Fullstack Academy

I’m gonna try a Q&A interview style here.

Q. What were you doing before?

A. I majored in business for my undergrad degree. Worked in finance for several years, then joined a startup company doing marketing.

Q. How did you become interested in coding?

A.... Read More Throughout my career, and many of you will or already may have experienced is that companies are continuously trying to automate workflows. Who plays the crucial role? Developers! To even work as a project manager role, you can no longer be in the dark of all the technical side. I believed that it was a must-have-skillset.

Q. Why did you decide to go to Fullstack?

A. The coding bootcamp industry has been around for almost a decade already. Big companies are recognizing this and acquiring the bootcamps. It is no longer a matter of being a scam or not. We are in a very lucky era. We now can get a good job in a good cultured company without the degree. No matter what your age is or what academic or career background you come from, you still have another chance to make the transition. We ALL still have an opportunity to get back up and try something else! And thanks to coding bootcamps, it’s even easier.

That being said, like all schools and companies, there are top-tiered bootcamps right now. Since all the rankings and data are available online, I’m just going to share a personal opinion, or more like a word on the street from bootcamp grads. Before I say it, let me emphasize that this might be biased and is not a fact. It’s just what I’ve gathered from several people around me before deciding. The top bootcamps with the strongest alumni network were the following at the time: Fullstack Academy and HackReactor. So I only considered these two schools. The final decision was made corresponding to my personal circumstances (tuition, living cost, and location). I chose Fullstack’s Chicago campus.

Q. What did you think about the curriculum / structure of Fullstack?

A. Junior Phase (6 weeks): I was really impressed with Fullstack’s learning platform. The topics you learn will be popular ones that you actually see on many real life job descriptions. You will experience solo labs and pair programming workshops everyday. Frankly, most of you will prefer solo labs, but thanks to the forced pair programming style Fullstack provides, you WILL get better. And you need to! Pair programming is a skillset that really does help coding and I’ve been asked a bunch of times on actual interviews what I thought about pair programming. FYI - junior phase is very very intense and fast-paced but don’t give up! You will get all the support and help needed.

Senior Phase (6 weeks): One thing I love about Fullstack’s senior phase is that you will have three projects out of this program that could be added on your portfolio and resume which is CRUCIAL during job hunt. An excellent part of Fullstack’s curriculum is that it gets you to be trained and disciplined on learning new libraries and frameworks on your own. You will have this experience and be amazed how much you have grown at the end. It’s just an amazing feeling.

Q. How are the instructors?

A. AMAZING! They really do care about you. They know you’ve come to the program very determined. So they take it very seriously, like a mission. They are very clear on explaining topics and very good on debugging your code as well. It’s like magic when you go up to them and ask for help. If you do get in to the program, learn and absorb from them as much as possible!

Q. How was career success support and the job hunt?

A. They have an amazing career success coach always at your service. She will well prepare you on your resume and cover letter. She is an action taker which is why the network with companies are growing rapidly in Chicago too. At the end of the program, you will have ‘launch day’ which is like a ‘career fair’ but you will be guaranteed to have a one-on-one conversation with the companies. This won’t guarantee you a job, but many did get jobs from this event. At worst, it gives you actual experience to practice interviewing.

Q. What do you think about our alumni community?

A. As mentioned earlier, the alumni network is one of the main reasons choosing Fullstack. See for yourself. Look up bootcamps on LinkedIn and see where the alums are currently working. Also, whenever I reached out to them personally and I’m not going to lie, not all of them but most of them do reply and are so willing to help you! I’m honestly very proud to be a Fullstack alum.

Q. How were your classmates?

A. As I mentioned, word on the street goes that Fullstack is considered a top-tier bootcamp. And I wasn’t the only one hearing about it. That’s why so many students apply and put Fullstack as their top choice. This leads to competition and the ones that do get accepted are the more prepared. As a result, your colleagues will not only be smart and intelligent but disciplined and persistent individuals. Most of all, I don’t know if this was intentional but somehow most students in Fullstack are generous and warm-hearted human beings. I made so many great friends here. This kind of environment is what keeps you motivated.

