Prime Digital Academy

Executive Summary

Overall, Prime Digital Academy is an excellent choice for those who are serious about making a career change into the software development field or as an alternative to the traditional 2 or 4 year college degree.  I say serious, because Prime is a seriously intense program that prepares you for employment as an entry level software developer in a relatively short period of time (18 weeks).  Prime focuses on not only intensive learning of the JavaScript based MEAN stack but also the soft skills that are necessary in today's workplace: speaking to a group or audience, teamwork, writing project scopes, interviewing, diversity awareness, and others.  Prime Digital Academy is a new bootcamp program that is getting its feet underneath it with each class that passes through its doors, but the background of the school's instructors and leadership, business network, and affiliation with the Nerdery - Prime Digital Academy has the support internally and externally for students to succeed.  My background was a professional with a 4 year college degree that was making a career change.  My selection of Prime Digital Academy was made based on their business network and vision for the program.  I do not regret my decision one bit.  Every question I had about the program was answered honestly and every expectation I had was met.

Program Highlights

Intense structured learning - The program is designed to keep a student out of his or her comfort zone.  Why?  This is where the greatest development and learning take place.  This will be frustrating to every student at one point or another.  However, students are monitored so that frustration does not equate to failure.  Teaching students that failure is not an "end" in itself but a means to learning and developing is one of the most valuable assets of the program.  It unlocks a curious mind, dissolves fear, and creates a safe environment to develop skills.  Software Development is about solving problems and dealing with "failure", creating the correct mindset to understand what "failure" is and how to compartmentalize it is not just a great learning strategy - but life strategy.

Support Structure - Prime Digital Academy's staff understand the stresses created by a bootcamp environment and how to help students deal with those stressors.  The students are also an incredibly supportive group with each other and develop-mentors also interact with students in small groups to share experience about the industry, developing software, or just life in general.

Community Support - Prime has staff that aid in preparation for entering the marketplace.  Reviewing resumes and mock interviews.  Prime also highly encourages networking via Meet Up groups and other events to meet and grow their professional network.

Personal and Client Projects - As part of the course, students will create a personal project using the full MEAN stack and branching out into new libraries that support their personal project.  Students will also do a pro-bono group project for a real business to understand the full lifecycle of a web application from design, scope creation, coding, and presentation/delivery.  

Program Opportunities

One of the interesting aspects of being a business professional and changing careers, was getting to watch as a student of the program - how Prime Academy was growing and dealing with its own growing pains as a new school.  Our class was the first "production" class to go through the program.  There were curriculum updates in our program from the "beta" class that went before us and there were curriculum updates in the classes that were starting as our class was preparing to graduate - so the reality is that some or all of these opportunities have already been addressed or expectations set with incoming students.  If you have questions - Ask the staff - their only goal is for current, past, and prospective student to be successful in their new chosen field.

6 Week Preload Period - The first 6 weeks of the program use online classes to get students up to speed on HTML/CSS and some other basic skills.  As an 18 week course - personally I would set the expectation of "Go ahead and keep your job during this 6 weeks" or make it more intense to get more value for the tuition being paid.  The first 6 weeks are "luke warm" to me.  Personally, I worked 3 of those 6 weeks, but depending on your job stress/demands, if the load is only 10-20 hours per week - keeping your primary job to save money will be helpful.  However - I would recommend at least one full week off work before the intense last 12 weeks of the program.  This time allows you to get your "house in order".  Once the intense portion of the bootcamp begins, you will have very little time for anything else.  

The course is 18 weeks long - your period of unemployment will vary. Personally I consider Prime Digital Academy a half year (26 week) commitment from the time you start pre-work to the reasonable expectation(but no guarantee) that you'll find a job.  Please note - this is not a failing of Prime.  Prime Digital Academy does not guarantee graduates will find a job anymore than a Bachelor's Degree will guarantee you a job or a job in your field of study.  A prospective student needs to expect that becoming employed may take a couple to a few months after graduation.  This can be for any number of reasons (company HR department processes, location, macro-economic issues, etc.)  Prime works very hard with the development community to attract employers and find opportunities for graduates.  But you need to set the personal expectation that you are making a 6 month commitment - not 18 weeks to employment.  As a side note, I would recommend that you put at least as much effort into your networking with employers, recruiters, and others as you do your code.  The opportunity for building your professional network was a major reason for my choice of Prime Digital Academy and one of the things I am most proud of growing during my time there.  I also fully intend on keeping that network growing and vibrant moving forward as well.

Final Thoughts

If you are dedicated on moving into the software development field, Prime Digital Academy can get you to the next level.  The instruction, support, and network are second to none.  The financial and time commitment of Prime Digital Academy to my new career was well worth it and I'd do it again.

