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Telegraph Academy 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.
The Hack Reactor network of schools are now Hack Reactor Austin, Hack Reactor Los Angeles, Hack Reactor San Francisco, Hack Reactor New York City, and Hack Reactor Remote.
If you graduated from Telegraph Academy prior to October 2016, please leave your review for Telegraph Academy. Otherwise, please leave your review for Hack Reactor.
To view updated and accurate information, please visit the
Hack Reactor Course Report page.
Telegraph Academy is a software engineering career accelerator based out of Oakland for people of color underrepresented in tech. It was one of the first schools to launch as a part of the White House’s Tech Hire Initiative. Telegraph Academy’s curriculum was developed in partnership with Hack Reactor; and its full-time, 12-week immersive program focuses on JavaScript and related technologies. The immersive program is split into 6 weeks of technology learning and 6 weeks of project building. Telegraph Academy also runs Telegraph Prep+, a part-time prep class that is the first step towards getting into the full-time immersive program. Telegraph Prep+, which teaches the fundamentals of JavaScript and prepares students for Telegraph Academy’s admissions process, is delivered onsite and online via livestream.
Transformative experience. An organization which is also a family.
The curriculum was poignant but pretty grueling. The instructors were amazing. They were prepared, informed and genuinely invested in our success. Once a week there was a moment where I was overwhelmed and wanted to quit but there was always someone from the support staff ready and willing to listen to my ravings and grievances. Truly he hardest but most rewarding experience of my life. I started from being incredibly uncomfortable with high level concepts to building software myself witho...
The curriculum was poignant but pretty grueling. The instructors were amazing. They were prepared, informed and genuinely invested in our success. Once a week there was a moment where I was overwhelmed and wanted to quit but there was always someone from the support staff ready and willing to listen to my ravings and grievances. Truly he hardest but most rewarding experience of my life. I started from being incredibly uncomfortable with high level concepts to building software myself without worry. Anyone looking to take the plunge into tech I highly recommend TGA.
Today im graduating from Telegraph Academy and the last three months have been very intense a lot of long hours and hard work I have accomplish my goal of being a software engineer. My experience at TGA was great even though there were rough moments, but the staff did a great job at making sure they kept me focus so I could accomplish all my goals. The staff is genuinely wants all of its students to succeed and they really do their part to make sure that you are successfull. The most value...
Today im graduating from Telegraph Academy and the last three months have been very intense a lot of long hours and hard work I have accomplish my goal of being a software engineer. My experience at TGA was great even though there were rough moments, but the staff did a great job at making sure they kept me focus so I could accomplish all my goals. The staff is genuinely wants all of its students to succeed and they really do their part to make sure that you are successfull. The most value skill I learn while at TGA was learning how to learn. I now have the confidence that I can learn anything. The community and support was the second most value thing I gained. I know I have a group of individuals that are supportive and always willing to help each other.
Telegraph Academy provides an amazing student-to-teacher ratio, so each student gets lots of individual attention and support. They have great curriculum they share with Hack Reactor, and excellent instructors. Everyone believes passionately in Telegraph Academy's mission to get more people from underrepresented group (women, people of color, queer, etc) into the tech industry, which creates a strong send of community.
Attending Telegraph Academy was a great overall experience. The program was recommended to me by my current employer as an opportunity to start my career in the field of web development.
Just to give some context, I already had experience with VBA programming going into the program, but not extensively with javascript or web applications. After completing the program, I felt very comfortable working with the entire MEAN stack, and understanding how web applic...
Attending Telegraph Academy was a great overall experience. The program was recommended to me by my current employer as an opportunity to start my career in the field of web development.
Just to give some context, I already had experience with VBA programming going into the program, but not extensively with javascript or web applications. After completing the program, I felt very comfortable working with the entire MEAN stack, and understanding how web applications work.
It is explicitly stated from the start that the program does not guarantee a job and is designed to turn their students into autonomous engineers. Help is given sparingly from support staff to encourage self-discovery and student-to-student interaction. So don't expect them to show you how to be an engineer, you have the fight your way through your own battles. Working through your own bugs and articulating your work to others is sometimes painful, but part of the learning experience.
Some criticism of the program is its design to give minimal feedback, which is a method of teaching that is unconventional. I would like to have been given more feedback/code review during my enrollment.
