Actualize

I signed up for ACLTC to completely change careers and hopefully become a web developer.  ACLTC has a challenging but fun curriculum that taught me HTML, CSS, JS, Ruby, Rails and so much more.  Jay the lead instructor was extremely knowledgeable about the material and so were all of the TA’s.  Aside from the instruction, ACLTC also provides great job search support from helping with your resume to putting you in contact with potential employers.  Because of the great instruction and support I was able to land a web developer position and couldn’t be happier with it.  ACLTC ended up being a perfect fit for me and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking to start a career in web development.  

Attending Anyone Can Learn to Code has been one of the best decisions I've ever made. The staff has developed an excellent curriculum that makes learning to develop using an MVC framework a fun and rewarding experience. The coursework is intensive and challenging but never overwhelming. When making a decision on which bootcamp to choose, ACLTC has a lot going for it: 
- An excellent staff that really and truly cares about your development and growth 
- The ability to keep your full time job while you learn 
- Job search support and guidance. They even have a full time employee dedicated to helping students get jobs after graduation 
- A fun and challenging curriculum that will teach you how to build a functioning, responsive web application

As a result of ACLTC, I have now begun a new and exciting career in web development. If you are looking to make a career change into the world of development, you can do no better than Anyone Can Learn to Code. Highly recommended.

Attending this boot camp has been one of the best decisions I've made in my entire life. Here are the main reasons why this boot camp was perfect for me:
-I didn't have to quit my day job while attending this boot camp, so financially it made the most sense compared to other boot camps
-The classes taught the concepts very clearly so I was able to learn and code very quickly (I had about two months of experience coding prior to this boot camp and I learned so much so fast)
-The classes are taught at a good pace and class time is split up nicely. First, you learn a new concept. Then, you apply it and practice. Also, there are knowledgeable TA's that can help you in and out of class. With smaller class sizes, this was extremely valuable. I was able to meet with my teacher and the TA's a lot and it helped so much!
-The classes are also taught with a pragmatic approach, and you learn that everything has trade-offs. I really appreciated this.
-You get seminars on interviews, landing jobs, writing resume's and cover letters, and other useful things that helped me land a job
-I got to work on a capstone project that I was passionate about, which added to my portfolio to display to potential employers
-The boot camp continues to grow its connections with companies in the area. This means during the showcase at the end of the class where you present your capstone, more and more employers will be there to see what you've built, giving you a good chance at landing an interview and a job. This is how I landed my first interview and got a job offer within two weeks of ending the course!
To summarize the pro's, the boot camp was great because it made the most financial sense, the class sizes/support/curriculum was great, I was given an incredible opportunity to show my project to many employers, and ultimately it helped me land a job!

The cons:
-Evening classes can be tough. Working a full day to learn entirely new subject matter can be difficult.
-There is greater competition to get in, so it will probably get harder to get accepted
-The reputation of boot camps are mixed. To some degree, boot camp graduates may have a chip on their shoulder compared to their CS degree counterparts. This can be overcome by showing solid code and KEEP LEARNING!
-The curriculum leans more towards the back-end than the front-end. Back-end developers are highly sought after, however as someone who enjoys the front end more, I wish the class spent more time on the front end. Still, I was able to land a job with a focus on front-end development.

I attended ACLTC in hopes to make a career pivot and become a Junior Developer. The course was well structured, covered a TON of different stuff with just enough depth to be dangerous, and the teaching staff is clearly passionate about the success of their students. 

By the end of the course you have tons of new skills and tools under your belt, and you spend the last few weeks of class building a capstone project to show off your new knowledge. There's a showcase for the final projects to show them off to potential employers, which was an extremely effective way to get introduced to local companies for potential jobs and internships. The team at ACLTC works diligently to get everyone in the program into a postiiton they're happy with. I actually moved away from Chicago after attending the bootcamp and landed a Junior Developer position on my own based on my capstone project and a test exercise that I was well prepared for solely because of the quality of instruction I receieved at ACLTC.

After attending the course, you are competent for entry level developer positions, but expect to continue to learn for your entire career as a developer - it's the nature of the business! 

Deciding to attend ACLTC was the best career decision I have made. 

ACLTC is fun and you learn the basics of Ruby, Rails, and JS but it does not prepare you for an entry-level software engineering position. The major appeal of the program is that it's part-time and allows you to keep your day job, but the downside is that they can only squeeze in 22 hours of instruction per week—not enough for coding novices to develop job-ready skills that will land an entry-level full-stack engineering job.A part-time program like this only has the time to teach the basics—programming loops, CRUD operations, how to use gems, etc.—but all of the entry-level jobs I have interviewed for included technical tests that were much, much more difficult than the ACLTC's curriculum. These tests expect candidates to have a much deeper understanding of JavaScript and even SQL, two topics that are not really covered in-depth at ACLTC because there just isn't enough time.

It's important to consider that although there are many software engineering positions that need to be filled in the U.S, the vast majority of these jobs are for Mid to Senior level engineers. Entry-level positions are truly rare by comparison and as an ACLTC graduate you are competing for these precious positions against full-time coding bootcamp graduates who have spent 60-80 hours per week studying and job-seekers with computer science degrees.

The ACLTC is run by good people and talented teachers/developers but in the end the program only provides a basic foundation for becoming a full-stack engineer. Students who did not have any background in programming prior to the course will need months of additional study after the program concludes before they are ready to pass most technical screenings.