The good/great:  If you are a looking to jump start your development career and want an alternative to online learning or a 2 year program, this program is a great way to do that.  You will meet amazing people and develop career connections that last a lifetime.  Also, you will be able to practice project work, for real client projects, in a team setting, which is invaluable. You will be provided with mentors, from the community and they are also wonderful and add to the experience.  

The bad: The program is really rough around the edges in some aspects, specifically curriculum-wise.  Instructors have a lot of experience but haven't quite figured out the best way to align that to student learning, which comes at the expense of the students.  Additionally, the first 6 weeks is all based on code academy courses, and students would be better served by having Prime come up with their own 6 week pre-load, especially for the price students pay to attend.  

Prime is incredible in that they can take anyone, as long as they have the desire to persevere in the face of an intense challenge, and turn them into a Developer. The program isn't easy, its not designed to be, thats why you're considering a bootcamp. It will challenge you in ways that you have not been challenged before. 

However, you'll come out the other side of the program stronger. Not only as a professional but as an individual. The staff is supportive at Prime in a way that I've only encountered in a very small number of establishments. From helping you work through issues with code, all the way to being willing and available to sit down and talk through issues you might be having in your home-life, which can be stressed when you're an adult-student.

Prime puts a significant stress not just on the coding skills that you'll need as a Developer, but they also stress the soft-skills needed in the real world such as communication, teamwork, and public speaking. They constantly change your group, forcing you to learn how to communicate and work among an ever-changing team of individuals. They include Toastmasters as a great way to foster the growth of your presentation and speech in front of a large group.

If you're seriously considering a career change or an intense way to further your tech-skillset, Prime is second to none. You'll leave Prime with the technical skillset, the desire to continue to learn and grow, and the professional support to place you solidly within the software development field.

Prime Digital Academy is so much more than a fast way to learn how to code. It is also a community of learners that push you to the best you can be and will cheer you on the whole way. It is tough, and you learn at an extreme rate which can be stressful, but the instructors and students alike form an incredible support team to help you succeed. The code that I learned is highly relevant and used in my day to day work as a Software Engineer. My proudest moment at my new job was when I got to teach a skill that I learned at Prime to my team comprised of more experienced devs. Prime also teaches you to continue learning which is a very necessary skill for developers in the field. 

Prime teaches both hard- and soft-skills which puts you a leg up over many other job applicants. Teamwork, leadership skills, continued learning, and a focus on communication are things that potential employers are looking for and things which Prime prepares you for. Interview skills and prep are included in the course, and Prime has a very thorough network of potential employers to help students get a jump start on the job hunt. 

I love my new career as a software developer and Prime helped me get there. A bonus is that the salary increase from my old job to my new career paid for Prime. I highly recommend this experience to anyone who is serious about quitting their current stuck-in-a-rut job and gaining some valuable skills to help them launch a new career.

Being a part of Prime was the best decision I've ever made for my career. I knew I was passionate about web development beforehand, but I never pictured myself as an ACTUAL Software Engineer. Before coming into this program, I knew the very basics of code. It was obvious that Prime was going to teach me the fundamentals of the full MEAN stack, but that's not all Prime gave me. The culture at Prime was one of my favorite parts. The experience at Prime gave me a second home to be myself in, and it gave me friends that I will always have to support me. Coming out of this program, I not only have the skills and confidence in code, but I also have a second family. Prime was the best decision I've ever made. I recommend this program to anyone and everyone who is even considering it. Go for it. You won't regret your decision. 

I have ever had. I came into the program excepting to be taught how to code in a short period of time. What I learned along the way went beyond learning how to write web applications; I gained a vast amount of knowledge, that was a given, but what I really valued was the culture of Prime. Prime to me was a second home, a place where you will make lifelong friends, get support with all aspects of your life, have fun, make memories and become a well-rounded developer both in work practices and socially. You're not forgotten and you are not a number. From the moment you walk into Prime your journey is supported by the staff (and students) all the way to you finding a job. What you learn at Prime are not antequated technologies and long past best practices - an education at Prime puts you at the cutting edge of coding,leaving you with incredibly valuable skills. Highly reccommend this program to all!

