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MakerSquare is now Hack Reactor
As of 11/1/16, Hack Reactor has unified its network of schools, including MakerSquare and Telegraph Academy, under the Hack Reactor brand.
Subject to regulatory approval, MakerSquare's network of schools are rebranded as Hack Reactor Austin, Hack Reactor Los Angeles, Hack Reactor San Francisco and Hack Reactor New York City.
If you graduated from MakerSquare prior to October 2016, please leave your review for MakerSquare. Otherwise, please leave your review for Hack Reactor.
To view updated and accurate information, please visit the
Hack Reactor Course Report page.
MakerSquare is a 12-week immersive career accelerator program in Austin and San Francisco that aims to turn ambitious beginners looking to learn computer programming into marketable software engineers. MakerSquare's curriculum focuses solely on JavaScript with a large focus on software engineering fundamentals. NodeJS, Angular, Meteor and Express are just a few of the libraries, frameworks and platforms students work with. Additionally, throughout the program, MakerSquare hosts a variety of interactive events like mentorship night, weekly Makerstories sessions, Demos 'n' Drinks nights, hackathons, and career prep events. MakerSquare hosts a Career Day at the end of every class and also provides ongoing graduate career support to help students get interviews with partner companies. MakerSquare is looking for students who are passionate, tenacious, curious, patient and critical thinkers.
I recently graduated from MakerSquare and received employment about 1.5 months after. More than just the curriculum, which was excelllent, the big thing I noticed about MakerSquare was that the instructors all care about the students and help in any way they can. They know that bootcamps are stressful and they offer any support they can.
If you're willing to put in the time it's definitely worth it. That Ricky Walker sure is a dreamboat.
MakerSquare is an accelerated learning course that provides the tools and the means to understand the ever changing world of web development. The staff and curriculum excel at adapting to the most current and on demand technologies. By completing MakerSquare you will have a firm understanding on programming languages, access to a very competitive Career Center and a constantly growing network of Alumni.
Why MakerSquare over the other 5 bootcamps I was accepted to? I applied to, and got accepted to six different bootcamps, but I chose MakerSquare for a lot of reasons. All of my expectations were surpassed and I couldn’t be any happier. I’ll first tell you why I chose MakerSquare, then describe my (amazing) experience.
1) Interview Process. During the interview, I was asked more questions that stumped me compared to other bootcamps. They were very engaging and enthusia...
Why MakerSquare over the other 5 bootcamps I was accepted to? I applied to, and got accepted to six different bootcamps, but I chose MakerSquare for a lot of reasons. All of my expectations were surpassed and I couldn’t be any happier. I’ll first tell you why I chose MakerSquare, then describe my (amazing) experience.
1) Interview Process. During the interview, I was asked more questions that stumped me compared to other bootcamps. They were very engaging and enthusiastic about the conversation, and very prompt in responding to any questions or concerns I had throughout the process.
2) Career Services. Most of the other bootcamps that I applied to had some sort of financial gimmick tied to their career services or you were only allowed access to the career services team for a certain period of time. The career services team doesn't have a time constrain or financial tie to your next job, they are just a group of people who are really passionate about finding you a job.
3) DevHouse. I thought the DevHouse would help me make my transition to Austin from Ohio much easier. I didn’t want to get suck in a long term lease or live in a neighborhood that wasn't safe. I Had High Expectations I had pretty high expectations for MakerSquare before I got there, and they surpassed them within the first day. Everyone introduced themselves to me and was super friendly. My mom is a teacher, so I know some basics about teaching techniques and how to tell if your instructor actual cares about your experience. Every instructor that I met at MakerSquare was highly motivated and dedicated to my learning experience while I was there. I didn't enjoy struggling through every lesson, but it really is the best way to learn something, and I felt I learned more than I could ever imagine during my time there. Amazing Career Services Support I thought the career services team would be similar to the ones at a college or university, which aren't very helpful, but they too exceeded my expectations. They sit down with you individually and go over your resume, LinkedIn, and anything else you want to cover to make sure you are presented correctly online. I was also impressed they had numerous potential jobs lined up for us before we even graduated. Right now I am looking for a job and MakerSquare has definitely helped me during the process of finding a job. Many companies are impressed at what I accomplished in just three months. They do an excellent job at reaching out to companies that would be a good match for a particular student. I had one instance where a company reached out to me on Indeed after seeing my resume and the very next day a career services member told me that my information was sent over to them. I thought that was very impressive. The Environment - Great Instructors & Great Peers The environment at MakerSquare is what makes it such a great program. I is extremely hard for me to be on time for things. I am one of those people that you have tell me to be there at 3:30 if you want me to show up at
4) I was not late a single day during my time at MakerSquare. I showed up every day excited to be there because everyone there was excited to be there too. MakerSquare did a great job of picking out a group of students for me to learn with during the program. They were all intelligent and I found myself many times talking to them about intellectual things that didn't just involve programming. We all came from very diverse backgrounds, but our common vision of becoming programmers brought us all together. Anyone who has written even a few lines of code knows the frustration you get when something isn't working. I ran into hundreds of errors in my code during my time at MakerSquare and the instructors were always willing to help. It was hard enough for me to not get frustrated over my errors, and I applaud the instructors that can come in everyday and fix numerous for other people's code. There wasn't a single problem that I ran into that my instructors couldn't figure out, and I had multiple situations where someone would sit down with me individually for an hour or more until the problem was solved. Compare this to college: I was lucky to get 20 minutes of my instructor's undivided time. Some Room for Improvement MakerSquare does a great job of finding really good instructors, but I think they could benefit from having more instructors. Most of the time there were definitely enough instructors available to answer questions, but sometimes it felt like even having 5 instructors wouldn’t have been enough. I think they are expanding rather rapidly because they do such a good job. They should continue to do a lot of hiring to help out with this expansion.