Q. Anything else you wanna say?

A. It seems like I’ve said a lot of good things. Am I biased? Absolutely. But that’s what Fullstack has done to me. I love it and so darn proud to be a part of it. Of course there’s always pros and cons, but I’m also adding my word on the street, Fullstack is definitely worth it!

And just one more thing. Fullstack is great, but you yourself need to work hard! It's not going to be easy at all.. But do NOT give up.

I was looking to make a career change and knew going to get another 4-year degree was not in the picture for me (too costly, both money and time wise). I chose the Grace Hopper program because many of my recruiter friends were familiar with the bootcamp... Read More and the companies their graduates go were in line with what I was looking for, big name companies.

The program itself was phenomenal. The first half involved a ton of lectures and workshops and the second half was all project-based. What really stood out to me were the teachers and the fellows. The teachers were absolutely the best part of the program! So patient, so caring - I felt incredibly lucky to be one of their students.

If you're considering attending a bootcamp - Grace Hopper and Fullstack is the way to go!

Before Fullstack Academy, I worked as a marketing for a firm then I turned into doing website for that company. I felt that I have some talent in doing the front end but it not really meaningful in term of money. I used to think that I can learn coding... Read More from online or self taught but that is not an efficient way for today tech industry. I am glad that I decided to join Fullstack and it was the center piece of my career changing events. Now I start a job, which several years ago I have no idea how to get this pay rate. Also the career that have potential growth just the matter of effort you can put into learning for the future. As many students mention in their reviews Fullstack Academy have all the good ingredients from curriculum, instructors, staffs, classmates and career counselor. But I am not here trying to sell the course for any prospective. I write this because It displays my appreciation and thankfulness to the Fullstack family. In short my switchup journey would never been this graceful and I humbly accept that this thoughtful program can help propelling my effort not only in the past but so on.

I graduated the first week of April 2019 from the Chicago program and had two job offers within three weeks because of the phenomenal network FSA has and the super-solid career success resources available after graduation. The program is definitely immersive... Read More and demanding, but it if you are committed to the process you will feel like a rockstar when you graduate. I came into the program with a technical background, but there were SO MANY stellar students from all walks of life. The students are mostly in their 20s and early 30s, so it's a vibrant atmosphere but also very professional. Everyone in my cohort was dedicated and it made the entire experience richer for it. You definitely get what you pay for here, I would hands-down do it all over again.

For what it's worth, Chicago has an amazing and fast-growing tech scene, and we were in high demand coming out of the program. I never felt worried I wouldn't find a job, but you still do have to hustle and get out there. DO IT!

Wow, Fullstack Academy was an amazing experience. I enjoyed every aspect of the program. I learned a lot, but most importantly they help me achieve my goal of getting a job in the software development field!

Collin, Ben, and Finn were the instructors I... Read More learned closely from and I was very encouraged by their mastery of programming and their passionate willingness to share their knowledge with me. They were always asking us as students to please come to them if we had any questions. Their door was always open because their desks were right next to ours! They were with us the entire way.

Holly with the Career Succes department was amazing too. She brought passion to the school every day too and she goes over 100% to get the students careers launched. I could talk with her, ask her career questions, or ask to review my resumes/cover letters/follow-up emails at any time throughout the program and at any time after I graduated while I was searching for a job.

I also made long lasting friendships with my fellow students and continue to see them and talk with them to this day. The bonds we made spending hours and hours together on projects are very strong. Fullstack is filled with amazing, passionate people in all aspects. I wish I could do it all over again!

I've only ever attended this one bootcamp, so I can't fully compare this to other bootcamps, but I will say that compared to learning online or using free resources, I have absolutely no regrets.

I attended FullStack's Grace Hopper Program, which is identical... Read More to its regular co-ed immersive in its curriculum. As a woman and someone without a trust fund, I felt I could really benefit from the environment and the deferred tuition. I liked the program and environment so much that I decided to stick around after graduating as a Teaching Fellow.

