Byte Academy

Best place to learn coding and build your career path as python Full stack developer. Good curriculum and best mentors support. Students will start learning from the beginning and course completely covers both front end and back end technologies. Strongly... Read More recommending

While the course work and teachers are great, there is something very much to be desired from the "job support". Shortly before the pandemic for some reason unbeknownst to students, they decided to let go of their career services leader effectively leaving... Read More students on their own to find a job. No explanation for why this happened was ever given and many students at the time were rather shocked. Instead of replacing her, the new tactic was to have one on one zoom calls with the CEO where all he tells you to do is add people on linkedin to grow your connections and, guess what, send out as many resumes as you can. Their only point of reference is a google docs sheet which contains information anyone can find for free. Very few people have ever actually gotten jobs after this program despite their website touting they have "connections at big companies", which is totally false, they have none. To add to all of that, they now want grads to spend more money on their new program called nestria, which seems to be a joke in of it self. If you want to learn python, this is a great school with great instructors and great course work, but that's where it begins and ends. Expect to be out 15k and on your own looking for a job after attending.

I enjoyed taking intro to Python at Byte Academy. The instructor Anton was very knowledgeable and made it easy to follow the class material. There were many homework assignments and challenges which were very beneficial to practice. I did the class in... Read More 3 consecutive days, 2 hour lectures and a test on the fourth day. That felt a little rushed for me but for someone that already has programming experience it could be possible to take in everything. I would personally prefer to do the course over 2 weeks so that there is more time to sink in the material but that’s just a personal preference. Overall great experience!

In my time at Byte I got to be taught by all the instructors, and they were all SO friendly and knowledgable about everything they were teaching, and always willing to answer questions and help with homework or debugging code (everything was remote, but... Read More I had so much support from the instructors and Byte Fellows that my experience was probably as good as it would have been been in-person!). You can message an instructor with a question anytime and they almost always answer it immediately.

The lectures are about 1.5-2 hours a day and there’s about an hour of “code review” (going over lecture questions and getting help on homework if needed). My biggest advice is definitely to GO TO CODE REVIEW AND DO THE HOMEWORK EVERY DAY!!! I was learning so much new information each day in the lectures, and code review was a great time to talk more about what I learned in lecture and ask all my questions, so that I could make sure I had a solid understanding of everything before we moved onto the next topic in the next day’s lecture. The tests and quizzes are totally manageable IF you keep up with the homework and go to code review- you can’t expect to hear something once in lecture and be an expert at it without doing practice. The difficulty of the homework directly lined up with the difficulty of the tests/quizzes so DO THE HOMEWORK and get help on it if you need to!! There’s also tuesday night algorithms/interview coding prep workshops which are SO HELPFUL for practicing and getting better at coding.

The final project was my favorite part!! You can pretty much pick whatever topic/project you want and the instructors help you come up with a manageable project and if you get stuck they’re there to help, but you’re the one deciding what to do (it’s insane to realize how many new skills you’ve picked up when you’re in the final project phase- I could code and understand so many Data Science models/algorithms that I never even had heard of before the course). All in all I learned so much and am so happy i did this!!

Review of Phase One, as I am currently enrolled in Phase Two of Data Science:
Data Science students, look elsewhere. Both instructors for Phase One were full stack instructors. The content of Phase One is heavily weighted towards the full stack skillset,... Read More going so far as to exclude Pandas entirely.
While you will see incredible detail in the homework problems in the free introductory course, Phase One’s homework is either riddled with errors or non-existent. (They know about this and are working to fix it. Be sure to ask before enrolling.)
Also, they are perfectly comfortable assigning instructors to cover content with which they are unfamiliar. This happened in covering SQL. The instructor admitted he did not know SQLite well, and the classes were awkward, as he tried to figure it out.
The first instructor’s quizzes were amazing, but then the 2nd thought he had been too easy on us. He proceeded to give us a quiz which he later admitted was too hard. The next quiz was so simple I couldn’t believe it. Then, after saying that the final test would be approachable, he proceeded to give two questions which were the most brutal testing experience I have ever undergone (I have an undergrad Math degree, so I know what it’s like to take a difficult test.) I told him during the test that I was not ready to move on to Phase Two. He told me it was fine, and they sent me into the next part of the program. I got the distinct impression that passing the test actually didn’t matter.
Look for a program that has a more robust homework and quiz/testing structure for the Python portion of the program. Ideally, you would have a data science engineer teaching you Python as well. Byte seems to be short on instructors who can teach data science.