Another disappointment was the lack of job support. Only the last day of class is dedicated to finding a job and after graduation they send you a few links to job boards and leads but that's it. ACLTC is a small organization and their efforts outside of class are directed more towards expanding into new cities (growing the business) than with helping students find jobs.

Would I attend the course today, knowing what I know now? Hard to say because I did enjoy it, but I lean towards "no" because I was expecting to be able to land a full-time entry-level position and I don't think the program prepares you for that because of its brevity. If getting a job isn't that important to you, you just like to learn new skills, and you have a few grand to spare then I think you'll probably be happy with the program.

Attending ACLTC has been one of the best decisions of my career. The instruction from Jay and the TA's have made learning web development much easier. The most applicable skills were focused on our capstone with web technologies such as HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Ruby on Rails, javascript, AngularJS, ruby gems, and much more. The sweet bonus for me was with the great networking during ACLTC showcase where I landed my first web dev job the next following day. I highly recommend this bootcamp for anyone who has the will and desire to be a web dev, even on a part time basis.

I graduated from ACLTC's 3rd cohort. An AMAZING experience.  Firstly, they teach in a way that is really easy to understand, and they cover a lot of material. They teach you ruby, ruby on rails, sql, html, css, javascript, and AngularJS. They also teach it very thoroughly providing multiple FUN (I know,  hard to believe) exercises and hands-on learning. They always make sure you understand it, and you'll never be to embarrassed to say if you didn't understand something. It's almost as if they are more concerned that you understand the material than you are.
They provide quality perspectives about web development including TDD (which, again, we had hands-on exercise for), open-source, API's (tying many different apps to one back-end), and agile, often having guest speakers come in to talk about them.
I came from a background that had absolutely NOTHING to do with computers. I didn't even know what a command terminal was. Much less how to use it. Very quickly, I began to learn more and more about these concepts, and, very shortly, it became an experience that I woke up in the morning looking forward to. They break everything down into very small steps so it's a very easy transition from what you knew yesterday to what they teach you today. They also guide you on your journey. It's not like they throw a whole bunch of work at you and be like, "Think about this stuff. Do it. Then come back next week and we'll throw some more stuff at you. Bye." They show you what to do and what not to do, and why not to do what not to do. Everything is smooth sailing (not that it's not a lot of work - it is. but, all the hard work is really clear. You know what you gotta do. It's just a matter of doing it) right till the very end.
All in all, if you're looking to have a solid understanding and mastery of web development, and you're nowhere near that point right now,, go to ACLTC. I think that's such good advice so I'm going to say it again. Go to ACLTC. You won't be disappointed. It's the ultimate web-development boot camp. 

Finding a good developer to help you is easy. Finding a good developer who is also a good teacher is much, much harder. Jay (the lead instructor) takes teaching seriously, and that's where his passion lies. I think most coding schools, especially bootcamps have a sink or swim attitude, where learning is your responsibility, and they're only there to push you along.
But Jay really cares. He wants you to learn, and will put in the time to make sure not only that everyone is on board, but that you're comfortable with what you're trying to learn.

I couldn't ask for a better instructor or program.

Two things set Anyone Can Learn to Code apart from other bootcamps: the time commitment and instruction. ACLTC is the only programming bootcamp I found that allowed me to keep my job while attending. That was huge. I couldn't have afforded it otherwise. And whereas most bootcamps throw you straight into the deep end of dev, providing an environment where you can teach yourself how to code with little directed instruction, ACLTC gives direct, in-class lessons alongside practical exercises to help guide you through the beginning dev world. There is so much to learn that you can easily get overwhelmed, but Jay makes sure that doesn't happen, guiding you through the technologies and tools you need, building a solid dev foundation that will take you from start to finish on any project.

Prior to ACLTC, I spent six months trying to teach myself to code. I ran through Codecademy lessons, purchased Udemy courses, and muddled my way through Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial. I learned a little, but I lacked a clear workflow, an understanding of what even basic apps needed, and a road map to learn more. When you're just starting to learn programming, it can feel like each new tool you learn leads to five more new things to learn, and without a guiding hand you can quickly get lost. That's where I was, feeling foolish and frustrated, when I found Jay through a meetup. In three oh-so-short months, I learned far more than I had in the previous six. Now I'm humming with app ideas and the skills to build them. Where once I was proud of a single file JS calculator, now I have fully dynamic Rails web applications, my own gems and APIs, and robust Angular front-ends.

I cannot recommend ACLTC highly enough. It changed my life, taking my dev career dreams from some-day-maybe to right now, introducing me to Chicago-based dev recruiters with a portfolio of apps I am proud of. If you have any interest in starting a dev career, apply to ACLTC. You will not regret it.

I have recently finished classes at ACLTC and must say, this was a great experience! Jay Wengrow is a true teacher at heart. He is more than willing to spend the extra time and effort to make sure you succeed. Being someone who has never had any experience coding at all, I believe I truly picked the right place to be in ACLTC! I have heard other boot-camps expect you to pretty much learn on your own with their help. Jay teaches step by step with examples and exercises. This gives you the ability to see how things work as well as practice for yourself too. I am truly confident I will land my first development job from the new skills I have learned from ACLTC! I would truly recommend you research ACLTC if you are considering a career in software development.

It also doesn't hurt that Jay creates an atmosphere for people to develop lasting friendships with your fellow classmates. It's not about who can out do someone else but how we work together to accomplish the team goal.

I should also point out that Jay provided teaching assistants to help out too. These people also proved to be invaluable!