Actualize

I did the online (full-time) bootcamp that ended in July of 2022. I had worked as a Product Manager for 1.5 years before the bootcamp began, and I was looking to gain the technical know-how to become an even better PM, so I wasn't like most of the other... Read More students who were looking at getting full-time developer jobs after the bootcamp. I didn't want to do a bootcamp that was 8am - 8pm where you just watch videos and work on projects. I'd heard horror stories from two friends who went to bootcamps that were bought by PE firms, so I knew I wanted a bootcamp that was intensive and owned by the founder(s), but not crazy time - intensive. Pros: 1) Great experience: overall I'd say it was a 10/10. I would definitely do the bootcamp over again if I were given the opportunity to do so. You go from knowing close to nothing about coding to being able to code fullstack applications on your own. 2) Great day-to-day: The day-to-day was really engaging and had a nice mix of live-teaching, exercises, and project work. The breaks made it so that you didn't get tired. The 11am start (CT) allowed me to work out in the morning and practice some coding. 3) Amazing Instructor: Joey was phenomenal! He was engaging and very knowledgable. Having gone through the bootcamp himself several years back, he had some great insights. The TAs were great too, but the instructor (Joey) was the MVP. Cons: 1) Pre-Work & Homework: The Pre-Work portion for Ruby & JavaScript were very helpful, and prepared me well for the first 6 weeks of the course. The Pre-Work for HTML/CSS was minimal, and when we jumped into the Vue JS portion, you could tell some people (including myself) were struggling given the lack of knowledge in HTML/CSS. I'd recommend anybody signing up for Actualize to take the Codecademy HTML/CSS courses before the live portion of the bootcamp begins. The homework was solid, but I wish we had a small primer on what was going to be taught the following day. A 15 - 30 min primer would help students to be better prepared for the material taught the following class.

I am transitioning to a new career as a web developer after my wife took a bootcamp, and I couldn't be happier with Actualize. I got to know my classmates, instructor, and was able to learn so much in so little time while also feeling accountable to the... Read More people around me. I had a ton of support both from the career advisor, TAs, and instructor. They truly care about you learning the material and getting the career you want. I would recommend to anyone looking for some guidance.

Actualize is one bootcamp among many with ostensibly comparable curricula. The course currently focuses on Ruby on Rails for backend and Vue.js (Vue 3) for frontend development, though they're always making tweaks and updates to stay current. It's organized... Read More very rationally into three sections: pre-work, live instruction, and the job search. Live instruction is typically the 'meat' of what people are looking for in coding bootcamp, often giving less consideration to incoming skill level or the real-life challenge of finding a job after the live course. The staff at Actualize are available to guide and support you all the way through, whether you're coming in with significant coding knowledge or none. Pre-work is self-paced and teaches fundamentals of Ruby programming. Live instruction is taught by one of several lead instructors (who may or may not have some great terrible jokes for the class) with additional TAs available to answer questions, and goes into some level of depth on backend and frontend web development. I was in a cohort of 12 and there was nearly always one TA in class with us, which is a significantly better student-to-teacher ratio than some other programs I researched. Live instruction was somewhat less intensive than I expected, but there's a good deal of suggested/optional homework to both review in-class material and explore topics in more depth, if you have the time and/or energy for it. I'm moving into the job search phase now, which includes specific instruction along with one-on-one support for as long as you need. Sure, I could likely have learned much of this material on my own from various online resources, but if you get overwhelmed with the universe of material that's out there, don't know where to start, need to be held accountable by real human beings or just know you do better in class settings, this might be for you. I can't speak to the full extent of career support at this point, but the knowledge that I will have access to career advisors and the Actualize alumni community for as long as I need, I have a feeling that will be a truly invaluable resource.

I chose Actualize because they emphasized long-term learning over teaching too many technologies in the short term. I'm leaving the bootcamp with strong foundational knowledge I can use to learn new technologies independently. I found that to be a lot... Read More more valuable than getting exposed to too many things and not understanding how to continue learning independently post-bootcamp. Our instructor also took the time to gauge how we were feeling about certain topics and would spend an extra day diving a little deeper if we needed. Our feedback, confusion, and questions were taken seriously, and he took the time to thoroughly explains things to us or change up the schedule a little to fit our needs. During the bootcamp, I experienced varying levels of doubt/imposter syndrome in myself and the work I was completing. The best choice I made was to voice these concerns with my instructor, teaching assistants, and career advisor. No matter how many times I reached out, they were incredibly supportive and encouraging. They really helped with putting my fears into perspective so I could grow past them. Although it's not an easy process, I felt as though I had the right people in my corner to bolster me up when needed, and I'm incredibly thankful for that. I would recommend Actualize to anyone who wants to enter a bootcamp with a strong support system of instructors, teaching assistants, and career advisors to foster long-term success.

This course was great. I took another course similar to this one before, and I think it is beyond great. The teachers are very friendly, have tons of variety of knowledge, and the class material was very thoughtful. I can implement more complicated functions... Read More than ever.

I had a fantastic experience with Actualize. I came into the course with next to zero coding knowledge and learned far more than I expected, every day. It became so much fun to learn new languages and algorithms I genuinely didn't want to stop at the... Read More end of each day. By the end of the course I was more than confident I could take on professional roles and pickup new methods and systems with relative ease. The capstone project was so much fun! The teacher (who absolutely loved to make the worst jokes possible - but usually the good worst jokes) always reminded us of how far we'd come in such a short time, and created a environment of comfort where we could talk to him, the TAs, and the other students without feeling judged. We were all in the same boat, even if we all felt like others were light years ahead (they weren't). In addition to the massive amount of coding I learned, the entire cohort itself was a wonderful learning experience. The career advisors are extremely helpful, you can really see how much they want you to succeed as an individual, I'm so glad I ended up choosing Actualize over the other several dozen bootcamps I checked out.

I chose Actualize because of the emphasis on supporting graduates trying to find a job. It was definitely the best education experience I have had and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to become a software developer without getting a CS degree.... Read More

I had pretty much no experience coding, and this course really helped me feel confident and understand how much you actually could learn about web developing. I will take the memories of this class and also the lessons that we learned with me for the... Read More rest of my life.

The class was great. Felt as close to in person as you can get. Our teacher Brian did a good job teaching us how to quickly pick up new tech and learning how to implement it. Actualize sets a solid base in full stack web development and teaches you how... Read More to bring your ideas to the web. Job support has been great so far. Lots of help with resume building, connecting with contacts, and adding some structure to the job hunt. The Teaching assistants were a huge help always willing to spend time with student. They did a wonderful job making sure i as well as others understood what was being taught without giving you a direct answer. good experience all around.

Learned a ton in this time that I would have never been able to learn on my own during the same timeframe. Excellent, engaging, and attentive instruction and good job tools. Overall a wonderful experience and one I'd recommend, at this point, to anyone... Read More asking me about coding bootcamps.