The best thing I liked about FullStack is that they are truly invested in your success. Unlike App Academy or Hack Reactor, there are no weekly "elimination" tests where you might get kicked out for not having a passing grade. There is only one exam halfway through of that nature, BUT they have multiple mini-exams along the way to identify/flag students who are falling behind, on top of assigning you a mentor who you can regularly consult if you need extra help. If you are struggling, they do literally everything they can to help you: there are office hours you can book with instructors or mentors, you can attend weekend classes, and if you end up not passing that midterm, you may get the chance to replay. It's definitely not a sink-or-swim situation.

Another great thing is FullStack's reputation in the industry. You can tell by the companies that attend FullStack's career fairs and the companies that hire its grads that the industry is recognizing the caliber of students coming out of its programs.

The only critique I have is that there were several instructors (~ 5) on rotation during our Junior phase, and not all of them were great--which, due to the fast pace of the program, often came at the detriment of our ability to learn core concepts. However, I provided this feedback to them (they are very receptive to feedback and constantly requesting it through emails and throughout their learning platform), and it seems that this has been corrected.

Overall, I highly recommend this program. They are pretty selective, though, so make sure you're prepared for the online assessment and interview!

Fullstack Academy is the bootcamp for you if you're looking to learn the right technologies as well as get career support to find a job quickly. The teachers, career counselor and the staff are very student-centric and are always available to provide... Read More support.

The curriculum is very enhanced, so be prepared to work a lot and dedicate as much time as you can if you want to make the most of the process. Pair programming is a big part of the course and is a great way to absorb the material faster. The curriculum also includes career workshops that prepare students for the market. Fullstack also provides a wide range of services to prepare for technical interviews and has a big network of school alumni, which makes it easy to connect with engineers in leading companies.

I loved having Corey, Matt, Dakota and David as my teachers, Jackie as my career counselor and Emily as the program lead. They are all wonderful professionals and I've learned a lot from them.

Is Fullstack Academy worth attending? I’ll say yes, but with a grain of salt. I’ll cover a few negatives, and then I’ll also explain why I still recommend the program to my friends. This will be a long review! Buckle in.

Let’s dive into the ‘grain of salt’... Read More first: time constraints, price constraints, career services, and diversity.

First: time frame. Fullstack does a great job at creating a truly immersive environment; however, a three month program (or a four month, if you factor in the requisite pre-program prep work) is simply not enough to truly learn CS fundamentals. A subject a CS undergraduate seeker might spend an entire semester learning is, due to necessity, crammed and condensed into a single afternoon at Fullstack. This is a good thing in terms of information density - a lot of the superfluousness of a ‘normal’ education is cut out - but it creates a real struggle for students who need time and repetition to process new information. In my personal experience, after graduating and trying to learn a few other frameworks, I’ve completely forgotten some fundamentals and had to go back to revisit the workshops.

Second: price. Fullstack is a very expensive program; ~$20k, with no guarantee of job placement. It’s arguable that the price is worth it (the tuition is about on-tier with other bootcamps with similar outcomes) but there are cheaper alternatives with similar or better results. (As one example, Ada Academy for women receives rave reviews from anyone who’s hired one of their graduates and is 100% tuition free with a guaranteed paid internship. Epicodus, open to all genders, is only $7k and also guarantees an internship). Grace Hopper, the subsidiary program of Fullstack I attended, is only marginally more attractive because the tuition is only due upon job placement. However, unlike many other bootcamps, there is no guaranteed internship, and the price is even more colossal than Fullstack’s ($2k more).

Third: career services. Fullstack’s career services are one of its main selling points, but as a student who was searching outside of the metropolitan areas of Fullstack’s campuses (NYC + CHI), the formal career services were of little use to me. Hiring/Launch day is basically exclusive to job seekers active in the campuses’ metropolitan areas, so if you’re planning to get a job in Seattle, the bay area, or any other tech hub, the only Fullstack advantage you’ll gain is access to the alumni network (if you have little to no experience using a professional network, the program provides a brief primer on how to do cold-network-reach-outs, but I was never comfortable doing so.) There are resume and LinkedIn review services, but I found that working with my friends in the industry gave me more critical, actionable feedback than working with the program’s career services did.