As a recent graduate of the first class to go through the program, I can say, this course was challenging, but it definitely prepares you for a career in software engineering. You go from knowing maybe a thimble-full of HTML/CSS to being a MEAN stack software engineer in 18 weeks! If you're looking for a way into the world of technology and you don't have the time or money for a degree in Computer Science (CS), this is the course for you. This program prepares you for the industry better than a college degree because the instructors are software engineers who use MEAN stack and know the industry right now. CS degrees prepare you using dated material. This course is teaching skills that are used right now! Which makes you able to graduate and be useful right now. And because you've been through a course that gets you to this level of effectiveness in only 18 weeks, employers know you're a quick learner who can be presented new material and master it quickly. And the people who run the program truly care about the success of their students, not only in technology, but in soft skills and life in general. They set you up for success in every way possible. Even if you're only considering the course, reach out and speak to them to see if it would be a good option for you. I can't recommend this course enough.

The program is a 20 week course. 

The first 6 weeks were remote and students studied part time. It's estimated for 20 hours a week (those first 6 weeks).   And one assignment due each week. This first tier covered javascript basics, which is really crucial to understanding prior to moving into the fast paced in class full time tiers. I honestly invested maybe like 2-3, probably explains my poor Javascript skills coming in class. But if you plan to work for 6 works and study, it's do-able. 

Once you step foot on campus, everything is like a 9-5 job with over time if needed. Don't be late, don't leave early unless you need to. Study! This is your career. Class is 40 hours a week, but studying and doing homework after those in class hours is up to you. There are weekly assignments and take home work for the weekend. I highly reccomend having your Javascript fundamentals down in the first 6 weeks since you have time to hang out. AND doing your homework by Fridays during the entire program. No one is going to be around just hanging out to answer your questions on the weekend. I mean, ideally you'd want some help, but hey people have their own things to do. 

Aside from technological skills, you gain a lot of soft skills, discuss diversity/inclusion with your class mates, and have a bit of expsoure to what it's like to work in tech. 

Here's the thing, you aren't guranteed a job from this program. No one is going to baby you. You're accountable for your own success.

The things you get from this program:

- People who want you to be sucessful 

- An environment that is healthy for learning, curiousity, growth, networking, and practicing public speaking!

(soft skills > tech skills) 

- A BIG network of people. Most people get hired due to having connections with Prime. Including myself! 

- A plan. The 20 weeks schedule has it's own agenda, you will never not have nothing to do. 

 - People (Instructors/staff) where you can go to with questions such as interview tips, salary info for positions, networking with other hiring managers/recruiters, help with tech questions, salary negotiatoin, life time resources (including campus entry) etc. 

- Free coffee and cereal :) My cohort def had some folks who took advantage of that. 

The only downside is that you have to bus into downtown or pay the parking fee which is discounted. But it's highly accessible to those who don't drive which is a good trade off. 

OVERALL. I loved the program. I recieved the scholarship for it to cover full tuition. I graduated the full stack program and got hired on by Target in 3 months. Not too shabby. I believe having connections with Prime helped me with the gig, but also it will help me in the future as well. It's also helped with getting a few interviews. 

Is the program worth it for those who have to pay full out of pocket? That's up to you to decide, but think about it this way. Sacrficie work, time, and a little bit of family and friends, for 14 weeks. You will land a job within 6 months - 1yr through Prime network that pays maybe even double your salary. In my case, my salary got bumped up 2.5x! 

Take the risk if this is for you. 

The instructors were great, helped with questions, jumped in and wrote code when we couldn't figure stuff out. Sure, you can learn these tech skills on your own, but you don't have teachers or other passionate classmates to help drive you. And you won't be as well rounded in 6 months if you were to go the self taught routes. Also, the bootcamps around the twin cities neighborhood don't really compare :) Just kidding, do your research and see what's best for you. 20/10 stars for Prime. 

Also, they don't just hire anybody, they interview people to make sure they will be a good fit and have the passion to learn,the grit to succeed etc. 

- A fellow Primer. 

I had a really great experience at Prime in the Full Stack Engineering program.  I decided to attend shortly after being laid off from my position as a video production specialist, so I was not working in the industry before Prime and I was not working during the prework portion of the program.  I was looking for work within the Twin Cities after graduation and was able to find an internship at the Prime Career Day at the end of the program, and was hired into a full time position within 3 months of graduation, with a big pay increase from my previous job in video production.  It was hard work and I had zero free time during the program, but it was definitely worth it to get a more stable career with endless possibilities of cool work to explore!

I would have preferred some introductory resources on general programming concepts in addition to diving into the introductory language curriculum during prework.  Otherwise, I felt the curriculum was selected to include approachable languages that are very relevant throughout the industry.  Obviously there's only so much time with the bootcamp format, but we were still able to explore other languages/frameworks within this, which was helpful experience to have for entering the workforce, where I had to learn a totally new technology stack.

