App Academy

I changed career in my mid-30s and App Academy made it possible for me through their curriculums and support. a/A is no joke! They expect students to spend ~70 hours a week and I actually spent more hours each week throughout the entire 16-week period.... Read More It’s a 2x full-time job. If you are unable to fully commit to it, don’t bother because most likely they will kick you out - there’s an assessment almost every week and if failed more than two, you are out! By the 4th week of my cohort, half of the cohort mates were gone. At the end of the 16th week, only one-third of cohort mates were able to make it to graduation. We had an instructor and 3 instructor assistants. They were knowledgeable about the learning materials and were able to explain very well whenever we had questions. In order to graduate, we had to have three projects - a javascript, full-stack, and team-collaboration full-stack project. These are keys to landing a job, especially if you had no prior experience in the software engineering field. I am glad they had this as part of their curriculum! After graduation, technical and behavior coaches did a fantastic job preparing me for the interview process. In the 3rd week of the job-hunting process, I had more interviews scheduled than I could handle so I had to slow down my application submission. I got two offers by the end of the 4th week and accepted one. Now working as a Software Engineer in a public traded company and loving it! Overall, based on my own experience, a/A is a legit Bootcamp school with organized curriculums and support teams to prepare people with no coding experience for the tech field.

Finding self studying hard? Don't know where to start with coding? A bootcamp may be for you! App Academy has an amazing support system, whether it be the mod leads, the TAs, to your own cohort mates. It is fast-paced though, and if you don't study or... Read More do the homework, you will fall behind. It's for your own benefit, anyways! Now that I'm in job search, I can full-heartedly say that my career coach is absolutely amazing and super helpful. A tip I would give is to start practicing DS&A problems halfway through the bootcamp on your own so you don't have to stress about it as much like I am right now after the bootcamp. This bootcamp give you amazing pair programming experiences to talk about, and also group projects and solo projects for your portfolio. If I could do it again, I would, and I would start doing one DS&A problem every day or every other day or something.. starting from week 7 probably. I would definitely recommend App Academy though!

I decided to enroll in the 6-month full-time online software engineering bootcamp and it was one of the best decisions that I have made. It is an intensive course that requires a time commitment of 60-80 hours per week due to the very fast-paced nature... Read More of the course, but no prior experience is required and I feel like I have a solid foundation of knowledge to enter the tech industry for the first time. The TAs were very helpful in helping me understand some of the more difficult concepts. I have made many friends in the process of taking this course as well. I highly recommend this course if you are trying to enter the tech industry for the first time as a software engineer and don't know where to start.

App Academy is good at what it does, it teaches you how to learn things fast and apply them. The program is very fast paced and you do learn a lot, and when I say a lot I mean a lot. I took the 24 week online program, and it was a good experience especially... Read More during the pandemic. It was hard, but doable if you do the homework and put in effort to study for the assessments. There was only really two weeks that were really hard, but overall I passed without deferring once. The Cons of App Academy are maybe the strike system? I mean if you have 3 alarms for each check in you theoretically should not get any strikes. I am currently in the sprint week, so I do not have any opinion on the job support yet, but so far the leads for jobs are good, the workshops available seem helpful as well. Overall I would recommend App Academy to someone looking into a bootcamp. I do want to say that you should have a general knowledge of coding or take a prep course before starting(not required), but it helps you get through the first few weeks easier.

To anyone considering changing career paths, I couldn’t recommend App Academy enough! Before I applied, I watched countless YouTube videos and read many reviews and reddit forums about whether or not App Academy was for me. I never really heard anything... Read More bad about them so it almost seemed cult-ish but after eventually doing it, I can see why so many people recommend because it changed my life. I was working at a dead-end job as a landscaper, and couldn’t afford to move out of my parents house. I dropped out of college because it was two expensive and didn’t really have any other plan. I knew a few people who attended App Academy and decided to pull the trigger and quit both my jobs. I did the JavaScript Bootcamp prep which was kind of expensive but I did think that it gave me a head start on learning JavaScript. Although, in hindsight, there are many online resources that would’ve made a great alternative as well! I did the 16-week Ruby immerse program and it was tough. Very tough. I for-sure had a few mental breakdowns about passing exams but looking back, there is nothing they teach that it too complicated to learn, it’s just a lot in a short amount of time. You need to know how to pace yourself so you don’t burn out and I recommend getting as far ahead in App Academy Open before starting the official course. And do the homework! It is very important! After the 16 weeks, I was able to get a fully remote frontend developer role paying 90k+ one week after graduating. It seems like it’s almost too good to be true but App Academy really does prepare you for a job not only the curriculum, but also helping prepare your LinkedIn/ social platforms and mock interviewing. If you are uncomfortable with your life, take the leap!!