Fourth: (Grace Hopper Chicago specific complaint) no value add. I mentioned in the second point that the Grace Hopper track of Fullstack is $2k more, with the understanding that tuition is only due upon job placement. There’s a huge push in the tech world to make the scene more attractive for women and to increase diversity; I appreciated that GH was an available track option under Fullstack, but beyond the tuition deferral agreement, there is no value add on the extra $2k. As a woman in tech (for further context, I was working in operations and product management at a tech startup before dipping my feet into software) I face more challenges than my male peers. GH would have been a great place to discuss these challenges and to build a community of women in tech that would support and challenge an industry built around a predominantly patriarchal model. However, other than a few social lunches (I say social because we didn’t discuss problems that women in tech face, or any other issues) and a single ‘accepting diversity’ lecture on the first day, there was barely any acknowledgement from the program that women in tech, or diversity in tech, was a problem at all. I was bitterly disappointed with the golden opportunity of the entire Grace Hopper program being passed up in such a blasé manner.

Given all this, why did I choose to attend Fullstack? Let’s discuss the curriculum, the overall experience, and the community environment.

First: curriculum. Fullstack has a cutting edge, amazing curriculum. At the time I attended, we covered a highly in-demand full Javascript stack (PERN - postgres, express, react (and redux), node). The instructors I worked with (Shout out to Finn, Collin, and Ben) understood the material inside and out, and were passionate about making sure we all understood it as well. They were always available before class began and often times afterwards as well. The curriculum is under constant revision, so it will stay cutting edge even as new technologies and languages come into vogue. The lessons and exercises we used in class stay available post-graduation, so as I mentioned earlier, it’s easy for a graduate to review and re-learn material. It’s true that successfully completing any bootcamp will also teach you how to pick up new technologies on your own, but it’s doubly true that graduating a bootcamp with an in-demand tech stack already in your portfolio makes a job seeker a much more attractive candidate. Most of the interviews I had post-graduation commented on the technologies I had on my resume, and most positions involved React. The only consideration I have to say here is that most companies I interviewed with here in Seattle don’t use Javascript in their back-end, so often times I was slotted into a front-end position based on their perception of a Javascript dev - not something I care too much about personally.

Second: experience. You will graduate Fullstack academy with a solo project and a project built with a team, both started from scratch. This is more than many CS grads will have, and will beef up your resume and make you an attractive candidate. Both projects became invaluable talking points during my interview rounds, and will prove to employers that you will be able to function in a team of developers or by yourself with minimal guidance. I’m starting to sound repetitive but really, this is the main reason I joined Fullstack. You’ll have a chance to explore technologies on your own, with the support of the Fullstack instructors and TAs. Collin, an instructor during my cohort, went out of his way to mentor us on Firebase (not part of Fullstack’s curriculum), and I felt supported and encouraged to explore and learn. As a more personal note, working with my capstone team was one of the best experiences of my post-college life, and I know many of my cohort-mates would agree.

Third: community. I mentioned my capstone team before, but the entire cohort, TAs, staff, and instructors created an amazing learning environment. Unlike many other bootcamps, Fullstack has a very directed, guided curriculum and does not offer self-pacing. To ensure students can keep pace, there’s a competitive admissions process, which meant that all of the participants were unfailingly driven and motivated. Despite this, there were a few students who would fall behind - but everyone was supportive, friendly, and never hesitated to take some time to help another student. The program treats you like an adult - you won’t get more out of it than what you put in - but in the supportive community, there are no ‘dumb questions’, everyone is treated with respect, and with a full cohort of people cheering you on, it’s hard not to succeed.

So what were my results? After graduating from the program right before the two-week-long winter holiday season, I had interviews lined up with 10 companies. I admit I wasn’t very diligent about the job hunt and took it easy with only a few earnest applications a week, but I ended up accepting an offer for a front-end engineer position from a network referral about 2 months after graduation. I’ll recommend Fullstack for any student who is self-driven, motivated to learn, and who also needs a strict timeline and curriculum to follow. As many of my friends in tech have followed similarly untraditional paths to becoming software engineers, I will also say that there’s several other paths to follow - self instruction is always an option, if you’re sufficiently self-motivated. However, for me, and for many others like me, I think Fullstack was a valuable experience.