My teacher was awesome and so supportive.  I learned a ton from her both within the curriculum and from her teaching style.  She seemed to be less structured than some of the other instructors, which taught me a lot about finding errors and troubleshooting my code.  There is a surprising amount of time spent on this within my current job, so that's been a great set of skills to have.

I got a lot out of the support that I was provided while looking for jobs as well.  There was almost always an alumni I could connect with at any company I came across, which was immensly helpful.  The public speaking practice and whiteboarding challenges made interviewing very manageable for me.  The instructors were very willing to share their experiences and answer any questions we had about what to expect.  We were also paired with mentors who were already working in the industry.  My particular mentors were really helpful in managing my expectations for entering the workforce, but I don't know as everyone in my cohort had the same experience.  The staff at Prime gave me lots of advice while working on my resume, and was always willing to proofread emails/prep for interviews with me when I needed it.  They were also able to give endless pep talks and positive feedback, which is very important during the interview process!

Just a final note... as someone who went through the 4 year college experience, I really appreciated that everything they did at Prime was very clearly intended to help us get a job post-graduation.

After completing Prime, I wished I had not gone to college and spent $80,000 on an education that didn't give me very much. I enjoyed Prime's holistic approach to education. I had the opportunity to grow as a professional, while also gaining a very specific set of skills that are highly marketable in this age of technology. The instructors truly cared about me; not only did they care about my performance in the classroom, but they also cared about all of the other areas of my life. I felt confident entering the field of UX, post-graduation, and am excited to see to see my new career with take me.

Switching careers can be intimidating, but Prime made that seamless and taught me valuble skills that I will forever use in the workplace. I never thought that I would become a UX Designer and it felt like a fantasy. Today I am employed and working as one.

There is little I can say poorly about my experience at Prime. The instructors make learning fun and engaging. You learn to rely on peers and colleagues to help solve issues and build a network for your success in the field.

Pros: Knowledgeable Instructors and Staff, Positive Workspace, Personalized Instruction.

Cons: Fast-Paced, Challenging.

I do believe that for many Prime Digital Academy is a place where someone could learn life changing skills that allow them to find a great job in an industry that they love.  I wanted to write about my experience because if I would have had the opportunity to read a more critical review as I was doing my research before attending Prime I would have maybe put more thought into if this was the right choice for me.  

Before attending Prime I was able to meet with a member of the staff.  We had a great conversation and this person made me feel like Prime would be a great place for me to gain some training to work in an industry I am very interested in.

After meeting with this person I became convinced that Prime was the right choice for me and I filled out my application.  After being accepted I was told that the application process was quite rigorous and that many people apply with few being accepted.  I was hopeful to learn a little bit about the metrics behind the review process but I told that it was 'complex.'  I genuinely wonder how many people have applied and been turned down.  It would have been nice to get an actual number.    

The first section of Prime's curriculum was called 'pre-work.'  We recieved e-mails that told us to use tutorial websites to learn skills that we would then use in class once we began attending the campus.  We were also able to meet with the instructors over Skype once a week to just talk through our at-home assignments.  The instructors even made YouTube videos for us explaining some of the concepts.  I can't say enough about how gracious and compassionate all the instructors were during my time at Prime.  Doing something new can be extremely scary and Prime's instructors were nurturing and supportive of everything we did.  During this pre-work I started to feel like I understood a majority of the material and began feeling confident about my ability to get through the program.  I'm not sure if this is intentional to build a sense of confidence or if I was just able to understand the material a bit easier than perhaps others did.  

After pre-work you begin attending Prime on a daily basis.  Because of how confident I was from the pre-work I felt like this was going to be a great chance to build on what I had learned and hopefully gain the skills I felt like I was going to need as I began to look for a new job in the industry.  For me this was not the case.  During my first week it was proven to me almost immediately that the understanding I had gained during my pre-work time was nowhere near the level needed in order to be successful once you begin attending classes.  I spoke with one of Prime's staff members and shared with them my feeings of incompetency.  This was when I was told about 'imposter syndrome' and that in reality I was doing just as good or in some cases better than other members of my class and that I needed to learn how to accept my ignorance.  I think back to this moment many times and wonder if this was the time I should have trusted my instincts and left Prime.  I wondered if this 'imposter syndrome' thing was real or if it was just a convenient way to keep people enrolled.  I had all my years of life lessons and instincts telling me that I should leave but because someone I had never met before convinced me to continue I chose to take their advice.  

