The Tech Academy

The Tech Academy bootcamp has opened the door for a new chapter in my life. While I knew going into the program that the curriculum was well put together, I was very impressed with how interactive and involved the instructors were with the students --... Read More even when we had to work remotely. I was able to attend in person a few times but found that I ended up having to work remotely more often than I initially expected I would. The instructors did an amazing job staying in contact with me, keeping me encouraged, and helping me stay on track. When I had a question or a problem, the response time was very good, and I was able to make steady progress. I highly recommend this bootcamp if you need to do one remotely and know that you're going to need regular encouragement.

What attracted me most is the program itself at The Tech Academy because they focus on Software Development. The Tech Academy's program started from the basics of computers and how it relates to programming and finally project collaboration, which is... Read More important in project management (hence in Software Development). The school has tough me many important computer programming languages that are relevant today such as Python, JavaScript and C#. Although this program will require you to really study and the school pushes you to do so, the completion of it is satisfying both personally and professionally.

This Bootcamp changed my life. It was a good thing and a bad thing. Up front I was excited and couldn't wait to get the curriculum completed so that I could become a developer of the internet. I was working full time during the whole program and it was... Read More easy enough to finish on time with the projected graduation date. I was exstatic when finished and hit the ground with a legs churning to find a job, problem was, no company really liked what they were seeing. My resume was on point, I had a killer cover letter for each job applied, and I was energetic and upbeat when I was around tech peaople and at meet ups; but, no interviews, in phone calls, nothing!! I had hit a wall and was starting to doubt myself and my skills and depression wasn't long behind that. I quit my job because I had no time to go to meet ups or even go to an interview if someone happened to call me. I moved back to California because I couldn't support my life away from family without a paying job, and depression grew. I was at a real low, I had just been to 3 funerals in 4 weeks and was about to start looking into going back to an industry I hated when I got a phone call from a company wanting to interview me for their Application Developer position. I couldn't believe the phone call and the good news just kept rolling because a day after that one another came my way. I couldn't believe what was happening and before I knew it, I had accepted a position and am now in the field I have been fighting to get into for almost a year now. The Tech Academy gave me all the tools I needed to find success, It's not their fault I didn't have time, or didn't listen, or couldn't commit. Aaron was the best friend anyone could have asked for in the Job Development department. Other then that I guess one thing I wasn't expecting was all of the courses that were used from other learning websites. It was a bit disconcerting at the time but they were helpful and had a lot of information to teach. Thank you Tech Academy for changing my life.

I graduated from the Tech Academy in downtown Portland after about six months of studying their material for 6-8 hours a day, M-F. It really is a great springboard into tech, especially in PDX where the industry is booming. If you know for a fact that... Read More you are interested in software development as a career, this is a great place to learn a little bit of everything. It is up to the students to pace themselves through the material, but the instructors are right there ready to help if you get stuck. The Tech Academy also staffs some awesome live project leads and job placement specialists. They really do a great job of preparing you to interview and enter the workforce by doing weekly round-tables on site. As a student, you will learn front-end design, database management, object oriented programming, and job search skills. The material is tailored to meet the industry's latest demands and the final project does a great job of tying everything together. I can't speak for other schools, but the Tech Academy is awesome!

My experience from enrollment to graduation was both welcoming and informative. The instructors will go above and beyond to get you through the tough bits of understanding.

You get what you put into the program.The curriculum gives you a surface level... Read More understanding of Object Oriented Programming and web development but it is up to you to continue to dive into docs and develop you're skills further.

Graduating from the Software Developers Bootcamp is an accomplishment, but the job search after is where the work really began. The encouragement, direction, and tools I got from Job Placement afterwards prepared me to enter the technology field confidently.

The Tech Academy offers an excellent foundation in six highly-demanded software languages as well as principles of computer science in general. The staff is knowledgeable, patient, and eager to help. My favorite aspect of the curriculum is the Live Projects;... Read More they're a chance to gain practical experience in skill sets that tech companies are seeking, and as long as you put at least two weeks into a single project, how long you participate and how many projects to which you contribute is entirely up to you. I haven't encountered any other software bootcamps that offer so comprehensive an education for such an affordable tuition.

Fair warning, though: the "Job Placement Course" basically amounts to "You don't get your certificate of completion until you send out 35 resumes or get hired, whichever comes first." This is not a program for people who think that getting a piece of paper is going to legitimize their job-seeking in software development; it's for those looking for a great start to a learning process that will last you your entire career.

The curriculum covered multiple languages which was nice. Each language had an assignment at the end to test what you'd learn. I would have preferred a few more challenges but I can search those out. The support was great. Tutors will respond rapidly... Read More and were very positive. I find it to be a good experience.

I had a really positive experience at The Tech Academy in Portland Oregon and I believe it was integral to me getting hired at Hewlett Packard as a software developer within four weeks of my starting my job hunt. This is a career change for me, I was... Read More an officer in the Coast Guard for 11 years doing project management for IT systems, now I will be a software developer and I am looking forward to the change.
I chose the Tech Academy for the more comprehensive approach to software development, specifically the idea that a broader understanding of computer science would provide a better foundation for a career in software development. I figured a wider understanding would allow me to continue to learn different programming languages as technology continues to change.
Also, the Tech Academy was more affordable than alternatives and it has a rolling start date so I could start when I wanted to instead of having to wait until the next course began. The program was flexible and individual so I was able to complete the work at my own pace and on my own schedule, while they provided a work space and instructors who could provide assistance when I needed it. I was also provided with a laptop to use during the course.
My learning style is more solitary, so I found the videos and exercises to be very good. However, I also really enjoyed and learned from the two week group project at the end of the course. We worked on a real application for a real business. In this case an inventory system for a restaurant. It was a great opportunity to apply what we learned and to work as a team.
I would recommend the Tech Academy to anyone looking to become a software developer, but I would suggest being in the Portland area so you can be on site as much as possible. Direct interaction with the instructors and other students makes getting past any roadblocks much smoother. I also found it motivational to go to the study area to work.

