General Assembly

Prior to starting the Software Engineering Immersive Remote (SEIR) programing at General Assembly, I didn't know what to expect. When you google bootcamp reviews the results coming back tend to be all over the place from reviews that are very bad to reviews... Read More that are nothing but outstanding. Through my experience, I'll provide an unbiased review highlighting the aspects I enjoyed and what I think needs improvement. General Assembly wasn't the first school I reached out to and in fact I had a very poor experience speaking with the admissions department at a GA competitor who didn't want to give me more than 20 her time. Speaking with Zack in admissions from GA was a completely different experience in the best way possible. Zack took his time answering all my questions to ensure I was making the correct decision. He was in constant communication with me throughout the entire application process so that there was no question as to what happened next. One thing to note is that General Assembly offers the choice learning Ruby/Ruby on Rails or Python as the backend language and framework. I was speaking to a few of my classmates a couple weeks into the program and they didn't realize they had the option of learning a different backend because no one mentioned it. The class pre-work was well written and the program they use was quite good however, I don't feel like the pre-work prepared me for the class in any way, shape, or form. I feel like the pre-work is written for someone who has previous experience with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; rather than who's learning about it for the first time. Now the teaching platform used is extremely well written and easy to use but I think the prep should have been based more on the foundations and fundamentals of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The Software Engineering Immersive Remote course is a full stack software engineering program that teaches the MERN stack and the course is broke up into 5 units. Everything is taught by two main instructors and two instructor assistants. Coursework is heavy and moves at a very fast pace. Class is a mix of lectures, code along, and lab but the lecture isn't the boring type like you might think. The amount of information you take in on a daily basis and the amount of information you're expected to retain is probably more than you're used to. It wasn't till half way through my first project that I actually felt like I knew what was going on and I felt like I was trying to keep up with everything till that point. You're going to have days and weeks where you feel like you can't keep your head above water. I constantly felt behind. And before you know it, you're turning in the final project. Instructor assistants were quite helpful after school and on the weekends when they host office hours. My instructors helped when they could but both taught multiple classes each day. My instructors both referenced their real life work experience with what they were teaching and that was awesome to know. Now for what I think can be improved. First and foremost the pre-work should be focused towards fundamentals and foundation building. I would add an additional week to the first four units, extending the course by an entire month. This would slow the pace of the course down enough to where retaining information learned becomes much easier and the student will be more comfortable with what they're learning. I had two great instructors but they were vastly different in how they approached teaching and some days I feel like they didn't know what the other instructor taught the previous day. Communication could have been better between the instructors. The full stack course does teach the backend but it's definitely front end heavy. At this point, I wouldn't hesitate to take a job as a frontend or full stack developer however; I wouldn't be confident taking a job as a backend developer after taking this course. Outcomes is what General Assembly calls their career support so far it's been quite helpful. They offer mock interviews, Linked In, and resume building. I've only been with outcomes for a couple weeks but they've been quite helpful so far. Overall I had a solid experience and learned a TON of information in a short amount of time. I wouldn't hesitate to take another course through General Assembly in the future and honestly, I may go take the UX/UI course down the road.

Overall I do not regret my decision to attend GA. I met some amazing people, and feel that I learned skills that will benefit me in my career change. It's been 10 months since I've graduated and I still do not have a job. The timing of when I finished... Read More school (right at the start of COVID) definitely affected employment, but I do feel like administration was a little misleading when it came to how soon I could expect to find work and gave somewhat unrealistic expectations about that process (I think they told me the average student is employed within 3 months of graduation). The payment program is helpful through and it is nice to know that I don't have to pay anything back until I am employed full time. The instructors are great and the material is relevant to the more useful skills to know in the real world. I got to attend in person for half of the time and the facility was nice. I enjoyed the pace of the course and felt like it was hard but not too overwhelming and I had a lot of support both during class time and outside of class from the instructors. I never felt that I couldn't ask a question or get further clarification about something. I wish I had more support during the course with preparing for after graduation. I felt like there was not enough time spent on the job seeking side of things. It would have been helpful to have more direct support from career coaches, help with portfolios, and other job seeking materials. I also found there were much better methods of doing some of the things I learned that I wished had been implemented in class. I think there were some concepts/skills that were taught in class in a way that was easier to understand, but not necessarily the best way to do them.

General Assemblies UXDI course is a fun but ultimately shallow introduction to User Experience. From overly simplified coursework, packed classes, to career coaches who provide contempt instead of support; GA's only goal is to churn out students. Having... Read More completed the course in 2019, and submitted between 300 and 400 applications to open job postings, I can confidently say that GA has failed to qualify me for internships. While the instructors are "experts' in their fields they have no motivation to provide the required feedback, or attention to students; especially when they themselves are looking for their next job. The career coaches and the advertised 1000's of hiring partners seem to be absent as well, as the provided support is tainted with contempt, apathy and lies, for graduated job seekers. My advice, look for a longer program that can reach greater depths into the disciplines. Because GA will not, cannot, and more over is incapable of helping.