Also I would point out that credit for the positive experience is largely due to the amazing colleagues that were selected to be in my cohort and the staff, which created an light-hearted yet professional atmosphere where everyone was constantly improving themselves.
Since graduating Telegraph Academy, I am now working as a full-stack engineer and have used every skill that was taught in the course in order to create apps that benefit those in my company. It is truly rewarding to have the skill-set to change people's perspectives about their day-to-day work experience. Thank you TGA.
I would recommend this course to someone who is serious about starting a web development career and is prepared to persevere through challenges, day in and day out.
This school has provided me what can most simply be described as 'The Best Educational Experience Of My Life'. I found out about Telegraph Academy in July of 2015 and saw it as an opportunity to change my life. I had always been on computers alot, loved critical thinking and problem solving, but had absolutely no experience coding. This raving 5 star review really doesnt mean anything without reasons, luckily, TGA provides plenty. I'll address my personal experience with each of the catego...
This school has provided me what can most simply be described as 'The Best Educational Experience Of My Life'. I found out about Telegraph Academy in July of 2015 and saw it as an opportunity to change my life. I had always been on computers alot, loved critical thinking and problem solving, but had absolutely no experience coding. This raving 5 star review really doesnt mean anything without reasons, luckily, TGA provides plenty. I'll address my personal experience with each of the categories reviewed.
Curriculum - I entered Telegraph Academy by first going through the prep course. As a pre-requisite to the prep, the JavaScript CodeCademy track had to be complete. This natural filtration filled my class with motivated self-starters, an amazing environment for a budding, future engineer. The material was dense, with the intent of giving a glimpse into life in the bootcamp. I actually had to, after the first two weeks, move to the next class and repeat the first two weeks just to feel confident enough to take on the last two! I am not a guy who shys away from a challenge often or admits defeat ever, but that had to be done haha (And I like it that way!). Prep really solidified the concepts learned from CodeCademy, the foundations for TGA bootcamp, and the interview. I interviewed twice, two months apart. Why? The interview is hard. Why? Because from the moment your accepted until graduation you will be pushed to your intellectual limits. The Post-Interview acceptance Pre-Course Materials are a real gut check to see if TGA is for you. Your hand wont be held and while "Pre-course Parties" are hosted often for support, many questions about the material will deliberately not be answered. There's no more retainable method of obtaining information than to seek it out for yourself, TGA is aware of and fosters this process throughout its curriculum. From Week 1, TGA takes the momentum you had built when studying the precourse materials and provides the structure to multiply it. Weekly Assesments help you to keep tabs on subjects you can improve upon. The first 6 weeks arm you with core software engineering skills (including but not limited to; Data Structures, Database Management, Application deployment..). The last 6 weeks teaches you to apply those skills through self-directed projects, and exposes you to the dynamic of engineering with a group, with deadlines.. In addition to the required curriculum mentioned above, TGA frequently has Software industry professionals come and speak to the class.
Instructors: The Instructors are who really made the experience for me. I had the privelege to be taught by Jamil Lawrence, and Claire Bendersky for my junior half and Marc Christophe for the senior. They each brought a unique past, skillset and perspective but shared this energy of loving to teach and a great sense of humor. Claire brought a 'You-Can-Do-This' attitude to every lesson that made the material seem far less intimidating. Jamil loves to teach, it's clear as day, and he's good at it. Many times as both a junior and senior I would be losing my mind, patience, lunch, all of it, over a problem and he would actully stop what he was doing, work THROUGH the problem with me and then drop some engineering proverb for me to chew on through my cooldown("Improve yourself 1% everyday, thats how greatness is achieved"). Marc fosters the process of becoming an autonomous engineer with thoughtful council during application development. Marc's experience provides insight into many problems engineers face in and out of TGA, also, Marc is hilarious.
Job Assistance: I am 8 weeks into my job hunt and I am shocked at the level of support provided by TGA. To be transparent, I am making a very difficult transition. I have a very weak working history with no technichal experience and no formal education to speak of. Anyone who has been on a Job Search will tell you it takes a mental toll on you. My Outcomes (Post-Graduation) correspondent Mo Akinde is so unrestrained in the effort she brings to helping students there is only one, obvious explanation: She loves helping people succeed. I really feel like she just WONT let me fail, period. I appreciate her frequent check-ins with me, helping me to schedule my time, and continuous iterative reviews to help me create a professional resume. Even as just an ear to listen to your Job Search woes, Mo is gonna try to help. Through this difficult process she has been and actively continues to be unbelievable.
