Actualize

What was your background before coming to Actualize? (Include college/past career)

  Went to college at SIU and graduated with a degree in Mass Communications/Media Arts, specializing in Music Business and Audio Engineering. I have an informal background of internet marketing and SEO, working for a family business about 5 years before coming to Actualize.     What hesitations would have prevented you from joining Actualize?   Mainly cost and location.     What impact did Actualize have on your life?   It has paved the way for the career change I had been looking for. My work/programming life was much more confined and personal than it is today. The biggest impact is that I now have a network of like-minded individuals that I socialize with, work with and go out of my way for as an extension of my business/career objectives.     What specific feature did you like most about Actualize?   The emphasis on creating your own, personal capstone projects. I also really liked the class structure (amount of students per teacher plus some TAs).     What made you choose Actualize over other bootcamps?   It was part-time and taught creating back-end applications and APIs. A lot of the other bootcamps were too front-end design oriented.     Would you recommend Actualize, and if so, why?   Yes, I would recommend it to anyone seriously considering programming as a career. It is much more effective at training individuals in coding for real life situations compared to something like a CS degree. I would recommend it over the other bootcamps because of the staff. Everyone that works there is nice and want each other to succeed.

PROs: The instructors and part-time schedule was key. It was important for me that the teachers were not only experts in their field, but that they had the best teaching skills around (Shout out to the Chicago staff!). I also needed to work during the day to be able to pay off my loans. The Apprenticeship and Job Placement program directly after bootcamp were also very important to me. Attending a bootcamp was the most rewarding challenge I ever took, and while I'm still learning about the many languages a programmer can study, Actualize gave me the supportive community and healthy learning environment I needed. I made friends with my peers, and together I learned so much more than I could ever accomplish alone. I didn't feel alone, and had lots of opportunities to pair-program. I had been trying to self-study for years and visited several bootcamps before choosing Actualize. 

CONs: Financially, enrolling put a huge dent in my savings and the time commitment affected my social/family life. Also, there were only two females including myself in my class, but I eventually met plenty of inspiring female coders that graduated from other cohorts.

Attending Actualize was a truly life changing experience... in all the right ways! After a good amount of research, I realized that Actualize was the right bootcamp for me, moved cross-country to attend, and haven't looked back since.  Before joining the coding world, I imagined programmers to be quiet, introverted, and the types of people who only worked alone.. oh, how wrong I was!  Right from the first day of class collaboration was not only allowed, but encouraged.  I enjoyed the classroom setting, where "lectures" truly felt more like a conversation between students and instructor.  The in-class exercises were a stellar reinforcement of the material taught, and the weekly blogs, capstone project, as well as apprenticeship helped me stand out to employers (interviews are much easier when you have experience to share!).  Being new to Chicago, I met most of my closest friends here as a result of Actualize.  I also am part of an ever-growing network of awesome alumni, and I love my new career!  Absolutely recommend!

1. I have a degree in acting and my only experience in coding was SQL for a job. 2. The cost for sure and the time.  3. I felt like a learned a lot and met and worked with great people. 4. I really enjoyed working on my own project for the capstone. 5. It was part time with an apprenticeship. 6. Yes absolutely. I would say that if you want to get into this field it is a great tool to help you. 7. !Strange is the best cohort. 

What was your background before coming to Actualize? (Include college/past career)
I had worked in Web Traffic Management right out of High School for a few years. I then went to Art School for Video Game Design, but I realized I wasn't actually interested in making video games, just playing them, so I never actually completed my degree. I then moved to working in Email Marketing and Design which pushed me into Basic Website Maintenance (HTML and a little CSS).


What hesitations would have prevented you from joining Actualize?
My only hesitation was would I be able to comprehend and keep up with so much information coming at me all at once.


What impact did Actualize have on your life?
It made me realize that I can listen and retain a lot of information at once. I didn't always remember everything I learned from the previous day, or even week, but I remembered the basics which helped me narrow down the problems to find the correct solutions.
I use this on a daily basis in my current job as a Web Developer.


What specific feature did you like most about Actualize?
The fact that it was part time. I had a number of friends who went to Dev Boot Camp, but I couldn't commit to 9 hours a day, 6 days a week. Actualize allowed me to learn and build my skills while still being able to work without ever feeling overwhelmed.


Would you recommend Actualize, and if so, why?
I would. The way that the program is run is very good. Explain the language with examples, and then complete excercises. It just makes sense. You can also go back and review the video of the class on your own time which helped out immensely.