I took the part-time 10-week UX Design course, and it was a good foundation to get the basics around UX research and design. The fast-paced course was challenging, especially if you're working or are a student full-time, but it was worth it because it... Read More accelerated your progress in learning and completing assignments. I think the course material and class engagement may depend on the instructor who's teaching, but as long as you stay passionate about your interest in UX and have a self-starter mentality, you can get a lot out of the course. What you get out of the course is what you put into it, and the more effort you put into it, the better you'll be prepared to have some sample work for your portfolio, especially if you're trying to pivot your career into the UX field. The course equipped me with what I needed to create my own UX projects, which I used to bolster up my portfolio, and I eventually got my first UX design job within under 6 months.

*** What background in coding did you have prior to the course? *** I came into my course having already coded a decent amount in my life. It was all hobby-based, but I felt pretty comfortable with HTML and CSS, as well as the basics of JavaScript. At... Read More the behest of some friends who were already software engineers, I also followed the advice I mentioned above, and tried to take advantage of AS MUCH free learning as I absolutely could. So for probably 2-3 months before I even enrolled in my Bootcamp, I took advantage of some sales on Udemy and bought some Stephen Grider React courses and learned as much as I could about the MERN Stack (MERN meaning MongoDB (your document database), Express.js (your Node.js web framework), React.js (your client-side JavaScript framework), and Node.js (essentially your JavaScript server). If I had time, I would have loved to have learned even more beforehand. Two main reasons for all of this: 1.) you get to test the waters and see if you even enjoy being neck-deep in a text-editor writing code! It’s not for everyone and that’s okay! 2.) and just-as-importantly… Most modern coding languages are just off-shoots of other languages. Many, many, many front-end languages are built on top of JavaScript/HTML/CSS. So, having a really solid fundamental understanding of these languages will do nothing but make learning the more difficult languages/concepts/frameworks THAT much easier. I personally don’t feel that it is possible to over-prepare for something like a bootcamp for these specific reasons. ***Has the instruction been thorough or are you googling a lot?*** Slightly loaded-question. I have LOVED my instructors. Incredibly knowledgable, empathetic, caring people who have bent-over-backwards to make sure that as many of the students in my cohort are equipped to succeed in a professional SE role post-bootcamp. The class moved kinda slowly at first, but picked up speed VERY quickly. The communicated goal was to teach us the 20% we would need to know in order to accomplish 80% of the work we would be doing. All of that to say that they, inherently, can only teach us so much in ~13 weeks. Thus, a huge focus quickly became teaching us how 1.) ask the RIGHT questions and 2.) how to scour Google or StackOverflow or wherever for answers. So… Both? The two core instructors for our cohort are very thorough, but a skill of being an effective software engineer is ultimately just problem solving, so you’ll definitely have plenty of situations where Googling a particular error or what-have-you is a must. Again, just part and parcel of being a developer. ***What material haven't you get that you wish you had (not sure if you have a sense of that yet)?*** Not sure I have a great answer for this one, but there are definitely things that I had to put time toward myself because we just patently did not cover them in class. Immediate things that come to mind are the core computer science pillars of data structures, algorithms, design patterns, and code-testing. We touch on each of the above in class, but I was not prepared for any of these appearing in technical interviews based on class. GA could definitely do a better job here, but 1.) there admittedly just isn’t enough time in 13 weeks of class and 2.) they did point me at resources, I just had to tackle them in my own time. ***Why'd you choose this program over other programs?*** Languages. I spoke to a lot of friends who were Software Engineers already, before I ever even really truly considered enrolling. They pretty much all told me the same thing: focus on what languages they’re teaching and how they support you on the job-front. GA is pretty solid on both fronts I’d say. Their tech stack is ultimately what pulled me in (we started with HTML/CSS/JavaScript to learn front-end development; then moved to full-stack and learned MongoDB, Express, Node.js, and others; then focused on drilling-down into front-end frameworks such as React; then finally learned API-driven development and kinda tying it all together, learning Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SQL, and how to make those work nicely with our frontends). Their Get You Hired Team (GA calls this “Outcomes”, which I’d say has been a little lackluster… but most of my issues with it could be tied to the fact that the entire team for my cohort is based out of DC. So they’re all crazy knowledgable, but I don’t know. There’s only so much they can do from a distance and during a global pandemic). For reference, I also seriously considered HackReactor, Flatiron School, and Turing School. ***What have been the best and the worst things about the experience?*** The best has been discovering a new love and passion, honestly. I absolutely adore what I do at this point, but BOY was it tough. Like, anyone considering a bootcamp just needs to be really, really honest with themselves and set realistic expectations. You are trying to learn an entirely new career field in 13 weeks – IT IS NOT EASY. There is an OBSCENE amount of information — and often incredibly dense, convoluted information at that. Once again, it IS NOT EASY. I drive that point only because we 100% lost multiple people from our cohort because it was just a lot more than they were expecting. A totally normal day for me was to be in class from 8am to 4pm (with breaks here and there + a longer break for lunch), take a power nap immediately after, and then grind on homework for 4 or more hours. That time is important too, because your homework is really your only chance to practice, and if you’re not practicing every day to some degree, you’re just making it harder on yourself. Then there was probably longer homework for the weekend, or a project, or whatever. Just wanting to be totally clear: I ate, slept, and breathed code because that’s kinda what it takes to make it through a bootcamp like this (again, just my opinion). ***What kind of time are you putting in outside of class?*** Not to be a broken record, but this will require a huge amount of time. I spent 500+ hours just IN-CLASS over my 3-ish months. With homework, there was generally the expectation that you would put at LEAST 4 hours toward it. If you got it done, awesome; if not, you should probably get sleep rather than throwing more than 4 hours at homework. We also had 5-ish “projects” over the course of the class. I couldn’t even begin to estimate the time I sunk into those, but we generally had 1 week of self-led work-time to finish each of those. So, ideally, you really want to have a deep interest in coding and the technologies at play with whatever you’re building. Otherwise, it just becomes difficult to stay motivated. Again, just my .02. ***Are things working out with the fully remote covid plan? Are teachers accessible and approachable?*** • Best as can be expected, I think? I would have preferred to be in-person, but remote learning hasn’t been nearly as drastically different as I kind of expected. You meet in your Zoom classroom everyday, anyone/everyone is only a Slack message away, my instructors were both always really good about hosting regular office hours + responding to random requests for help or insight. I also was still able to make a bunch of friends which I would 1000% recommend. The people in your cohort are quite literally the only one’s who will understand the depth of what you’re going through. It’s an experience that really brings people together, in my opinion. There are people I will most definitely keep in contact with after the Bootcamp. Hopefully the above wasn’t too much or too overwhelming. I am 1000% a proponent of a bootcamp like GA offers, I just think everyone should know that it is, unavoidably, a massive undertaking. But you will get out what you put in.