Who should take MakerSquare? Who shouldn’t? I would recommend the program to people who love to learn everything, even things that aren't coding related. We code for everyone, not just other coders, so you have to be able to relate to clients from different areas and backgrounds. You should also be someone who is not afraid of failure. Becoming a great programmer comes after learning from many failures. It is inevitable that you will fail numerous times, so if you can accept this fact and not let it deter you from reaching your goal of becoming a programmer, you should be fine. You should also be someone who is a social person. I consider myself an introvert, but I still enjoy talking and getting to know people. If you are the type of person who likes to work alone and not talk to many people, then MakerSquare is not for you. I also wouldn't recommend the program to people who can't dedicate more than three months of time to this. You will never again be able to experience such an amazing learning experience when you are at MakerSquare, so it's important that you get the most out of it while you are there. There were many people who had families in the program, and that's okay, but just be aware that it will take up a significant amount of time. You will have to make sacrifices in some areas. You shouldn’t expect to get a job the day after you graduate (some students did though). It’s important you spend your time there learning, and waiting for going head first into job hunting directly after graduation. Overall It was the best learning experience of my life. Study hard before so you can get accepted, and consider it strongly compared to other bootcamps. I did and it was definitely worth it.
There were a few reasons why I chose MakerSquare over the many other programming bootcamps. To me MakerSquare seemed like a no-nonsense boot camp. There wasn’t any filler, the entire curriculum was centered on real world necessary skills for working in web development. Their program was practical for the skills needed to be a professional web developer. Over the three months at MakerSquare we all became a family, not just the students but also the instructors and all the other people...
There were a few reasons why I chose MakerSquare over the many other programming bootcamps. To me MakerSquare seemed like a no-nonsense boot camp. There wasn’t any filler, the entire curriculum was centered on real world necessary skills for working in web development. Their program was practical for the skills needed to be a professional web developer. Over the three months at MakerSquare we all became a family, not just the students but also the instructors and all the other people making the school run behind the scenes. I can safely say that anyone there would go out of his or her way to help anyone else. It’s like belonging to a lifelong fraternity that is growing bigger and bigger with every cohort.
The instructors and staff want nothing more than to see each student thrive and they made themselves available at all times to ensure that. The mentorship program added an extra layer of help and support. It was great having an outside perspective on projects, questions, and what life is like as a professional web developer. There is a great job search support system at MakerSquare. The career services team makes sure you know what you need to do to navigate the tech job market, they help get your online presence where it needs to be, and ease any concern or answer any question you may have. The staff prepared us for how to quickly and effectively send in a job application tailored specifically to each company. We also had professionals in the web development field come speak to us about things such as preparing for a technical interviews and working with third party recruiters.
