being punishing if you don't understand something straight away. The early weeks consist of pairing with other members of your cohort on weekly challenges, which have multiple ways of approaching them (walkthroughs, reference materials). If there are concepts you don't understand in those early weeks, you'll continue to encounter them in different contexts going forward, so there's very often a realisation a week after you're introduced to a concept as to how it can be applied, as well as a really supportive coaching team who will unblock you if you feel you're struggling.

Makers focusses on Ruby at the start of the course, as opposed to JavaScript, which is more standard in the industry, however Ruby is a comparatively simple language for learning object-oriented programming and test-driven development, and they also teach you how to effectively learn new languages based on your understanding of an existing language.

Along with coding, you're also learning effective communication and Agile team-working styles that are used in the industry. You'll have seminars on effective communication and empathy alongside how to develop good algorithms, and yoga to destress after a long day writing code.

By the end of the course, you'll have a strong portfolio of work, a process for developing code and you'll be able to work effectively in teams, taking a final project from ideation to demonstration in just two weeks.

After the course, you get access to monthly jobs fairs with the Makers hiring partners. You also get a great support structure from the careers team from CV reviews and mock interviews, to offering you support if you are feeling disheartened.

Before coming to Makers I was working in IT as an Operation engineer but wanted to move into DevOps, however my programming/coding ability and understanding of the software development lifecycle  wasn't strong enough to make the transition. I decided to come to Makers after failing to learn sufficient programming skills by myself and certainly don't regret making that decision. 

Pros:

Excellent learning environment
Some of the coaches are really knowledgable & helpful 
Good course materials and projects

Cons:

On a few occasions the lectures/lessons didn't seem well planned
Not all of the coaches are helpful, one in particular was avoided by the whole cohort due to their unhelpful attitude 

My time at Makers

I attended makers for 12 weeks in the summer of 2019 to complete the year long employer apprenticeship programme. I had a small amount of previous experience with development before joining the course but was new to web development. I am now placed with my employer to complete the rest of the apprenticeship programme in which I have regular contact with the makers apprenticeship team. 

Pros

- Excellent working/training environment. Makers puts a lot of effort into creating an environment that allows you to learn effectively with lots of support from coaches.

- Good range of content. The course covers a lot of different areas and exposes you to lots of technologies and different paradigms.

- Stretch content. The course is designed in such a way that there is stretch content available if needed on particular areas.

- Good amount of support post course. The makers community has been really useful post graduation in helping me develop my skills.

Cons

- On some weeks there was a limited amount of workshops to engage with. 

 I will start off by saying that I am a very picky person, but I absolutely loved my time at Makers. It is a really fantastic atmosphere to learn in and the community are very supportive. By the end of the course I really was equipped with the tools to go and pick up any language or framework independently - something I couldn't have dreamed of prior to starting the course. The emotional intelligence and meditation workshops are fantastic (this is coming from a hard sceptic) and you really cannot underestimate the importance of these soft skills in the industry. The vast majority of jobs I've applied have made it paramountly clear that they want a team worker, not a lone genius, and I feel that Makers have prepared me really well for all the collaborative aspects of my future career as a developer.  The careers team are also very supportive in your job hunt.

A few things to note. Not negatives, just clarifications. first of all, it will require a lot of self-study and self-motivation.  There are people to reach out to if you are stuck, but no one is going to spoon feed you. Secondly, they currently teach very little computer science as part of the core curriculum. It's not necessary in order to learn to code, and indeed during my interviews I didn't even encounter any computer science type questions, but just something to note. Lastly, the job guarantee doesn't mean that you'll automatically be given a job at the end - you are still expect to be very proactive in your own job search, but as mentioned before the careers team are there to help. Expect at least a few weeks between finishing the 12 week course and landing your first job - you most likely will not have time to apply while doing your final project and can only get the ball rolling afterwards.

The general curriculum is great, you learn about the core concepts of object-oriented programming thorugh ruby (which you can then translate to basically any OO language) and javascript is likely to stay very relevant and important. Some parts, however, do feel like they need an update - perhaps too much of a focus on fullstack Rails (which really doesn't lend itself well to modern sexy web app behaviour). Would have liked to replace the mandatory Rails part with a Rails/Django/etc API backend + JS framework frontend instead, also some exposure to NoSQL databases too would have been nice. Also replacing jasmine with jest would have been more relevant to current industry requirements.

A lifelong dream has been realised, and I will soon be starting a new job as a developer with a company I've been able to apply to via Makers. Now I can give a review of the complete Makers experience.

What’s good

• Careers support: This was the main thing I was looking for when it came to choosing a bootcamp, and why I chose Makers. I fully approve of Maker's decision to grow their careers team and have nothing but good things to say about them.

• Holistic approach: Yes, you’ll learn to code, but more importantly for me were the things we didn't cover at university. You learn modern software development processes and to apply best practices: e.g. agile, TDD, and clean code. 

Why Makers is worth your money

The careers team, the learning environment, and the community. Besides providing some kind of structure for your learning, I choose to do a bootcamp for the immersion and community. Look out for the next Makers Q&A evening and Demo Day to see if Makers is right for you.

What you’ll learn

During the 4-week pre-course, you’ll learn the fundamentals of Ruby, as well as getting introduced to git and GitHub. Then during the 12-week onsite course, you have more Ruby, a little Rails, a little Javascript, and whatever your team decides to work with during your final projects.

After graduating, I found that almost every job on offer involved working in Javascript (and often React). I did feel disadvantaged compared to other bootcamps who cover Javascript and React in more depth. I would have liked more time spent on Javascript, introducing popular Javascript libraries and frameworks. I felt that my cohort’s coverage of Rails and Javascript was a bit rushed.