Great program for beginners in particular, however need to have passion in the UX field. GA also has high prestige in the design world. Learnt so much and developed many skills would highly recommend. The part-time is perfect if you are working alongside... Read More but found i would have liked course to fo deeper - so take the full-time course if you can! Challenging but worth it!

I have mixed feelings about General Assembly. Below is a list of the pros and cons of when I attended pre-plague. Pros: 1. This is one of the few places left where you can get actual, in-person instruction. If you're one who can't stick to learning on... Read More your own online, face-to-face instruction is the way to go. 2. I also like that they offer a wide variety of topics from web development and digital marketing to project management, sales pitching, and communication skills. 3. The instructors I've had so far have been knowledgeable and nice. 4. They have many free talks in the evenings, sometimes even with free nibbles. I attended one on the art of sales pitching. I think it was called something like "How to Sell Anything to Anyone." The speaker was excellent, and he gave really good tips. Cons: 1. Cost. If you want to take their multi-day courses, expect to pay $$$. That's what you gotta expect for in-person classes from a private school. I'd love to take more classes, but I can't be spending thousands and thousands of dollars. Yes, they have a payment plan, but you still gotta pay them back. 2. If you're looking to start a new career, don't expect to be "career ready" after you've spent all that money. The classes don't go into much depth. They're more of an overview, just enough to get you started. 3. They never answer the phone. The only way to get a response is via email. If you're on your way to an evening or weekend class and need to reach someone, you won't get a response if it's outside normal business hours. I once signed up for a Saturday class and was about to head out the door, when I just happened to notice an email on my phone. It was from GA, saying the class had been canceled. Uh, they should have TEXTED instead! I normally don't open my email if I'm headed out the door, but just by pure luck, I did this time. I would have been annoyed if I had to battle traffic and pay for parking, only to learn the class was canceled. To top it off, the email didn't even say "sorry" - just something euphemistically annoying like "thanks for your flexibility!" Spare me.

I was a little disappointed on day one when I learned that it was a connected-classroom setting which means four different classes of 20 or so students are connected through Zoom for one instructor. That detail was probably mentioned during the initial... Read More description of the course, but it definitely wasn't clear since it came as a complete shock. I never felt like I received the personal assistance I need to learn, so it wasn't the best fit for me. I learned a lot, but never felt comfortable with the material due to this format.

As someone with no prior coding experience, I definitely learned a lot while attending General Assembly's software engineering program. Would I consider myself job ready the day I graduated? No. They do provide job support during and post course which... Read More is helpful for updating resumés and job searching but unfortunately they don't seem to have many connections with companies hiring in the field. I also found the program to be expensive; considering it was remote and we were responsible for providing our own supplies.

I had a great experience at General Assembly taking the product management course. I'm an aspiring product manager, so I found this course very helpful. Most topics in the class were discussed at a high level and some went in detail. The homework assignments... Read More were challenging and thoughtful. I found the instructor Blair Presley to be very engaging and very knowledgeable. The TA Alodia was amazing and eager to help me with any issues I had on homework assignments.