App Academy

I come from a background working as a QA Engineer in the kind of start-up I believe App Academy prepares you to develop for. The day-to-day curriculum is set up in such a way that students who are brand new to the material have a manageable and well thought... Read More out roadmap, and people who are familiar with the concepts can explore more in depth material after finishing their daily tasks. In this way I believe that the curriculum is beautifully geared towards giving students the full reward of their hard work and providing people who have a good work ethic and genuine interest in technology all of the tools they need to succeed.

The career counseling is also extremely valuable for prospective job seekers. The amount of emphasis put on knowing the material well enough to have conversations about it, as well as interviewing techniques to set you apart from other bootcampers, is critical to opening up opportunities for jobs that are denied graduates of other bootcamps. I have seen graduates from coder-mills come out of their bootcamps and spend 2-3x longer than the average App Academy graduate before finding employment, due to the fact that they were not set up for success.

In summary, I'd recommend App Academy for people who are not only capable of working hard, but are extremely passionate about software engineering/app development. It is an unbelievably intensive curriculum where doing the minimum should not be enough to satisfy you, because you don't attend this bootcamp with the expectation of getting a degree or good grades, you do it out of a love and passion for the trade you're training for.

The curriculum here really pushes you. There is a good blend of core CS concepts with practical applications. The daily flow involves pair programming, working on one- or two-day projects, starting off with console games and moving into web-based applications.... Read More The full-stack capstone project really pushes you to synthesize everything you have learned and present it in a visually appealing way. There is a good spirit of camaraderie among the students and the TA's are ready to help and share their experience. I sometimes thought I wouldn't be able to do it, but by the end, I found myself succeeding beyond my own expectations.

App Academy doesn't teach you anything you couldn't learn on your own, and you will come out not knowing a lot. However, if you're like me and you TRIED to learn it all on your own but found yourself struggling to deal with what to go deeper into and... Read More what to gloss over a little quicker, app academy is for you. I constantly found myself stuck in my programming journey because I would feel like my knowledge was never complete on any one thing. App academy's fast pace forces you through the lesser topics while still making sure you know enough to move on. At the end of it you may feel like you still don't know anything but if I've learned anything while I was here it's that just because something has become easy for you doesn't mean that it's easy in general.

Pros:
* Accountability through tests, peers, and assignments causes you to code a ton during the bootcamp
* Questions are answered quickly by TA's which speeds up learning process
* Pair programing with the cohort allows you to meet and see the thinking... Read More process of many smart people
* Great connections and support during job search
* Location is great in SF with a nice view
* Learn multiple languages and technologies

Cons:
* Not much freedom in the curriculum - assignments are same for everyone
* Forced to apply to X number of companies of week after applying
* Emphasizes specific knowledge of Ruby on Rails and React over more general full stack knowledge

Overall:
Enjoyed the program, job search took a little longer than I hoped, but ended with a job at one of my top choices =)

App Academy was crucial to me getting my start. I'd been exploring coding for awhile but App Academy put the fire under me to really get moving. Yes, the pace is fast. Yes, it is possible to fall behind. Yes, it is very stressful and difficult. However,... Read More I found that it push me forward when otherwise I would have lingered. There were plenty of topics that I wish I could have spent more time on, but I became a capable engineer within a few months and you can go back and solidify those sections whenever. Mostly, what sold me was the pricing structure. They are invested in you, which helped with my own confidence level and meant they would really help me find a job. 4/5 because I would have liked to see more daily projects to completion rather than switching contexts, as well as a broader introduction to all the materials in the prepwork given how fast we breezed by them in the curriculum.

App Academy has been a wild ride, and I only just finished Week 9. I know the purpose of App Academy was to find a job, but I felt like I got so much more. While I am shooting for a job, and I do believe I won’t have any issues finding one, I felt that... Read More the experiences and knowledge I’ve gained from the previous “9” weeks at App Academy have been so much more valuable. There’s quotations there because there was significant prep work before starting the program.

The past nine weeks have absolutely flown by. I’ve learned Ruby on Rails, jQuery, SQL, HTML, CSS, React.js, Redux and so much more. I’ve gotten the opportunity to build a full-stack, single-page web application from scratch with as little or as much guidance as I needed, and this, in and of itself was the best part of the program.

I would highly recommend App Academy to everyone who wants to start with a new and rewarding career. And I’ll highly recommend App Academy even more when I get a job. But for the value I just received in 9 weeks, it’s worth what they charge.

This program has tested me and placed me in some of the most stressful situations I've ever been in. While this program isn't for everyone, it's a great path to discovering what you're capable of accomplishing (even if you didn't think you could). Along... Read More the way, I've met intriguing people with diverse backgrounds and built projects from scratch that I can be proud of.

Pros:
+ You learn more about programming and web apps than you would at your own pace
+ Strong community of motivated students
+ Intense and fast-paced so you learn a lot in a short amount of time

Things to consider before joining:
* Assessments can be stressful
* Fast pace means you have to understand your own learning style and do what it takes to keep up
* Deferred tuition still requires a large investment (time, money, forgone salary, future tuition payment)

Believe the hype. I had read up a LOT on App Academy and other boot camps and ended up putting all my eggs in on basket - App Academy - it was the right basket!

I figured that out at the end of the day 1. They really had their act together right off the... Read More bat. From there, I would just continue to be impressed at how well designed and executed the curriculum delivery was. It comes at you fast and furious and you pretty much have no life, but the immersion (plus very well timed concept reinforcements) starts to pay dividends quickly.

You are moving at a very fast clip from topic to topic, first doing mostly pair programming single-day projects that focus on one or two competencies at a time, but then you're doing more comprehensive multi-day projects where if you haven't been keeping up, you're spending a lot of time in your Evernote or on Stack Overflow. Finally, you're on your own doing full stack and it's then you realize just how much you've learned. No more training wheels.

Ultimately you're exposed to just about the whole breadth of the field, enough to know where to start when you want to go deep and leverage a different technology. You know how to team problem solve, pair program, and along the way get a firm grasp on algorithms, data structures, databases, and different architectural frameworks to tackle whatever comes next.

Staff is TOP NOTCH. Culture (SF campus at least) is exceptional. Support is fantastic. Entry process does have a lot of wickets, interviews, tests, etc. but stick with it, it's worth it.

The curriculum is very fast and you get grouped with like-minded people who also want to learn and get a job. The TA's are very helpful and they are constantly available to answer your questions during the daily assignments.

There are some things to be... Read More wary about, though. If you fall behind, you will be playing catch up and be stressed for the rest of the curriculum. For that reason, I suggest people who are looking to attend to prepare by making going through free online classes on Ruby, Javascript, and some basic SQL. Know about object oriented programming. The prepwork they send you if you get in is a drastic change of pace from the coding challenges that you will be doing to get in.

When I first started I was unsure about how the things that were doing would help us to get a job. Nothing seemed like it was coming together. It felt like we were just working on random projects everyday. Then we started React/Redux. Out of nowhere it... Read More felt like we switched and now everything came together. After finishing the Full Stack Project things felt good and just get better. They really do prepare to enter the web development field.