As I continued through the program my disconnect from the group, or cohort, grew stronger.  Every assignment I was given I was always the last to finish if I even finished at all.  That's something else about Prime that I would definitely highlight.  Prime does not have any sort of grading at all.  Not even a pass/fail.  There are 3 headings.  You either exceed expectations which I never recieved, you meet expectations which I did around 1/3rd of the time or you 'need improvement' which was the majority of my scores.  I feel like if there was a type of concequence attached to my assignment submissions that someone on the staff would have realized my lack of comprehension and helped me.  We also had group projects and in those I was mostly left out of any participation with my group due to my lack of understanding of the material. 

I noticed that there were some cliques that were forming between students and staff and because I didn't really fit in very well I felt as though people mostly avoided interacting with me.  I don't think this is anyone's fault or was done intentionally.  I just feel like when you spend as much time with people as we did you begin to favor interacting with some people over others and I found that I mostly enjoyed spending time by myself.  It was at this time I was also beginning to notice how students and staff were assisting one another with classwork.  I asked someone in the industry about this afterward and they shared with me that many websites/web applications are built by using the code written by someone else.  I don't understand why this wasn't discussed in more detail during my time at Prime.  I think about the time I spent trying to understand very complicated concepts and if I should have just copied the code instead of trying to learn how to write it myself.  

Once the second phase of classwork was over we were given a solo project to complete.  In order to maintain anonymity I won't go into specifics.  I will just say that most of the projects were extremely well done and in comparison mine was something that I think a person without any knowledge of coding could have accomplished.  I reached out to a staff member that I had grown to trust and asked them about this and the staff member shared with me that they felt like my solo project was very well done and I should be proud of my work.  This really caused me to grow suspicious of any praise provided and if I should have been looking for outside evaluations of my work from the beginning.  Many times during my Prime experience I would be told by staff that I was going to find a job in the industry.  I now feel like this was meant more to make me feel like things were going well at the time instead of preparing me for the reality of the job market that was most likely not going to employ me.  

Around this time Prime begins to prepare you for the job search.  There are weekly meetings with a career councelor but for the most part these meetings go over some fairly basic concepts/ideas that were obvious to everyone in attendance.  Around your solo project is when the career counceling becomes more frequent and Prime's staff starts to help you write a resume and you go through some mock interviewing.  I would often inform Prime's staff that I felt grossly underprepared for any sort of job interview and I was told that I needed to just trust the process and that companies would want to hire me even with my ignorance.  I shared with Prime after attending that this was definitely the low point of my experience.  I really hope that Prime decides to put a significant amount of time into the preparation of the students for the job market instead of attending events like Toastmasters or watching various documentaries about the need for equality in software engineering.  I'm not saying that Toastmasters or equality is not important.  I just wish that perhaps they were offered more as optional attendance for those who may be interested instead of mandatory.  For example I am actually quite glad that I was able to gain some understanding around the need for equality in software and I wish I could have maybe learned more about it instead of watching one video and then completely ignoring the subject.  

After the solo project you are given a non-profit to build an application for.  The non-profit explains what their need is and you as a team put together a business case for the application you are going to develop for them.  I was very happy to work with a large group and felt like we could hopefully cover for each other's weak points and together we were going to build a great application that was going to benefit a very needy charity.  This defnitely did not happen.  What did end up happening for my group was that the inadequacies people were feeling became amplified once the individual failures began to occur.  Often these issues were easily solved once the group was consulted.  Also people in my group took it upon themselves to try to build functionality that was beyond their comprehension.  This caused massive issues that were very difficult to come back from even using version control software.  Group participation levels varied from completely checked out to trying to take over the entire project.  When I would reach out to the instructors and share my concerns I was told that I needed to take everyone's feelings into consideration and not just worry about myself or what I wanted this group project to look like.  There seemed to be an acceptance of the idea that many of these group projects were either not fully completed or finished but needed to be drastically improved by another cohort.  You have to present your group project to all students and staff of Prime as well as the non-profit businesses that you developed your application for.  My group put together the best presentation they could and thankfully at least our application didn't crash.  In fairness I feel like due to the very large need the non-profit had given us our group gave back the best possible application we could with the time and experience we had.  I just feel like perhaps we could have done more or at least gotten some help from our instructors to turn our project from good to great.

Around this time is when you have mock interviews with both technical recruiters as well as companies hiring for headcount need.  The recruiters' interviews went very well but after following up with the recruiters I was told that they didn't have any entry level needs at this time.  After 2-3 e-mails they would stop e-mailing back leaving me feeling like I was not someone they could place with a company.  The company interviews were a bit more mixed.  I had a great interview with some of the companies that attended and had some interviews that were incredibly awkward.  After Prime I did end up having follow up interviews with some of the companies I interviewed with but I was not selected.  When I tried to get feedback on what I needed to work on the companies chose not to e-mail me back.  While attending Prime I did not have my 4 year degree and I was told by companies that without it this would be something that would prevent any company from hiring me.  This would have been something that would have been good to know from the beginning.

