New York Code + Design Academy

I will go chronologically. First, the onboarding was terrible! Not even an introduction email with some basic instructions, there were not even instructions on where the course is being held and most of us arrived to a wrong location where they did a presentation but was not the actual place of the course, when we finally arrived the teacher literally said open your text editor and start executing programs we didn't even know they exist. The teacher was ok and was really pushing us to do stuff (which is good) but was lacking of experience like a lot and then we switched to another teacher, one that was the other way around, he's been prograamimng since a young age, has LOTS of experience, knowledge and get things do amazingly good but as a teacher, bad like really bad. The entire time was just looking at him doing stuff, always late and could never follow the structure that he made (bc he didn't like NYCDA structure), we ended up graduating with just a final project in our github and many topics were left aside and from the academy itself... careless, the person in charge of Amsterdam operations left in the middle of the course, classrooms were absolutely disgusting, sometimes even locked down and we had to use other disgusting rooms, at the very end of the course we finally hear from somebody in NY who offered support, she was actually very helpful but it was impossible to compensate with the lack of experience after the course, now I find myself trying to apply for jobs with a very poor portfolio and serious lack of skills.

Prior to enrolling in NYCDA's web intensive program I had ZERO programming knowledge. After the first two weeks with my teacher Orlando, I was already building confidence, learning the basics, and on my way to creating my first app!  Although challenging, and the instructors encourage you to find answers on your own, NYCDA gives you all the tools and vocabulary necessary to begin programming! You will surprise yourself after three months at NYCDA.

    In addition to learning how to program, NYCDA has a great career development team.  Nicole Arndt and Krystal Kaplan helped curate my resume, gave excellent mock interviews, schooled us on time managment, and showed us how to avoid interview pitfalls. 

I recommend starting your programming experience at NYCDA. 

I did the web development intensive class over the summer 2017. It was not only a great learning experience, it was also pretty fun. Our instructor David would give us challenging work and after big assignments we would play some fun games to relax. Going into this class, I knew I would struggle styling apps, I have NO artistic ability. Luckily, our TA Ro was a UI/UX guru and was able to help me make my projects look decent.

The course itself is not the most challenging out there. Many of the others will expect you to know some of the basics going in. One of the employees put it best 'It is a 0-60 bootcamp, while some of the others are 20-80.' That being said 4 of my 8 classmates dropped out, so you will need to have some skills. Surprisingly, some students didn't even look at any code prior to the class. You are paying good money and changing to a new career, do a bit of coding on teamtreehouse.com first and see if it is for you. The plan is to live with this choice for decades not 3 months!

The curriculum was a small complaint of mine. The slideshows were gross and unclear with little example code. David eventually was writing lessons of his own which were great. Although I had complaints, it is important to note that they were nearly finished with a new curriculum which supposedly rolls out in 2018. It sounds better since it is more focused on how you would work in a job, rather than making fun apps for yourself.

Job assistance was nice to me. Nicole was always ready with advice and gave us a lot of good tips for interviews and resumes. Don't expect them to get you a million interviews. They were able to get me one. The rest I had to find myself. But their advice/guidance was a big reason for those.

Don't expect a job out of the gate.  I was one of the lucky few that found a job pretty fast (2.5 months). Much of this had to do with the fact I had taught in public schools for 5 years so I had some work experience, I taught myself React for my final project which is currently in demand, and created another app after graduating (I strongly suggest this). I also know that many students stop coding after a month of so. You can't do that, employers literally know. 

I now work as a react developer in the city for a small company in NYC. Honestly, I got lucky to get a full time job this early. I know of many people still searching and working hard to get their feet off the ground. I am really happy I did the course and for those out there who are motivated, have tried some coding, and want to make a change. I strongly recommend NYCDA. 

If you have a duck phobia, be forwarned that this place has rubber ducks. I know it can be quite frightening. Especially when it gleams at you from across the desk as you ponderously work on your assigned project. Which you undoubtedly have spent many long hours on and will spend numerous more on.

