NEXT Academy

I am a very grateful graduate of the program from the February 2015 batch.

I urge you, as future students to evaluate yourself, your want and your willingness to sacrifice before enrolling to the program. Why? because it truly is hard work, it is frustrating... Read More and it is painful but when you get it, it is fulfilling, and very very enabling. If you want to join a class and be coddled, this is NOT the place for you. Most of us, at least my batchmates, actually go home and it's 1 hour for most of us back and forth Cyberjaya daily, watch YouTube videos, read up, stay back till 10pm to do this. I'm probably one of the average students. I never completed everything, but I embraced every new day and new challenge without looking back. Because it's another very intense day. For someone who is formally an investment banker and living the mundane life, this was a breath of fresh air. For once, I'm learning daily. Even the smallest details of the world of coding excite me. (Think, do you really really want to learn? Or you just don't know what to do with life and want to be cool?)

Few things to note:

1. There is never enough time to learn everything! It's a bootcamp! Before this, I didn't even know what is a database. The bootcamp enabled me to be independant, to find answers when I get stuck, to even know what to search for? (I believe this is the most important thing of all). You will not learn everything in 9 weeks but at least you know how to find your answers.

2. Prior to the bootcamp, I actually took me 6 months of blindly searching around the internet, trying to code random things on my own attempt, taking blind advice from random blogs and download a gazillion environments, crashing my own laptop a few times, and still leading no where, to be so grateful for the structure and syllabus set by Next Academy. I finally know what I'm learning and in sequence that I can connect the dots. I found also, that it was the only one in Southeast Asia at that point in time. Thank God I got in!

My batchmates, one of them is my co-founder today, one ended up in MindValley, one worked for Says.com and now in a dev house, one in Carnegie Mellon pursuing her tertiary education and one running a business in Penang. On the 6th week, we even participated in a hackathon in Singapore and came in 3rd - something I never ever ever ever thought I could ever do. That was huge for us, none of the can really really code then and now still kinda work in progress but life is a WIP after all.

I have worked in three different startups, in two investment banks, as an actress and a performing artist. I am passionate and hungry for a life with impact, I knew the past jobs I had isn't my final destination but I didn't have the conviction to start my own before this, because it was hard to find a tech co-founder and I didn't fully understand how it works. I also lost a lot of money paying freelancers to just put one line of code in my project because of my ignorance. I had a goal - to start my own company - Next Academy gave me the confidence to do it. Know your goals.

I first joined the Ruby on Rails bootcamp and it really opened the world of programming (more so to web development). This gave me so much more confidence in building my own websites (and editing existing ones). Zero to hero with NEXT Academy! Also, I... Read More am currently undertaking their iOS bootcamp to learn about mobile development as well. Finding it awesome!

I graduated as part of March 2016 batch of NEXT Academy and I would recommend it to everybody who looks to jump-start their programming career. Nine weeks in NEXT were definitely a very intense experience as everyday you need to process a huge amount... Read More of information so it might prove very challenging if this is not your learning style.

Luckily, mentors were very helpful and supportive throughout the entire course answering questions and holding break-out sessions. Social aspect of Academy was great too as meeting new friends, becoming part of community and networking is important.

On top of it, NEXT just started holding industry/career events (last one was with AirAsia CTO) which I am really glad as it helps new grads to land jobs.

Generally, I believe they could do a better job in selecting applicants to bring up overall quality of class. This will probably come naturally as applicant pool widens so they can afford to be more selective.

Overall, it is a great value for money and the best platform to get into coding in this part of the world.

I have zero programming experience before I joined the bootcamp and I manage to secure a job as a RoR developer after that.

What is good about NEXT Academy

1. The mentor are very helpful and they are willing to stay beyond their working hours to help us... Read More to solve problem.
2. The friends we made in bootcamp are awesome. All of us come from different walks of life while sharing the same enthuasism of entrepreneurship. We learn from each other and at the same time, becoming the driving force of each other.
3. I can pay full attention to coding as well as learning step by step according to the syllabus.

What NEXT Academy can improve?

Code review : Review should be provided so that we can know how we can improve our code. (Otherwise we will just assume the code is fine as long as it is working.)
Expectation setting : Students who expect lecture-based of teaching get very disappointed and can't adapt themselves well. Expectation settings/interview should be set so that students can know what to expect and what not to.

They have one of best mentors that are willing to help and guide you but not spoonfeed you. I personally think that it is the best way to learn. It was intense nevertheless but I can assure you if you put a lot more effort in it, you will excel with guidance... Read More from the mentor in the bootcamp. Ask questions and PRACTICE frequently, the mentors there are more than willing to help and guide you along the 9 weeks.

Furthermore, you will get more than coding experience and skills, you get to meet a lot of different people from different background while some of them are really passionate about coding which helps a lot if you guys practice coding and learn as a team.

Conclusion, i bet you wont regret joining the bootcamp, its one of the best if not the best coding bootcamp available in Malaysia.