Since graduating from Prime I am still attempting to find a job in the software development industry.  The statistics that Prime uses state that 97% of people find a job and that job pays 150% higher than what they were previously making.  I am very surprised that Prime still chooses to keep this statistic on their website due to how fase the advertising is.  I would say the true number of graduates who find work is around 50% and the wage increase greatly varies based on what the graduates previous background was.  Prime does have 'alum scrums' which are meant to be ways for alumni to connect and talk about their job searching experience.  These are led by members of the staff and honestly I feel like if these were led by actual students in combination with staff members that there would be a lot more value from the experience.  I'm not discounting the information provided by the staff members but after attending a few of these scrums I began to notice the stories that other people from other cohorts were sharing and there seemed to be 2 distinct brackets.  There was either the group of people who were able to find employment and how they were having very productive interviews with companies and there were people who were eventually unable to find employment and how often they were experiencing extremely negative responses from various companies.  If there was a way to tailor these scrums to the specific needs of the students instead of a weekly topic that is picked by the staff perhaps more people would find value in attending.  There is also an e-mail sent out periodically with companies that are hiring but these can also be fairly difficult to interpret.  I would respond to these e-mails and try to get interviews with the companies listed but many times the job that was being offered and what was described in the e-mail were drastically different.  I ended up interviewing for a job that I thought was going to be a great opportunity and I found out later was an unpaid internship that already had multiple software development people on the team with years of experience.  I attended this company's intial intership group and after meeting with the leaders of the internship I decided that this was not the opportunity for me and discontinued attending.  

In all I would say that if you are someone who already has a 4 year degree and you already have experience with a technology company or a personal portfolio of your work then Prime is definitely a great place to expand your knowledge and get to a higher level at a different company.  If you have a 4 year degree and zero software experience then I think that with a lot of hard work and determination that you could find a job in the field.  It is possible to find a job in the software field if you don't have a degree but you do have experience building websites/application, although definitely the most challenging path.  If you do not have a 4 year degree and zero experience in software development I would highly recommend giving some consideration before attending Prime.  I'm not saying it's impossible and I do know of people who worked very hard after attending Prime and were eventually able to find jobs with companies.  I'm just saying that the barrier for entry is so great and the probability of failure is so high that even with Prime's instruction the success rate is far lower than what is advertised.  

I have to start off by saying I had a great time and met a lot of really smart driven folks at Prime.  Some members of the staff are indeed inspiring and in my experience everyone was respectful and kind.

I agree with many of the positive reviews above but I need to make sure some of the negitives are pointed out as well.

The tech stack we were taught was out of date and we were taught short cuts which led to bad practices being followed.  Learning a modern framework or library like React, Angular2+, or Vue would have helped career prospects a lot more.  Early in our cohort we were told we would learn Test Driven Development but that was dropped without explaination.  We were taught AngularJS a lazy way that was 2 years out of date and would not minify (solution: http://frontendcollisionblog.com/javascript/angularjs/2015/03/31/something-no-one-tells-you-about-minifying-angularjs-controllers-until-its-too-late.html).

Our instructors were great but we had one leave 4ish weeks into the 2nd Tier without explaination.  She had gotten a new job which the class I believe was supportive of but still it was unprofessional to just leave and also have no acknowledgement at all from the administration.  I think we missed out on about a week of learning while this was going on.

My cohort had some issues with some members.  One member in particular made allegations of sexism against many members, faked her solo project, made her group project-mates miserable, and still graduated making it the whole 20 weeks.  We also had 3 other cohortmates that went back a cohort.

I'm torn on Job Assistance.  I definitely learned a lot of skills that were beneficial but career days were lackluster, and the 'saturation attack' application strategy in my experience has not worked.  Connections and knowing people are the most important things you can do.  The salary expectations that were preached for entry level positions were a bit high.  I had no programming experience prior to Prime and knowing what I know now my strategy out the gate should have been 'get any job that will take me' and not 'I have skills I should be picky and expect money.'  Knowing that would have saved me a few weeks of my hunt.

Despite this I need to say again I really enjoyed my time at Prime.  The future of Prime seems a little murky though.  There has been a lot of turnover in the staff and competition with the University of Minnesota will prove difficult.  I would say only go if you ready to grind hard through the program and keep grinding during the job hunt.  The hunt might last a while.

Overall Experience

I can wholeheartedly say I would recommend Prime for someone who has zero technical background. Prime has created an community environment where learning is the top priority. Prime's selective process ensures that the highest-caliber students are enrolled and the planning that goes into creating great cohorts (graduating classes) is perfection. They focus heavily on soft skills like public and extemporaneous speaking which prepare students for interviewing and explaining technology in ways everyone can understand.