Fullstack Academy has developed a challenging and exhaustive curriculum that will definitely keep you busy past 5pm. Fullstack is a great program for people who want balance (i.e. maintain a social life, have families) and for independent learners who... Read More have plenty of time to become immersed in the curriculum 24/7. If you're not sure if you can handle a 10+ hour day at another program or if you can manage studying on your own outside normal class hours, then Fullstack is for you. (Also, it's very likely that no one is going to plan out your entire day for you on the job, so get used to being self-sufficient.)

The staff and teaching fellows are incredibly understanding and assess each situation on a case-by-case basis if something comes up. They will give you more, if you ask. But you have to ask, but I have never been hesitant since they are all so welcoming. As far as social culture goes, it is what you make of it. Fullstack is a educative environment first and foremost, so I've found that your social experience will depend more on students taking the initiative to hang out and organize events. Also, once you graduate, you get to utilize a large and supportive network of Fullstack grads--I got my first dev job thanks to one of those connections. I highly recommend attending Fullstack especially if convenience matters to you and you plan to work in the same city. Many schools advertise the big tech companies where students have been hired but don't let that be the only factor in your decision--especially if you're not 100% sure if you even want to work at large companies. While Fullstack gives you all the tools you need to land your dream dev job, wherever that may be. It's up the students to put in the work to get them.

I graduated from the Chicago campus of Fullstack Academy in October 2018, and having since started my new job as a Software Engineer, I can confidently say that enrolling at Fullstack was one of the best decisions I’ve made. Prior to transitioning to... Read More coding, I was on a completely different career path and was thinking of attending medical school. The development world was entirely new to me, but once I got into it, I figured that a bootcamp was the best way to immerse myself in it and embrace this new field. I researched several programs similar to Fullstack (some in NYC, where I was living previously, and some in Chicago) and ended up applying to and being accepted to three. My decision to attend FSA was based on how seriously they took the interview and preparation process as well as on reviews like this one – there’s a reason all the feedback is so positive. I appreciated that the instructors expected students to come in to the program with basic JavaScript knowledge so that we could spend the three months on campus diving more deeply into the core concepts.
Once in the program, it’s definitely a lot of work (especially if you’re coming from a totally different background like I was), but the structure of the coursework is extremely intuitive and proves to be applicable to the real world of programming. The instructors at the Chicago campus make themselves available to all students and the fellows (students from previous cohorts who stay on to teach for another three months) are an excellent resource for extra tutelage. As others have mentioned, the first half (junior phase) of the program is lecture- and lab-based, while the second half (senior phase) is project-based. The emphasis on pair programming during junior phase is a fun way to get to know your classmates and also a great learning experience, as the ability to talk through your logic will serve you well in interviews and beyond. The three projects I built during senior phase really solidified the conceptual understanding that I had gained from the lectures and labs, and by the end of the program I felt ready and even excited to take on the technical interview process.
To that end, the career success support at Fullstack is another highlight. The senior phase projects, particularly the team projects, are great to talk about during interviews and demonstrate your technical ability as well as your ability to work with others. Each morning during senior phase begins with whiteboarding problems to prepare you for technical interviews. After a cohort completes its final (capstone) projects, Fullstack hosts Launch Day, when representatives from a group of local companies come to the FSA campus to watch the project presentations and then interview the students. I had a chance to participate in six short individual interviews on my Launch Day, and ended up accepting a job offer from one of the companies I spoke to on that day. After the program, the support from FSA doesn’t end. Fullstack Chicago’s career success counselor (Holly) is great about keeping up with everybody during their job searches, and the interview process feels much less daunting with the alumni network that Fullstack provides.
Overall, I would absolutely recommend FSA Chicago to anyone considering it. As long as you are excited about the material and willing to put in the time and effort, you will get out of it what you hope to and more.