Makers Academy

I was stuck in a job that I hated for 7 years. I spent a lot of that time trying to teach myself how to code but never managed to develop the skills I needed to switch careers. Choosing to study at Makers is on of the best decisions I have ever made. The full team are excellent form the coaches that work with you every day to the careers team that help you to find your next job, the support has been overwhelming. In six months I managed to secure my first role as a frontend engineer. This is something that I could never have achieved without Makers Academy. Thank you!

I'm 43 (2 years ago), I'm stuck in a job that I hate for the last 18 years, even though I reached senior management level and earn a lot of money in the dream city of Dubai, but I still hate every day of my life.

I take a crazy step and leave Dubai after 11 years there, and take my family back to the UK, leave construction  follow my childhood passion and join Makers Bootcamp. Turned my hobby into a career.

BOOOOOMMMM, I'm now 45, working and earning a decent salary to support my family, I love every day of my life, never look at the watch to check when my work day will end (some times I look just to see how long I managed to hide away from my wife and do some more work), in the past 13 months I only took 6 days off, and they were for family commitments, as I never felt tired or needing a break. I work in an industry that offers a lot of challenges to keep me excited every day, and offers a great salary growth potential. 

I am indeed one of the happiest people on earth now, and honestly I don't believe I could've reached any where close to where I am now if it wasn't for "MAKERS" and their amazing family (staff would really describe them or give them justice).

Thanks Makers, you really made my dream come true. Love you guys 🥰

I've had a difficult time trying to figure out what career path I want to take, doing 7 A-levels trying to keep my options open between medicine and finance it's fair to say I've spent most of my earlier career trying to figure out what I enjoy and am passionate about. Having never taken any interest in technology I left my accounting job and took a chance with doing an IT grad scheme and very early on I realised I loved coding, as a Systems Analyst and then a Test Analyst pairing with developers would always be the best part of my day. Having never actually studied Computer Science, becoming a Software Engineer felt like an Everest climb, near impossible.

Having spent 3 months on the Maker Bootcamp not only have I learnt stuff I've been trying to teach myself for 4 years but I have gained a lot of confidence in my ability. You learn a lot in the three months: command line; code versioning; TDD; new languages...but the most important thing you learn is how to learn. Becoming a developer felt like it was near impossible but now that I know how to learn a new language and how to maintain the best practices that Everist climb looks a lot smaller!

I am excited to finally be on the career path that I am passionate about and looking forward to continuing my learning.

P.S. The support the Makers team give is amazing, on many occasions I had myself referring to Eddie as a superhero!!

The title sums it up quite well to be honest! I used to be enrolled on a Computer Science degree program but I had to drop out due to catching Pulmonary Tuberculosis. I spent months recovering and then worked as a bartender. Makers allowed me to get back on track with my career and switch careers from Bartending. It certainly wasn't easy, and I would say the hardest part was job hunting after the course was over. A big pro is that there is a dedicated careers team that helped with planning my job hunt. They also provided a lot of encouragement along with the alumni group!

Attending Makers Academy was actually one of the best decisions I've ever made. I would have been miserable otherwise!

Before Makers: I had done some HTML/CSS before the course but found it difficult to learn to code alone because it's tough to know what to study next. The Makers curriculum will teach you industry best practices and fundamentals that you need to succeed as a software engineer, be it as a frontend or, in my case, backend engineer. The coaches are dedicated to your learning and bring in their industry knowledge from some very impressive backgrounds (Facebook, MIT, etc.). 

The course: It is a challenging 4-month long course but it is what you make of it. Coaches are there for you, but it's up to you to reach out with questions, for additional support, or if there's a particular topic that interests you. This simulates the real-life industry experience where you have to learn how to help yourself. 

Job-hunting: I started job-hunting as soon as lockdown began in March '20, which was a very painful experience, but the support that I got from Makers staff, my cohort, and the wider Makers alumni community was fantastic and really made it all worth it. It was also nice to know that the Job Offer Guarantee was there, just in case.

I joined for the February cohort which was interrupted by Covid-19.  Even when we moved the course online, the community and the staff continued to make the whole experience productive and positive - I have learnt so much in just 12 weeks it's crazy.  The course material itself is really engaging and the difficulty builds week upon week at a nice pace.

But the course is difficult - you will have moments where you wonder why you chose to sign up for this. The discomfort is worth it.

I just managed to get a job despite the current climate,  thanks to the extra support of the careers staff (who are amazing). The main thing I will take away from my experience at Makers is the wonderful new friendships and a new passion for learning which I haven't had since I left university many many years ago.  Thank you Makers!

I took the plunge and signed up to the web development bootcamp after doing Udemy/FreeCodeCamp courses on and off for a year. Looking back I regret not signing up to Makers sooner - there's no better way of learning the fundamentals quickly than building real group projects with students using best-practice tools and methods e.g. pair-programming, test-driven development and agile methodology. The course is demanding but there is plenty of support from staff and peers. Makers also provided external code reviews which simulated the pressures of real-world job interviews. The post-course job assistance was helpful, and being in a community of job-hunters meant resources and leads could be shared. After the course I now have the confidence to learn independently, and a clear sense of the trajectory of my future development career. 

Overall I think Makers is absolutely brilliant. 

It's exactly what I wanted from a bootcamp, namely a lot of exposure to technologies and methodologies I would have otherwise struggled with learning by myself, and excellent support from experienced coaches.

There's also a great alumni community (which I have just become a part of).

They start you off with 4 weeks of independent learning and challenges (the pre-course) before the course (12 weeks) starts in earnest, which is where the real magic happens. 

The course starts with Ruby (a language I really enjoy), which has a clean and simple syntax, allowing you to focus on programming concepts you can take to any language (which you do then apply when learning JavaScript). This approach allows you to build skills that you can apply to any field or language. For your final project you can decide on anything at all, even applying your newfound learning skills to get to grips with tech you have never used before to great effect.

The style is mainly self-led learning, with provided materials to for you to use, but you are also encouraged to learn from other materials you can find. I really like this approach as it has set me up to be a lifelong tech learner, rather than struggling to learn on my own once the course finished.

The coaches are there for you to get feedback on what you have done yourself, and to help you get unblocked in sticky situations, rather than to spoon feed you information. I think this is representative of the working world as a junior dev.
Because of this, you learn a lot about communication and teamwork, as its often other members of your cohort that you turn to first when you have a problem.

That said, the course is tough because of this, don't expect an easy ride. It will be uncomfortable and hard at times, but hopefully that signals that you are growing and improving. Self discipline to be on time and put the effort in, willingness to trust in the course's process, and the ability to give things a go when you aren't entirely sure of yourself will all serve you well on this course.

Have you ever wanted to learn something, but you just can't fathom how to begin learning?

I doubt I will ever face this problem again thanks to the self learning skills that Makers Academy has set me up with.

The holistic approach to their learning is simply refreshing, and effective. Equipping you with no only the skills and tools needed to secure a career in Software, but also the roadmap to becoming a more balanced and emotionally intelligent person. Equipping you with the skills to learn independently and effectively.

This truly has been an amazing experience, One I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone interesting in forging a career in tech.

Just do it!

Having had limited tech experience before Makers, I found  the interview and the pre-course really helped prepare me for the course. While it is a lot of work, the coaches, projects and reviews help prepare us for what it's like working in the tech field.

I had a truly fantastic experience at Makers. The support from staff from getting on the course all the way to finding a job made a huge impact on my time here. For anyone who can put in the time and make the commitment I think it's a fantastic opportunity but it is important to keep in mind that it is a self-lead journey and you get out what you put in. 

For anyone looking to make the career change into software I would definitely recommend this course!