The interview process is less of a sales pitch and more of a conversation about who you are, your background and why you want to be a part of Prime. The thing that sets you apart from other applicants is passion and willingness to learn--they want to see that you can learn. Prime staff has carefully crafted a community of people who are supportive even after they have graduated, and you are a lifelong member of this community once you have been accepted. You'll always have a door key to Prime.

Career Consulting and Professionalism Training

One of the top reasons I chose Prime was because of their career consulting and soft skills (professionalism) training. It is a core part of the program, from weekly Toastmasters meetings to weekly in-class speeches that allow you to learn more about your classmates.

Each week, Prime's career consultant--a former technical recruiter--instructs on all things professionalism, from how to structure your LinkedIn profile to what you should include on your resume. Prime also creates ample opportunities for you to interivew with both recruiters and employers providing you the opportunity to practice your interviewing skills in an environment where you have grown comfortable. You are encouraged to network with other professionals in the community by attending meetups.

While Prime does not guarantee that you obtain a position after graduating, the performance rate for students obtaining jobs within six months of graduation is an astounding 97%. I recieved a job offer on the day of graduation, but that is atypical with most students finding work within three to four weeks of graduation.

Technical Curriculum

The technical experience at Prime is geared specifically for students who have zero prior knowledge of any front-end web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. This is a great thing! People who come to prime without prior technical experience have some of the biggest personal and professional growths.

If you have any prior technical knowledge in the basics of HTML, CSS and JavaScript like I did, Prime may become disengaging at times as you begin to review concepts you can already confidently demonstrate. Prime does not delve beyond the surface level of any of the major technologies it teaches, and sometimes fails to explain specific programming concepts or best practices. If you are looking for a bootcamp where you develop a mastery of a language, framework or environment Prime is not necessarily the best program for that goal.

Prime's curriculum is extremely reactive to employer feedback. This is spinned as a positive to students as "agile curriculum," but as you read about the technologies you "will learn" at Prime, be aware that the curriculum may be altered or even drop specific things from cohort to cohort. You'll notice the recent rebranding which removes any mention of the "MEAN stack" on Prime's website. Companies in the Twin Cities market do not use MEAN stack and gave feedback to Prime that they wanted students to have SQL experience. Prime now spends an entire week of in-class time on SQL and has pushed AngularJS (1.X) and MongoDB into one week meaning students spend less time learning both of those technologies.

There is a huge opportunity for Prime to solidify their curriculum to make it more universal among its cohorts. Some of the technologies I was most excited to learn or had never used before my cohort spent the least time on or no time on it at all because it was removed.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed my time at Prime. I have made relationships with some of the smartest people I know and we will all go on to do great things in the technology field. I gained a lot of experience with the multiple opportunities to work with a team of developers and code collaboratively with other people. The community, the resources and the people are why you choose Prime above any other coding bootcamp, and I do not regret my decision to attend for even one second.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Prime. They do a wonderful job creating a learning atmosphere across many different races/ages/genders. In my time there, I didn't encounter a single person that regretted their decision to join. Prime teaches many things, but the most important thing I took away from Prime was the learning mindset. Not that the technologies you learn aren't worthwhile, but in the Twin Cities area there aren't a lot of jobs for the MEAN stack. Estimates show that these job will become A LOT more common in the next couple of years, but until then it is difficult to get an Entry Level job. Prime does its best to assist you through the program and beyond. They host weekly Alumni meetings that focus on employment preparation and tactics. 

CONS:

-The Stack they teach isn't the most relevant in the TC market

-In class portions of the course can be overwhelming

-Working while at Prime will be VERY difficult (Most average around 55ish hours a week for homework and classwork)

PROS:

-They focus on your development as an individual and assist you in avoiding things like "Imposter Syndrome"

-They are constantly adapting the curriculum to meet current standards and to match the class' pace

-Prime has a reputation of producing hard working individuals who know how to adapt to new environments. It's reputation in the TC area makes employers feel a little safer when considering taking on one as a Developer

-Prime teaches how to learn and how to make one more presentable (as an individual and as a job searcher)

-Prime instructors are readily available if you need help, they may not know the answer to every question, but they always know how to find the answer

I highly enjoyed my time at Prime and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who is looking to get a foot into the Web Development field!