Anton, one of the teachers here was amazing. He really went out of his way to ensure we were getting all the information. He left room for questions and really helped explain anything not understood by any of the students, by examples and y showing us... Read More the code. Thank you so much for the great experience.

I'm going to keep this review short and sweet, because the following is all that needs to be said.

From the first day I stepped foot into Byte, I was told that what you put in is what you get out. After my 3 months, I came to recognize that no truer words... Read More could possibly be spoken. Byte is fantastic at giving you the very strong foundation you need to get things up and running in your career. However, if you expect to coast through the course and be fed the material with a spoon, there is no programming bootcamp in the world that is right for you. Byte is undoubtedly difficult, but the fruits of your labor after your time there will be more than admirable-- it is a true FullStack program. Thanks to the staff, I was able to land a solid internship out of the gate where I am learning far more than I could have possibly expected and am on a proper path to a very exciting career change.

One thing that needs to be spoken about is the quality of education from my cohort's instructor, Greg. Greg did an incredible job at taking material that is hard to digest for any newcomer and turning it into something very palatable and easy to understand. He was patient, always willing to help and very personable. I genuinely could not have asked for a better instructor.

In conclusion: Every day I walked into Byte, I had a smile on my face. The environment is pleasant, the staff is great and the curriculum is just what I needed to make this exciting career change. Put in the work and you won't regret being a Byte student!

I enrolled in Byte after graduating with a degree in chemical engineering with almost no coding or computer language experience. After the 3 phases I'm confident in writing multiple languages front and back-end. I began with the pre-phase 1 month foundation... Read More course with Carter as the instructor. Carter was a fantastic teacher who unfortunately no longer works for Byte, he was passionate about what he was teaching and very knowledgeable as well.

After this foundation course i began the Full stack course with Greg Smith as the instructor. The first 2 months are extremely quick, if you don't want to fall behind you will need a minimum of 2.5 hours of self study a day. Greg is a very patient teacher which i greatly appreciated as my knowledge was being built from ground up and there were a lot of basics i needed explanation for twice. He would answer questions into the night as late at 8-9pm and always offered to help you understand the problem rather than just fix it. I highly recommend Greg as an instructor, he knows the material in and out and has enough out of curriculum knowledge to help give you the tools to take on your own challenges. I was able to self teach myself a core language, Dart, in only one week because of the tools and conditioning Byte provided to me.

Negatives? I don't think i encountered any problems with phase 1 or 2. Both phases teach you an extremely large amount of knowledge in a short amount of time, and teach it well. However phase 3 will be a serious step down in intensity, but this is up to you. Phase 3 has an open ended project to "prove" what you've learned over the past 8 weeks. This is tempting for students to take it easy and meet the bare minimum to pass the criteria for the solo project. I think Byte could definitely fit more class time into phase 3 or introduce a third language into the curriculum during this third phase. After two months of intense schooling the third month definitely feels like a mini vacation relative to the other phases. I definitely would like to see a new language introduced or more in depth learning of the languages covered in the third phase.

I decided to make a career change and go from finance to tech, but I knew it was going to be a diffifult transition given my lack of programming experience. With the myriad of options in NYC, I am happy to say that I made the correct decision with Byte... Read More Academy. The fintech-focused curriculum complimented my finanical background and most importantly gave me the confidence and ability to go beyond just learning Python.

I started in the foundation class and continued through the full-stack curriculum. It was definitely difficult, but as long as you keep up with the work, you will be pleasantly surprised with all your progress and how much knowledge you amass in several months. I can now confidently say that I am full-stack developer who can create applications in Python, JavaScript, and React.

I recommend this course to those who are willing to put in the work and are ready for a change in their career path.

Two friends recommended I attend a bootcamp to learn to code, and so I knew what to expect in terms of work and time going in. Even then, the course was challenging enough that I spent pretty much all my time learning for 14 weeks.

If you stay on top of... Read More the work, the Fullstack Immersive will take up a lot of time but I'd expect most people to keep up. I learned a tremendous amount over the 14 weeks, enough to give me confidence in my abilities with Python specifically, but also in learning new languages and frameworks not covered in the course. I don't always use Python on a day-to-day basis, so the most important skill I learned was probably comfort jumping into entirely new languages or design patterns without feeling lost, and then learning them quickly.

I'd recommend Byte's Fullstack Immersive to anyone willing to put in the time, but know that it needs to be your priority the entire time or you might risk getting behind.