I am still in the middle of working through this boot camp, but I would like to express that thus far it has been a great experience!

I began this boot camp because I felt that I needed a change in career, the current job I was in was good but it wasn't... Read More really getting me where I needed to go financially, I really wanted something that gave opportunity to excel in a field where I could really grow my professional career into something great. Going to school for many years to get a degree seemed like somewhat of an impossibilty with the logistics involved in having 3 daughters in combination with school, so the fact that the Tech Academy would be an opportunity to fast track to a specialized career path was ideal.

I was a little hesitant at first going into it because it was essentialy something very different then anything I had done before and a financial risk. After discussing the program with the School, I liked what I heard about what it entailed and how it was run. On the onset of going through the courses nearer to the start I was feeling unsure if I had made the right decision, maybe I didn't have enough passion for this or maybe I just wouldn't be able to figure it out well enough to apply it within a job. As I have progressed I've begun to feel more and more confident in my abilites and have become interested in the subject of what can be done in coding and how one goes about it. What's amazing is that this school has actually blown away my worries about if I can code or not, I know I can and I'm not even finished, (halfway through or so.)

Some things that really make it a great experience:

Practical applications all throughout, code challenges, essays, multichoice tests.

Flexible full or part time scheduling at any time no enrollment cutoff dates.

Hands on instructor help when needed, remote or local(they are very friendly, patient and willing.)

Helpful in all ways needed to start your career: they help with everything from computer course supplies needed, resumes, job placement, interview training.

Course is broken down in such a way as to gradiently give you all the knowledge you will need bit by bit from simple to complex.

All along things are setup to give you hands on experience at searching for answers on your own and breaking apart your code to find solutions and if you hit the wall to many times the instructors are more then willing to help guide you, (if you ask for help) without doing it for you.

This is a great place for anyone who wants to jump into a career in programming!

When first deciding I would skip the traditional college education, and focus the start of my coding career towards a more alternative route, the options were very intimidating. Do I teach myself, take online courses, or go to a boot-camp?

Once focusing... Read More upon the idea of a boot-camp, the vast magnitude of options didn't feel like they had narrowed down, but instead increased.

Deciding if a coding boot-camp is worth both the time and money is a very difficult thing to choose. And as I went in completely blind with only a few expectations, I would like to specify the key values I took away from my program.

1.) Appreciate suffering and setbacks

The tedious amount of acronyms in programming that you will have to remember (MVC, DRY, API, REST) is important, but the most critical one I was exposed to was SFT; Suffering, Frustration, and Tears. Sounds fun, no?

Writing code is super easy, but writing code that works? That's a whole other story. Not only that, but once you make a semi-functional app, then you run into the problems of deploying.

This is extremely frustrating, but you come to learn as you progress through the boot-camp that suffering is part of growth. In order to become successful in anything in life, you have to first fail. And you will have those moments in code, over and over and - actually throughout the whole course of your career as tech is constantly evolving. So learn to enjoy the process.

Just like the pain you experience in a gym working out your muscles, you experience the same with your mental fortitude and critical thinking while coding. You will only get stronger over time, increasing your skill...and well, your market value *wink wink*.

2.) Don't learn a language, learn programming.

Don't worry about learning a programming language, focus on learning programming itself. What do I mean by that? Let me give you a short story.

Through the course of my boot-camp, I learned many languages. Python, JavaScript, C#, and more on my own time. But during each of those languages, I was only given so little time to learn the basics before diving head-first into building a application, and then never using it again during my studies.

I found this increasingly frustrating, "Why am I not given any time to learn these before building a application, and then not given time to improve on my skills?"

Because you don't master a programming language, you master critical thinking. I discovered this not too long after my boot-camp experience. All programming languages are essentially built the same: loops, functions, conditionals, etc. The only thing different is syntax and special use cases.

The reason the boot-camp gave me so little time to learn before building was due to the fact that I had to strengthen my critical thinking in order to build the required software.

This increased my programming skills ten-fold and boosted my career possibilities immensely. Think about it, tech is changing so constantly, new languages and updates around every corner, and thousands of ways to tackle problems with the need for different approaches. So wouldn't it only make sense to develop logical skills that you can quickly apply to any new language? Take that a step further, and realize that this critical thinking also applies to other areas of your life.

3.) Don't fear mistakes

This, like other points I mentioned previously, applies to also your personal life.

When given projects and applications to build, I would sit for hours wondering how to solve the problem at hand. Not wanting to build something incorrectly and have setbacks later on.

"Would this run?", I would often ask my instructor, and the same response would always echo back, "Why don't you run it and try it?"

Diving into code without fearing not being able to do it definitely boosted my problem solving and coding confidence. Having to start from nothing, run broken code, fix it, and celebrate is still one of my favorite things about coding.

When fearing mistakes, you don't push forward and jump into a problem. Instead you sit and ponder, until time passes you by and you come to realize that you have yet to take action.

Summary

For anyone hesitant to jump into the boot-camp experience, just do it.

When first reading the course description, I was excited. But I would have been even more excited if I was aware I would learn these mindsets and practices.

I learned things that not only apply to my career, but my life. These lessons bring value to my perseverance of achieving my goals and ambitions else where outside of the tech world.

I can not recommend this experience enough.