Looking for a job can be a daunting task but as MakerSquare alumni you don’t have to go into alone. MakerSquare is a great program but it isn’t for everybody. You need to be able to devote yourself 100% to this for three months. If you aren’t willing to or can’t do that then this boot camp might not be for you. However, the staff and instructors there want nothing more than for you to succeed and will do anything they can to make that happen. This is going to be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do in your life. You’ll experience the highest of highs and lowest of lows, but that’s normal. When you’re standing in front of your computer with the amazing projects that you made on open house night it’ll all click and that doubt will start to wither away. If you truly, truly want to web developer then MakerSquare is for you. Being that there is such a large amount of topics and information you need to learn while at MakerSquare it would be nice to have a more structured course schedule. Sometimes the jumping around from topic to topic made it difficult to commit to memory what you learned earlier in the day. Also, knowing ahead of time what the next week looked like could give you some time to prepare for the upcoming lessons with some reading so you aren’t going in blind. I know they are always improving their curriculum from each class, so in a way it’s a good thing that things are different, but it could help still to have some heads up each week. Overall it was excellent. If you get accepted, you should do it.
TL;DR -> A good program, and only getting better. This is a great place to find junior developers. I am the Director of Engineering at WPEngine and formerly a senior manager and software engineer at Bazaarvoice. We hired our first MakerSquare grad at WP Engine a few months back, and I am confident we'll continue to look at MakerSquare grads to help grow our team. The individual we hired was trained on Ruby, JavaScript, and CS fundamentals, but due to our team’s current needs, ...
TL;DR -> A good program, and only getting better. This is a great place to find junior developers. I am the Director of Engineering at WPEngine and formerly a senior manager and software engineer at Bazaarvoice. We hired our first MakerSquare grad at WP Engine a few months back, and I am confident we'll continue to look at MakerSquare grads to help grow our team. The individual we hired was trained on Ruby, JavaScript, and CS fundamentals, but due to our team’s current needs, we have asked him to working in PHP, and he was happy to jump in and help. Hiring from MakerSquare, it was nice to interview a group of individuals that have both relevant technicals skills and real-world work experience. In the particular hire we made, we liked his ability to quickly pick up PHP and literally add value on day one. It's also great that there is new talent coming out of MakerSquare every six weeks. They're constantly iterating on their program, looking to improve it, and I'm confident that they're working on the key areas for improvement I've seen (CS fundamentals, Big O notation knowledge, Data Structure pros/cons.)
I'm a recent graduate of MakerSquare (just finished this past week) and spent the most fun 3 months of my life. It flew by! For future cohorts, I wrote a mini review about my time at MakerSquare: Why did you choose MakerSquare? I saw great reviews for MakerSquare online (via Facebook, Quora, Google) and its location in Austin was a huge plus considering its growth in the technology field. What was the environment at MakerSquare? The environment at MakerSquare was amazing! The people in...
I'm a recent graduate of MakerSquare (just finished this past week) and spent the most fun 3 months of my life. It flew by! For future cohorts, I wrote a mini review about my time at MakerSquare: Why did you choose MakerSquare? I saw great reviews for MakerSquare online (via Facebook, Quora, Google) and its location in Austin was a huge plus considering its growth in the technology field. What was the environment at MakerSquare? The environment at MakerSquare was amazing! The people in my cohort were very motivated and friendly, the staff were very approachable, and it felt like I was a part of a family from the very first week. The founders really cared about what we thought about the program, so our feedback was addressed promptly. Because I felt so comfortable, I would get sad on the weekends when I couldn't be at MakerSquare. Working with instructors and staff The staff and instructors were the best part about MakerSquare! It's easy to see how much they care about the students and truly wish the best for them. I only had positive experiences with all of them. How did MakerSquare prepare you for your job search? MakerSquare did a decent job preparing us for our job search! Savrut and Jessica provided all of the information we needed in finding jobs. They were helpful during the entire process, and are available even after the course ends. They are limited to how much they can help, so you have to be proactive with your job search. To whom would recommend the program vs. who should not take MakerSquare, and why? I would not recommend this program to anyone looking to switch into software engineering for the money. You will have a tough time if you don't enjoy coding as a hobby. I would recommend this to anyone who is passionate about learning a variety of new technologies. It is not necessary to have an analytical/science background or heavy math background. As long as you enjoy coding, you will have a fulfilling experience. People from very diverse backgrounds came into my cohort and everyone became amazing coders!
My expectations of MakerSquare: I didn’t know what to expect, my decision to come to MakerSquare happened very fast, so I was in Austin before I knew it. Why I chose MakerSquare: I chose MakerSquare because of their Austin location. I live in Corpus Christi, TX, so the short drive was convenient along with the cheaper rent in Austin. Environment - Immersive and fun! The bootcamp was very immersive meaning you are coding for most of the week. The combination of awesome students and st...