There are more and more bootcamps springing up in the Twin Cities, and although I cannot speak to the others in the area Prime Digital Academy is fantastic. Besides its strong association with The Nerdery, what sets it apart is the sense of community they have built. Our cohort bonded through weekly personal speeches, and community events (along with a dedicated Slack server) foster the kind of supportive and open community that a new developer needs to succeed. Without this family of support, new developers are going to flounder as they set out in their new careers. 

Part of this community is responding to student feedback. A large portion of our cohort was having trouble grasping what they needed to from the curriculum/instruction. Prime listened to all our feedback, took corrective action, and allowed those who needed to drop down to a later cohort free of extra charge. In addition they have made changes to their curriculum and practices to make sure that if a student isn't getting what they need out of the program, the staff knows early on and can give the student the extra attention that they deserves. Even if the curriculum wasn't perfect then, Prime is constantly iterating on it to make it the best it possibly can be. 

The best part of this curriculum is the group project portion. Groups of students are paired with businesses in the area (non-profit or otherwise) to solve a business problem with the skills that Prime teaches. The instructors are there for support, but the students are primarily responsible for gathering requirements, designing, and building the application for the client. This is invaluable experience for a new developer, for both the technical challenge of creating an app from scratch, but also for the communication and cooperative challenge of working with a real client and a small team. 

A strength and a weakness of the program is its choice of the MEAN stack as its tech. The strength lies in that the MEAN stack is all written in javascript, so that students do not have to learn the syntax of multiple languages. MEAN stack is also more on the cutting edge... but not in the area. The Twin Cities market for MEAN stack developers is limited. .NET and Java are much more prevalent. That being said, many Prime graduates have gotten jobs in other technology stacks because they've demonstrated the aptitude and attitude to learn technology of any kind. In addition, companies in the area are slowly adopting more modern development frameworks like MEAN stack. Even with the downsides, Prime's choice of MEAN stack is overall a strength.

Prime cares very deeply about their students' career success, and as part of the curriculum we had to work with their career consultant to refine or rewrite our resumes and set up linkedin profiles. In addition, Prime organizes a mock interview day with technical recruiters from the area, some of which have led to jobs. A career day in the final week of Prime also served as good practice for the job search to come (and also leads to jobs for some students). Even after graduation though, Prime makes all of its resources available to alumni. My key fob and wifi password work to this day, and the career consultant will always make time for graduate who asks for help in their job search (resume revision, interview prep, pep talks, etc). 

All in all, I could not be happier with my choice to attend Prime. It has led me to career that challenges me intellectually, introduces me to super smart people, and gives me more schedule and financial flexibility than I've ever had before in my life. I can't speak to other bootcamps in the area, but I can't imagine they do all the things that Prime has done for me both during and after my time there. If you're thinking about enrolling: just do it. You will not regret it.

When I was thinking about joining a coding Bootcamp, I had a lot of doubts about whether or not it was actually possible to teach someone to not only code, but think like a software engineer in such a short amount of time. Let me tell you that although those 18 weeks are extremely challenging, you can bet before you're through, somehow they'll make a dev out of you.

The teachers and support staff are an amazing group of people. They are always extremely helpful and have more patience than I thought was humanly possible. They really are there because they want to watch you succeed and will do everything they can to make sure that you do. They were able to give me the tools needed to go out in the field with the confidence and skills needed to land a job as a software developer.

Because this information was important to me while doing research, I'll go ahead and post it:

Jobs applied: 50+ within a month
Interviews: 10+
Offers: 2
Time of unemployment after graduation: Less than 1 month
Occupation: .NET Software Developer
Salary: Above school average, as of 8/1
Time spent working on school material outside of class, per week: 20hrs. Some weeks more during personal and group projects.
Worth it?: 100% worth it.
 

I had an excellent experience with Prime Digital Academy. I found that the staff were phenomenal, the content was relevant to the current market, and my time was well spent. I learned so many things. The skills I learned were not limited to learning how to develop in JavaScript but extended far beyond: learning how to learn a new language, effectively collaborating with a team, becoming a better communicator, and much more. I found so much professional and personal support from the staff and my peers while attending Prime. The focus is on building skills that enable someone to find a job and be successful in the workplace, not just learning the language.

I can't say enough good things about the overall experience at Prime. The staff is comprised of a just right balance of instructors and support staff to address any issues that might come up. Imposter syndrome is a thing, and Prime beautifully handles the ups and downs of learning at breakneck speed. The experience taught me how to learn quickly, and helped me fine tune my career direction. The curriculum touches on so many things, and is broad enough to help get your foot in the door somewhere. Did I mention that the staff is super supportive? They're also connected to local employers in a big way. I'm now part of a vast network of potential employers, and an army of helpful alumni. I regularily engage with current and past students and staff on a daily basis. Super valuable experience.