Even though the program is set up to be a guided course with plenty of staff to help you along the way, I did feel that many times the amount of help needed to understand concepts by my classmates and I was lacking. There were many times where the TA's... Read More or IA's were not knowledgeable in what the subject matter called for and left many students lacking. When you realize that you were not going to be able to get the type of help needed to fully understand the subject it came down to buckling down and be able to teach yourself at the end of the day.

The course is very intense, and requires you to learn a lot in a short time. If you are the type of person who can lock in and persevere through any obstacle, this is definitely for you. You don't need any prior knowledge, I came in directly from working... Read More in a lab with a chemistry background. Everything you need to know, they will teach you, and plenty of help from instructors are provided. However, I definitely recommend, more prep is always best. Also, before starting this journey, please ensure you are financially ready. Though the course is 6 months, it can easily turn into a year. Timeline varies for everyone, if you defer multiple times, or how long the job search lasts for you. Don't be ashamed of deferring, people who were smarter than I deferred, which is why you should plan for it, if taking this course. From this point on, you must plan for any scenario in your life. This will make you a better coder, and person. I definitely would do this course again, and recommend it to those with a creative, and problem solving mind. I wish I would have done something like this sooner.

The curriculum will feel very vigorous and intense just like a daily dose of regretful bloat post-pie-eating contest if you aren't mentally ready to work 80+ hours a week. You can only fail 1 test and have 1 chance to retake, which used to give me nightmares.... Read More Speaking of which, while I know it's tempting, I've regretted every single day I sacrificed sleep. Nothing's worse than a brain trying to focus on multiple lines of code for ~8 hours. Describing learning and retaining the material always gives me a visual of drinking from a fire hose while struggling to hold in stomach contents. You don't need prior coding knowledge (although boot camp prep will help a lot), but you do need to know how to make friends. Or at least... you know that customer in line that likes to brag about having lots of money? That same person who mistreats customer service and wastes the time of other customers even though you're all in the same line together? And then hopefully gets their credit card declined as a gift from karma? Don't be that person! The other students will be trying to drink out of that water hose with you, and if you can help each other, at least you don't have to cry alone. So, put that ego away and get ready to welcome your fellow comrades with open arms~ The TAs are seasoned veterans of said fire hose with big hearts and determination to help you through as they were once students too. If you get through this program, it will feel surreal and humbling. No program is perfect and some materials need a major update, but it was worth it.

I had a good experience while attending App Academy and made strong connections with my cohort mates, allowing me to succeed in this program. Previously, I had been working toward my CS degree and decided that I wanted a more immersive learning experience... Read More where I could utilize the skills I learned to build applications. If you are looking for a Bootcamp to challenge you and allow you to grow then a/A is a great choice. Each week you will be challenged and surprise yourself with how much you can do if you put in the time and effort. Although the program can be difficult at times, it prepares you for what you will need to do on the job.

I graduated from AppAcademy 24 week program in March 2022. It was a great experience for me. I was working in the fashion industry before that and have no coding background. This program taught me how to become an independent programmer and solve problems... Read More (debugging). I was very lucky to be in an awesome class where all my classmates are very nice, smart, professional, and positive. All my classmates became my network after we graduated. It is very important to know that: Do not expect anyone will hold your hand and feed you all the knowledge, the point here is to learn HOW TO LEARN ON YOUR OWN. It is very important in this industry because you will constantly need to learn new things and no one has the time to teach you one-on-one all day. Of course you can ask questions any time during AppAcademy, but try to ask good questions. Try to research or try solving before reaching for help.