Telegraph Academy

Having gone through the prep program, I decided against moving forward with TGA mainly because the assignments had many bugs and were always thrown together at the last minute.  It seems like TGA in general runs like this as they try to make an asset on their website...

"We may be small, but we're scrappy and nimble. We use student input to constantly improve our curriculum and processes. Students who come to Telegraph Academy are excited about getting in on the ground floor of a movement and want to contribute to an organization that is constantly fine-tuning itself."

It feels like it is not fair that TGA is charging as much as Hack Reactor, which is a very solid program, despite the fact that they are still getting their sh*t together.  And the fact that this program is supposed to help diversify tech yet costs so much seems to not make sense.  I really do hope TGA does improve and invest in stronger teachers and more organized administrators because I do believe in their mission.

many of the core instructors have no real software engineer experience (take a look at linkedin for yourself). new grads from the first cohort are now teaching the curriculum which is a travesty because they barely have a grasp on what's going on and you can tell with how they answer questions. i'm worried about the future of this school. i recommend going to another one of the hack reactor schools if your going to spend $18,000 until they hire people with real experience. 

Follow Up:

I think having graduate acting as instructors is not necessarily a problem per se. Hack Reactor too employs graduates as lecturers. OTH, the lead instructor at HR is an experienced veteran software engineer who can step in and fill in the gaps when necessary. 

Telegraph Academy too can certainly benefit from the presence and leadership of an experienced lead instructor. I believe both of TA's co-founders have had industry experiences. It would be nice if they can be more involved in the teachings and trouble shootings. 

Follow Up:

well let's take a look at the instructor's real world software engineer "experience" according to linkedin:

preston = one month contract

bianca = one to three month contracts

albrey = none

claire = none

jameel = none

they often have opinions of "well this is what the real world is like", but have they held any real world jobs? nope. if you want to go there, be my guest. they have a great mission, but don't have the staff needed to carry it out. there are better alternatives for this kind of money considering their job stats are the worse than hack reactor, remote beta, and makersquare. why just watch recorded lectures from hack reactor when you can go there

This review is for Telegraph Academy and not Telegraph Prep

I am a Telegraph Academy alumni and currently Hacker in Residence. I searched nearly a year before settling on Telegraph Academy. This was one of the most challenging and amazing experiences of my life. If I had to guestimate, I probably averaged 13-15 hours of coding, everyday for 3 months. I had no room to think about anything else.  

The very bottom lines (for me): 

1. VERY competitive (Hack Reactor Partner School), meaning this not a place for people who want to "tryout" software engineering to see if it's something they might like it. If you make through the admissions process, you're already a dev. They're going to give you the tools to slap on a turbo and supercharge yourself. You'll come out feeling like a rocket scientist who can solve, build or fix anything.

2. Amazing, diverse, group of people where nearly EVERYONE was represented and I was able to truly be myself which allowed me to really focus on my code. 

3. While coding skills are important, being able to work with others is a MUST. You'll spend most of your time paring with others and working in teams. You won't believe it at first, but this takes your dev skills to the next level. 

4. AMAZING support system and dev community. Tons of Hack Reactor support and here is this official info on the HR organization and where TGA fits in: Announcing… Hack Reactor Core 

5. Top 3 of my best life decisions with no movement in sight. I got far more than what I paid for.

Telegraph Academy was one of the most intense experiences of my life. I was pushed to the limit every single day for 12 weeks and can confidently say that I grew personally and professionally beyond my expectations. I chose TGA because the curriculum is the most challenging and I wanted to be around students driven enough to pass TGA's technical interview. Never before have I been surrounded by individuals as intelligent, hard-working, and caring as the students in my cohort.

If you're considering enrolling, just know that you're going to be in good hands. The quality of instructors and curriculum are top notch and the entire staff cares about each student like family. I'm glad to be a part of the community TGA has built and I look forward to watching it grow in the future. 

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  Telegraph Academy (TGA) provided me with exactly what I was looking for. Most importantly, I wanted something that would push me and put me through a rigorous experience, and TGA accomplished that. For reference, I attended Cornell University (Ivy League) and got a BS in Materials Science & Engineering. This was at least as challenging as that. You're coding 11+ hours day, 6 days a week as a baseline. The method of instruction is one that while initially frustrating, is ultimately empowering and rewarding. They provide direction for you to go in, they support you, but you realize that the best thing TGA teaches you is how to be self sufficient in solving your own problems. When you’re working on a problem and you can’t run away from it, you realize that no one is going to solve it for you, and you learn to be resourceful and figure things out. I feel equipped to troubleshoot in any arena…I don’t know anything about auto mechanics, but I feel that given some good documentation, I could eventually tackle  some problems.   I wanted a bootcamp that would prepare me for jobs in software engineering - CHECK. Javascript and the many frameworks that are built with it are the future of the web and a huge part of software engineering. I am confident that my javascript skills are as solid as they need to be for any job I’d encounter, but again I want to stress that TGA prepares you for work in many flavors of the industry. Having programmed previously in Java and Python, I realize that TGA gives you a language agnostic approach that will allow you to get a job in an area that interests you, and not just one where you’ve had previous training. We learned the fundamentals that you’d get in any undergraduate CS program (control logic, data structures, algorithms, etc).   TGA provides training on many aspects of career preparation including:   -resume workshops: TGA provided a specialist to rip apart our existing resumes and helped us perform countless iterations of revision   -Interviewing practice: TGA grills you with coding challenges and questions that you will face during job interviews.   -Job expectations: How to make an impact right from the gun on the job.   Last but certainly not least, TGA follows the spirit of its mission: it works to increase the number of women and underrepresented minorities in technology. Not everyone who attends meets the typical definition of “underrepresented” but all who attend realize that diversity can be a tremendous boost for companies that choose to implement it. Since people of all backgrounds are using technology today, why not work to produce engineers from all backgrounds as well?   Overall, TGA gets my highest recommendation. It requirements a substantial effort, but for those willing to undertake it, it’s worth it.  Five stars across the board. 

While the team is nice enough, no one has any idea how to teach. They don't prepare logical lesson plans, they can't answer questions clearly and simply--newbies really don't stand a chance. Some students know what they're doing and, of course, they have to let you know it by asking really granular questions that don't edify anyone. I really, really wish I could be more positive because I really believe in the mission, but I was left feeling frustrated and disappointed. For all the "assistance" actually give you, you might as well go with Lynda.com

Telegraph Academy--please get it together. This could be a really good program, but it needs quality instruction.

 

I attended their livestream prep program. I didn't care for the instructor. To me it felt like they were moving very quickly and didn't press the students who had a thumbs-down or side-thumbs enough. Even without seeing the attendees it seemed the class was confused sometimes based on their silence and lack of comments/questions.

Also there was an instance where someone was asking questions they should have learned from codeacademy, which was required before starting. That wasted time where someone else could have asked a question that was relevant to everyone.

Also, livestreamers could not hear attendees (other than speaker) at all and speaker never repeated questions attendees gave so livestreamers had to guess the question based on the answer the speaker gave, which is subpar if you ask me.