Overall Experience - I loved It. As a graduate I often actually find myself MISSING BOOTCAMP. 11+ hours a day, 6 days a week, THEY MADE ME MISS THAT?!?! Yes it's true. When at TGA, ask anyone around you about themself and prepare to be amazed. You'll encounter everything from Ivy League grads to folks like myself, Highly motivated, self-educated, self-starters. I can promise during your time @ TGA you will have a disagreement with a classmate, its just the nature of working with people. The beautiful part about this is that while you may not agree with your classmate, their intellect is undeniable. I never felt like I was arguing with someone over a knowledge gap, only perspectives. The TGA community and the people it brings in are a welcoming bunch, enthusiastic about both tech and the mission to increase diversity in a laregly homogenous field of work. Albrey and Bianca are both extremely approachable by students and its clear they make it a point to be that way (they are easily busy enough NOT to be this way). I believe TGA is the greatest opportunity so far in my life and I'm eternally greatful to the staff and community for making the experience so fantastic.
I am one of the first cohort graduates (my cohort ended on September 2015).
Let me start by saying that I have a bachelors degree in Computer Engineer. At the moment I am a fulltime software engineer working at InRhythm.
When i got out of college, I started looking for entry level positions. It was really hard to get one even tough I graduate with high GPA. (3.63). I was able to get offers for an intership which trains me for about 3 months and then I am hired fulltime...
I am one of the first cohort graduates (my cohort ended on September 2015).
Let me start by saying that I have a bachelors degree in Computer Engineer. At the moment I am a fulltime software engineer working at InRhythm.
When i got out of college, I started looking for entry level positions. It was really hard to get one even tough I graduate with high GPA. (3.63). I was able to get offers for an intership which trains me for about 3 months and then I am hired fulltime for 2 years with a salary of 38k on the first year and 42k on the second year.
A friend of mines recommended me to get into a bootcamp and I looked for many here in NY, and also in CA. TGA helped me on getting a loan that will pay the tuition to attend the bootcamp ( which otherwise I would never have get into one because is too expensive).
To compare, I completed 3 semester in college in about 2 weeks at the bootcamp (we did data structures and algorithms on our first and second week). That blow my mind! After that second week I had no doubt that I have choosen a really good bootcamp and that I will learn a lot.
We worked very hard every single day during our time at the bootcamp, and it was definitely worth it!. I learned a lot more than what I learned in school. Right after graduation, big companies such as Chase, Solar City, Slack,to name a few, started to contact me for an interview. It was an amazing feeling!
The majority of my classmates from college are all working as entry level engineers or taking interships with salaries ranging from 25-50k, I am making ~90k plus bonus and I couldn't have done it without the help of Telegraph Academy.
To summarize, I would NEVER regret attending TGA. It changed my life forever. It would have taken me years to get to the level where I am right now and all thanks to TGA.
Thank you Albrey and Bianca.
If I could do it over I would have just attended Hack Reactor. I'll start by saying that I am now an employed software engineer. However, this a review of the school and not my own personal outcomes. The cost of attendance is the same as hack reactor, but this equal cost does not equate to equal quality. Since it labels itself as the premier coding bootcamp for people of color and underrepresented groups, it seems as though it also lowers the standards of admission if you fit into one of t...
If I could do it over I would have just attended Hack Reactor. I'll start by saying that I am now an employed software engineer. However, this a review of the school and not my own personal outcomes. The cost of attendance is the same as hack reactor, but this equal cost does not equate to equal quality. Since it labels itself as the premier coding bootcamp for people of color and underrepresented groups, it seems as though it also lowers the standards of admission if you fit into one of those profiles. As it stands, the job placement rate is abysmal and the salaries of the few that do have jobs are considerably less than Hack Reactor graduates. I don't know a single graduate who commanded a six figure salary that was also a minority or member of the lgbtq community. All the people who have written highly rated reviews either drink the kool aid or ended up employed by the school, and have all quit once they were no longer jaded by the false sense of community being around people belonging to other under represented with the same prospects of becoming a software engineer. With the exception of Marc, there isn't a single instructor present who has had any experience in the field that they are teaching outside of a few month to month contract gigs. Just another copycat bootcamp trying to target a new demographic. Don't forget that this is a for-profit business, forget the happy-go-lucky attitude and mission of diversifying tech. They want your $20,000 and I could have spent mine wiser.