My expectations of MakerSquare: I didn’t know what to expect, my decision to come to MakerSquare happened very fast, so I was in Austin before I knew it. Why I chose MakerSquare: I chose MakerSquare because of their Austin location. I live in Corpus Christi, TX, so the short drive was convenient along with the cheaper rent in Austin. Environment - Immersive and fun! The bootcamp was very immersive meaning you are coding for most of the week. The combination of awesome students and staff made the experience fun instead of stressful. MakerSquare also made a conscious effort to create a positive environment by incorporating feedback during the course. People: Even though every student came from different backgrounds, everyone LOVED to code. That common interest kept every moment exciting. With the "work hard, play hard" mentality, the weekends made up for the difficult weeks. The MakerSquare staff were friendly and approachable. If they didn't know the answer to your question, they will definitely find someone who does or get back to you. The instructors were knowledgeable and you could see their passion and excitement to teach! Career Services: Not only do they have their own job board where you can apply to jobs they find for you, but they also give you resources on how to apply directly and through a recruiter. In addition, they give you organizational tools that you can use during your job search which are really helpful. Summary: You must like to code. You don’t have to be great, but if you’re the type of person that comes at a problem harder every time you fail, then you will do fine at MakerSquare. The immersive course is totally IMMERSIVE. Make sure you are prepared to work diligently and put in at least 40-50 hours a week.
I was a student at MakerSquare and I am currently a backend developer at Bypass Mobile, a mobile point of sale start-up in Austin. Prior to MakerSquare, I was a SQL analyst at Deloitte. I had a great experience with MakerSquare and it is mostly a credit to the team, environment, and the skills I learned. Initially I had no idea what to expect. At the time, I realized that I was making a huge leap of faith putting my career on hold for three months and it made me more than a little nervous....
I was a student at MakerSquare and I am currently a backend developer at Bypass Mobile, a mobile point of sale start-up in Austin. Prior to MakerSquare, I was a SQL analyst at Deloitte. I had a great experience with MakerSquare and it is mostly a credit to the team, environment, and the skills I learned. Initially I had no idea what to expect. At the time, I realized that I was making a huge leap of faith putting my career on hold for three months and it made me more than a little nervous. After being introduced to the founders, however, I could tell how invested they were in my education. During the program they were always the first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night, and were constantly finding more ways to make the course even better. In all honesty, the education that I received blew any expectations that I had out of the water.
The instructors were very invested in tailoring the instruction around the students, and making sure that we were all satisfied with our education and what we were getting out of the program. We were also given the opportunity to give extensive feedback during the course. The thing I found most surprising about MakerSquare was how incredibly smart and passionate all of the other students were. Everyone was devoted to getting as much knowledge and experience out of the course as they possibly could, and it really showed. The great thing about working at a small company, like Bypass Mobile and having a large amount of responsibility is that I have been able to use most, if not all of the technical skills that I learned at MakerSquare. While I still had a lot to learn in order to get up to speed at my new job, MakerSquare gave me a great foundation, and most importantly, taught me how to continue improving my software development skills on my own. Bypass Mobile is going great. I really enjoy interacting with the people I work with, and love going to work every day. I would recommend MakerSquare to anyone looking to break into a new and exciting career in software development or learn as much as you can about being a good software developer in order to improve your existing career.
While I look upon my experiences at MakerSquare to be one of the best decisions of my life, I definitely don’t think that it is a decision that is right for everyone. When you sign up for MakerSquare, you’re devoting the next ~3 months of your life to being an software developer/engineer and pushing yourself and your classmates to learning as much as they can. However, not everyone is going to be able to put their lives on hold for 3 months. Most individuals cannot juggle their current responsibilities and take this course at the same time; you have to go all in.
How much does MakerSquare cost?
The average bootcamp costs $14,142, but MakerSquare does not share pricing information. You can read a cost-comparison of other popular bootcamps!
What courses does MakerSquare teach?
MakerSquare offers courses like .
Where does MakerSquare have campuses?
Is MakerSquare worth it?
MakerSquare hasn't shared alumni outcomes yet, but one way to determine if a bootcamp is worth it is by reading alumni reviews. 89 MakerSquare alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed MakerSquare on Course Report - you should start there!
Is MakerSquare legit?
We let alumni answer that question. 89 MakerSquare alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed MakerSquare and rate their overall experience a 4.41 out of 5.
Does MakerSquare offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?
Right now, it doesn't look like MakerSquare 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 MakerSquare reviews?
You can read 89 reviews of MakerSquare on Course Report! MakerSquare alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed MakerSquare and rate their overall experience a 4.41 out of 5.
Is MakerSquare accredited?
Approved and Regulated by the Texas Workforce Commission—Career Schools and Colleges
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