Let me say right up front that before I took this course I already knew how to code and have been programming for many years. The reason I took this course was to get an understanding of how all the pieces fit together, and what technologies were being used by web developers. This course was to be a foundation on what one needs to know to excel at web development. 

It is important you understand where I come from and what I wanted out of this program. I have read numerous other reviews by similar programmers who bash the course for not delving deeper into the technical intricacies of web development. They are quite true in that regard, this course will not give you those details. What this course will do depends on where you are coming from. If you have never programmed before then this course is a great way to learn, you skip the comp-sci theory and jump right into making things which is extremely powerful. If you come into this program already knowing how to program (say you are a computer-science major) this is still value to be had. For the text book programmer, this is a great place, it can challenge you to learn new frameworks, langauges, and api's and then utilizing those skills right away. With that being said, if you are coming into this already knowing how to program then know that you are going to have to raise the bar your self on the challenges the course gives you. The assignments are pretty easy up front but there is plenty of room for you to take the extra mile.

tldr. good foundation for web development, great place for coding illiterate to learn, and experienced coders need to challenge them selves by doing more then what the assignments ask.

Once done with the course NYCDA does help with job placement. That is not to say they will get the job for you rather they will present you with opportunities to do so. I took the course in New York and the coordinator their Krystal Kaplan was a tremendous help. When I was moving back to PA she connected me with the coordinator there (Emily Jennings) who was an amazing help as well.

This place is a shit show. They are the epitome of unprofessional and do not exert any amount of effort for their students. As a student you will be constantly faced with teachers that don't care, zero transparency and blatant lack of response post graduation. They privately acknowledge that thier curriculum is outdated yet continue to enroll new students with no updates to the curriculum. I left this school feeling completely unprepared and have required a ton of additional work on my own post graduation. They have an entire department dedicated to Career Services which informs students of the importance to brush their teeth and shower before interviews. These recommendations were even written down on the board for visual representation........in other words if your in NYC please do not get fooled by the cheap prices spend the extra money and go elsewhere.

I was skeptical going into the class at first but was amazed how warm and friendy everybody was! Lynell was really easy to work with and helped me get started enrolling into class. Nick is an amazing instructor. He is really easy to work with and takes time to make sure you understand all the content. Big shout out to Josh for always hooking it up. He make's sure we are talking to all the big companies hiring web developers and always brings food! Overall this has been a life changing experience. I am very grateful for all the amazing friends I've made and I'll the skills I've learned to be a better developer.

NYCDA is Awesome, at first I was taking the Full time Web dev intensive and the instructor was great. I have learned more than I expected throughout the course but still got a lot to learn.  Unfortunately. I got really sick the last month and was sent to the hospital a couple times. So my attendance went down and I felt discourage. But NYCDA Admin worked with me and got a second chance to attend the Part time Web dev, I took this opportunity and didn't waste it. I am Very grateful, thank you. 

Hi everyone! I am a front end developer from Russia. Last summer I decided to combine business with pleasure, broaden my knowledge in UI/UX Design while improving my English. I read a lot of reviews about various bootcamps and chose the User Experience/User Interface Intensive at The New York Code + Design Academy. The New York City campus is located in the center of the Financial District, what I regarded as an advantage because it took me only about half an hour to reach the place by metro. Since the very first day, I was pleasantly surprised by the family atmosphere at the school, the friendly attitude of the staff, the comfort and coziness of the area and well-equipped classrooms. Our course instructor, Jimmy Chandler, is a great specialist in Interface design and a wonderful teacher whose lectures were cleverly structured and supplemented by activity tasks. It was really cool to chat with him about some new tech issues at the lunch breaks. Each week, NYCDA invited specialists in design to share their experience, ideas and new technologies with us. Meetings were held in a format of business lunch. Throughout the course, the school also organized extracurricular lectures in New York City museums.

To supplement our work in the course, the Outcomes Producer, Krystal Kaplan, provided the most informative lectures on self-presentation, going through the interview process and creating the perfect CV. She met one-on-one with each student to give them tailored recommendations. With Krystal’s help I managed to make important improvements into my personal website.