TLDR
Cost is equal to Hack Reactor, educational quality is not
Weak job placement and salaries
Inexperienced instructors
Predatory business model
Albrey Brown of Telegraph Academy
Cofounder
Jun 30, 2016
It didn't take long to realize that community at the TGA's core - Co-founders and Instructors alike are deeply invested in building a tightly knit community of software engineers and problem solvers.
TGA practices a very iterative approach to it mission of training software engineers and community building.
In all, TGA and its growing community and network is at you disposal in achieving your goals and addressing you expectations in a ...
It didn't take long to realize that community at the TGA's core - Co-founders and Instructors alike are deeply invested in building a tightly knit community of software engineers and problem solvers.
TGA practices a very iterative approach to it mission of training software engineers and community building.
In all, TGA and its growing community and network is at you disposal in achieving your goals and addressing you expectations in a path to becoming a competent Software Engineer.
There are many things about my experience that was surprising to me. As an experience programmer, the prep course really helped me to up my game. It was always challenging but at the same time the curriculum was actually fun. I was never accustomed to pair programming but over the course of time I grew to prefer having someone else to think through the code challenges with. The overall culture is very friendly and supportive. The lectures were always engaging. They were able to demonstra...
There are many things about my experience that was surprising to me. As an experience programmer, the prep course really helped me to up my game. It was always challenging but at the same time the curriculum was actually fun. I was never accustomed to pair programming but over the course of time I grew to prefer having someone else to think through the code challenges with. The overall culture is very friendly and supportive. The lectures were always engaging. They were able to demonstrate so eloquently and almost even 'melodically' the material so that we could fully grasp the concepts being taught. Sometimes I am amazed looking back how much I have learned in such a short period of time. I also noticed that they receive and hear the feedback so they can continually improve the quality of the program. So overall it very much exceeded my expectations.
I came into the program with extensive experience in software development (C++/.NET, Microsoft stack), wanting to learn the new Javascript stack frameworks etc., and I was initially skeptical that students with no background in software could acquire a meaningful level of skills in just a few weeks. After volunteering for two months as a teaching assistant for the program's preparatory course, and then being invited to attend the full course, I changed my mind. The course moves very fast, ...
I came into the program with extensive experience in software development (C++/.NET, Microsoft stack), wanting to learn the new Javascript stack frameworks etc., and I was initially skeptical that students with no background in software could acquire a meaningful level of skills in just a few weeks. After volunteering for two months as a teaching assistant for the program's preparatory course, and then being invited to attend the full course, I changed my mind. The course moves very fast, covering a long list of frameworks and tools and concepts related to full-stack Javascript programming, with the second half of the course devoted to exploring those technologies more in-depth on actual projects. Ours was the first cohort to receive an introduction to React as a part of the curriculum, and three out of three student teams chose React as the basis for their "senior thesis" projects (in our case, using React Native to build a mobile IOS app), so things are constantly changing and being re-evaluated and updated. A great experience, but you'll only get out of it what you put into it.
How much does Telegraph Academy cost?
The average bootcamp costs $14,142, but Telegraph Academy does not share pricing information. You can read a cost-comparison of other popular bootcamps!
What courses does Telegraph Academy teach?
Telegraph Academy offers courses like .
Where does Telegraph Academy have campuses?
Is Telegraph Academy worth it?
Telegraph Academy hasn't shared alumni outcomes yet, but one way to determine if a bootcamp is worth it is by reading alumni reviews. 48 Telegraph Academy alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Telegraph Academy on Course Report - you should start there!
Is Telegraph Academy legit?
We let alumni answer that question. 48 Telegraph Academy alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Telegraph Academy and rate their overall experience a 4.23 out of 5.
Does Telegraph Academy offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?
Right now, it doesn't look like Telegraph Academy 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 Telegraph Academy reviews?
You can read 48 reviews of Telegraph Academy on Course Report! Telegraph Academy alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Telegraph Academy and rate their overall experience a 4.23 out of 5.
Is Telegraph Academy accredited?
While bootcamps must be approved to operate, accreditation is relatively rare. Telegraph Academy doesn't yet share information about their accreditation status.
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