Even if a company says they’re not looking for specific proficiency, who do you think they’re more likely to choose given the choice between a candidate who knows the tech stack, and another candidate who doesn’t?

But I’ve put in the time to hone my Javascript skills after graduating, and I guess it's all worked out.

However, I do agree with the Makers approach and think that beginning with a decent grasp of the fundamentals is important. And then you can specialise to become T-shaped. 

Now is always the best time to join Makers

Makers is always learning and getting better. In my time here, I’ve witnessed how some things have changed for the better:

• The Fellowship is how I came to be at Makers. It means I didn’t have to pay and now, for newer Fellows, it’s better than ever. Apart from not having to pay, there’s now very little difference between the Fellowship route and the regular route into Makers. You still have to be hired through Makers but you’re no longer restricted to only the pathway roles (you become a Makers contractor), which are much less common and also open to everyone else.

• Reviews-as-a-service is a way for you to get expert feedback on your development process. It’s an hour-long and it’s done online through screen-sharing. You code a solution to a problem while demonstrating agile, TDD, clean code, and your ability to explain what you’re doing/thinking to someone else. It used to be that you had to “pass” your review before you could apply to jobs through Makers. Availability of review slots was scarcer and I felt that it was an artificial barrier to jobhunting. Now it’s as it should be: you submit your application for a role, attach review feedback if you have it, and it’s down to the Makers careers team whether you get shortlisted.

So if you enrol, I’m sure that by the time you make it onsite, there will be other things that have changed for the better.

Support during the course

When asked about my experience at Makers, I like to say that Makers taught me rather little but I did learn a huge amount. Being taught is a thing that is done to you. In learning you have agency and it is something you do for yourself. Makers is an environment that empowers self-driven learning. That’s what I’d be paying for.

Some may find it frustrating when it seems that coaches won’t give a straight answer. There’s a method to this apparent madness. It’s so that you can develop your own process for problem-solving, which you’ll need as a developer.

There’s great pastoral care from Dana, the Chief Joy Officer, who leads the daily meditation and twice-weekly yoga sessions, and is always available for a chat. I’ve always found our conversations helpful whenever I’ve needed an outside perspective or second opinion. I believe we also have Dana to thank for the recent improv workshop and karaoke night at Makers. I went to both and had lots of fun, and I'm looking forward to the next karaoke night

I will soon start my new career as a software developer with one of the hiring partners of Makers after meeting them at one of the monthly careers fairs held at the academy. This was a very satisfying and essential goal to achieve, but it's only part of the story. Through its comprehensive and intense curriculum the Makers course prepares you for your new career with many new skills set into your locker. Learning programming languages and frameworks comprise some of those, but complementing those are the the approaches to coding challenges and the fundamental processes and techniques you would follow in general.
It was the toughest intellectual challenge I have ever experienced but it was equally amazing and rewarding. It's not perfect, there are things that need to be changed or improved, but the staff are keen to listen to feedback and enagage with the students and alumni community. In fact the Makers community in general is another key aspect for me. During the course and continuing afterwards you really feel like you belong to something quite great. 

I really loved nearly everything about Makers. The curriculum is really challenging and you won't have time for much else during your time studying there - but it is really comprehensive and seems to prepare you well for life as a Junior Developer. The soft skills they teach are really excellent too - they teach you how to break down problems and how to continue teaching yourself new languages/frameworks. I think perhaps they could have included a bit more Javascript though or had a week focusing on learning React/new JS syntax - this was a pretty steep learning curve for me in a couple of interviews I had early on in the job hunt!

The coaches are very hands off but are really friendly when it comes to sitting down and helping you with something you don't understand. The careers team are excellent - they were really supportive throughout the entire job hunt and at each careers fair I attended there was a wide range of really interesting junior developer roles. Couldn't recommend Makers enough!

I have attended Makers Academy March-May 2019 and just received a job offer from a big tech consultancy. 

I have been choosing between several bootcamps, both in the UK and abroad. In London, I was choosing between Makers and FlatIron. I have asked people from my network who are in tech development to evaluate both in terms of curriculum and pretty much everyone told me that both are great (although there is a difference in the syllabus). 

I have chosen Makers because the vibe there was less 'corporate'. If you have experience working in tech companies, that will remind you of a cosy start-up and to be fair this is what I personally prefer. 

There is a big focus on soft skills - eg they teach you how to effectively communicate within the team, how to give and receive feedback (and not make it personal), how to manage your well-being and build resilience. There is also a daily meditation session and yoga twice a week, free for current students and alumni. Really helps you to get on with the course if I'm honest.

People at Makers are amazing and the community is very diverse. You will have a chance to meet people from very different backgrounds.  

80% of the course is independent learning - you are expected to set your own goals each week, although there is a ton of support material. 

Coaches are available and helpful but make sure you verbalise the question correctly - expect 'have you tried googling it?' as a popular response. 

Having worked in tech companies I must say that Makers seem to copy the best practices from the tech industry. 

After finishing the course and passing a review I have received a lot of support from the careers team as well as from the alumni community. 

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.

I was previously a secondary school science teacher but decided to leave because I no longer felt like I was being intellectually challenge - moving into software development has definitely changed that! Makers provide an incredible environment for you to develop skills as a developer. An incredibly relaxed atmosphere where the focus is your technical and personal growth. The coaches provide great support, asking the right questions to help you find the answers you need. The code review process could do with some refining, it was a pretty big bottle neck at the time