This bootcamp helped me discover this new field and made me a full stack developer. Now I know the all methods of researching in design and how I can use them. I learned how to conduct interviews and how to test prototypes. I completely mastered the Sketch and several  other apps for creating interactive prototypes. By the end of course I added three completed projects to my portfolio. Coming back to Russia I found a job at a global company. Apart from the professional benefits, I made many new friends. I want to sincerely thank all the people who were with me at that time - it was one the greatest experiences in my life!

Avoid this place at all costs. The course I took here was terrible. Unprofessional, badly taught, unclear, and often beset with many technical problems such as projectors not working, etc. Homework was practically non-existent, even though it was supposed to be weekly. I didn't come out of it feeling like I'd learned anywhere near enough to justify the high cost. The class numbers really dwindled toward the end. I'd estimate more than 50% of students dropped out within the first few weeks. 

I also had numerous problems with their billing department, who somehow could not get it together to take money from me. This part of NYCDA is really chaotic and disorganized. I ended up getting multiple "Your Payment is Past Due"-type emails from them spread over nearly a year after I signed up for the course. Very, very stressful. 

You're in NYC, there are far better coding schools than this. Go to them instead.

The time that I spent at NYCDA was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.  I came to NYCDA in the hopes of switching fields from elementary education to the tech industry, and that change would not have been an option for me without NYCDA.  The course was both rigorous and engaging, and the program’s learn-by-doing approach taught both necessary technical content and practical skills such as resourcefulness, logic, and analysis.  The instructor was knowledgeable and helpful, and the staff cares about their students.  After graduating, the staff has followed up with me regularly, offering job placement assistance.  I have already worked a contract position in Quality Assurance, and, because of NYCDA, I can now look forward to a career in an industry that I find interesting, challenging, and rewarding.  Thank you, NYCDA!

*Full Disclosure: After I graduated the Web Development Intensive course, I worked as a TA for several months before I landed my developer job.

First things first, everything everyone has said so far is valid, being on both sides of the course as a student and TA, I was fortunate enough to really get a full experience from both sides. There are people who come to NYCDA open, focused, confident, and love the environment and do very well and then there are people who come scared, anxious, not willing to follow instructions, are antagonistic, and wash out. There are also people who go from one end of the spectrum to the other. If you're seriously considering or thinking about attending, there are two important things you should consider, the coursework and career services. 

Let's talk career services. No offense to anyone who works career services at coding boot camps but from my experience, you can either get someone who is sincerely supportive, with your interests at heart or you get someone who will help you get the job. With that being said, you really get both from Krystal and the outcomes team at NYCDA. Krystal helped me get my shit together after I graduated NYCDA, helped me negotiate when I had job offers, and to this day I still get that A-1 career advice from her. I remember this one time when I was applying to companies and I asked her if she had a contact at a company I was seriously interested in. She actually ended up reviewing my resume with the CTO to figure out how to make me more marketable. Who else would do that for you? 

Now let's talk about the coursework. I was fortunate enough to have a great instructor ( Orlando ) and to work with great instructors ( Liza and Will ). BUT, I can totally understand the sentiment that former students had about their instructors/the curriculum. Recently, NYCDA has been fighting these issues and management seems to have been taking the school in the right direction. There is now a full-time team in place just to focus on developing the curriculum. In addition, the instructional staff has gotten more diverse in their backgrounds and they are excited to teach/mentor students. 

Here's the final takeaway from all this, I was an average student for the WDI course, became a better TA for the WD100, PTWDI, and WDI, and now I'm working my first job as a Front End Developer with a digital agency in New York City ( so it kind of worked out for me ). With that being said, I have nothing to gain from writing a positive or lengthy review, I just wanted to share an honest opinion. I had a great experience, I have no regrets, and at the end of the day I was surrounded by good, smart people and if you're willing to work hard what more can you ask for?