Is there anything else you would like to add?
I really enjoyed my time in class, but the Apprenticeship afterwards is invaluable. You work on real projects in a real team with a Mentor. This will prepare you for what you can expect during your first Developer job.

The course is tough, the pace is grueling, and the material...well if you are a newbie like I was, its all gibberish. The team at ACLTC realize this, and they do their best to make everything digestible. Mark Richardson and most of the other staff are teachers first, developers second, which sounds backwards but is very important. 

These folks describe difficult concepts in ways that make sense, and their skills are only getting more honed with each class. I loved the TA's, Jay is the coolest CEO ever, and Mark, can't say enough about him. I would give the instructors a 6 if possible. The people made this course, and I would not have wanted to go anywhere else for my coding experience. I got a job 2 weeks after the course ended, so it works! Its all about what you put into it, and this program is great for the flexibility and the money. 

What a great experience. The curriculum is broad enough to get a birds-eye view of building web applications. From the basics, through typical application constructs from scratch (like to-do lists, shopping carts, contact apps), data modeling and database building, building and consuming APIs, and exposure to the front end like working with front end frameworks and building dynamically loading pages using Angular JS. Being challenged through the final process of building an app of our own choosing was a great way to cap off and reconnect our lessons throughout the course. The instructors are exceptionally prepared, passionate, and encouraging. The TAs were great, too. Beyond the classroom, the ACLTC team did many value-adds like coaching on interviewing and helping put our resume together. Not to mention the great group of classmates I got to meet through this experience. Highly recommended!

ACLTC is a program that helped me make a career change immensely. Before wanting to become a developer, I was working in finance and decided that I wanted a change in my career so I applied to ACLTC and it was the best deicision I ever made. The curriculum was challenging, but also doable. The lead instructor, Mark was extremely helpful, and thorough with his explanations and never hesitated to pause his lectures to clarify anything students needed help with. The TA's were super helpful as well, they were able to sit down with me and fix any bug I had whether it was with my code, or with my computer, any problem I ever had was solved with the help of the TA's. This program teaches you the fundamentals or Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Angular.js, as well as databases such as Mysql, and Sqllite. We also learned the concepts of OOP, REST, and API's. Although this program was intense, it is definitely managable. This program is part time, Sundays from 9-5, and M-Th from 6pm-930pm. I will admit, this may seem like a lot, especially if you're working full time (as this program is geared towards you folks), the teaching style of the instructor as well as the TA's will definitely help you understand the material, as well as help you push through. 

 

My advice in order to succeed in this program is to do work and study even outside of class. It really shows who put in the work even in the off hours. 

 

With the amazing instruction from Mark, the helpful TA's, the fast paced curriculum, and the support from the job placement manager, I was able to land a new career as a System Administrator for a large data company working on their automation engineering team. I can't thank ACLTC enough, in just a few months time I went from working at a job I wasn't enjoying anymore, to more than doubling my salary and working in an exciting field. If you are pondering whether or not to apply, I say you should have applied already! 

This was one of the the best decisions of my life. I was very nervous about it going in, but once I met our instructor (Peter) I felt a lot better about it. Some people came in to the bootcamp with more experience than others, and he really made an effort to leave no man behind, as well as provide some extra challenges for people who were more advanced. 

ACLTC advertised that you don't need to do anything outside of class, which I think is not exactly true. Some people had full time jobs while others didn't, but it quickly became obvious who was putting in work outside of class.  I personally needed to study a fair amout on my own to keep up, and I think most of my classmates did as well. It moves rather quickly, and a LOT is covered. 

They also have excelent support for helping you with your job search, as well as helping with your resume and interview prep. After graduating I applied myself 100% to job hunting, and was able to land a job as a software developer after 2 months. I start my job next week, and I couldn't be more happy with the entire experience!

With the technical skills, job placement assistance and infectious passion for programming from ACLTC I was able to successfully shift careers from accounting to a dream job in web development. The program was challenging, but surmountable. The lead-instructor and TAs are incredibly knowledgeable and supportive. The subject-matter is relevant to the job-market, and the capstone project was an excellent challenge and example project for potential employers.

The class schedule and classroom environment were important distinctions for me personally, from other bootcamps (which are often all-day, all-week and more self or other student taught).

Looking back on the experience, the people (instructor, TAs, job-placement helpers, etc.) and learning the mind-set to become a programmer were the most valuable aspects of the experience. It was difficult, but also so much fun. Subsequent to the bootcamp, I continued to learn more in-depth knowledge for certain languages which I’m now utilizing in my employment, which was not unexpected, and I could not have done so without the mindset garnered at ACLTC. I would highly recommend ACLTC.