App Academy

I've learned more through a/A than if I had continued to be self-taught. a/A laid a strong foundation on fundamental concepts that apply across various technologies. I've become a stronger debugger, problem solver, and engineer. Each night we had readings and homework to prepare for the next day's lecture and pair-programming project. The TA's are supportive and knowledgable about the curriculum, as they were students themselves prior to becoming a TA. They can be overstretched but they do their best to help.

The striking system for assessments kept me accountable to stay on track. We got one free fail and had to do a retake if we failed a second assessment - failing the retake meant dropping out. This can be daunting but there's a great amount of support and resources. Your chances of failing decreases immensely if you reach out to the people around for help when you're stuck and devote a strong amount of time into studying. a/A also provides practice assessments for test preparation and they will recommend you to do them many MANY times.

After the last assessment, you'll begin working on projects to apply what you've learned into building your portfolio. There will be less handholding and more independence, which more or less simulates what it's like to be a Software Engineer.

I recently just finished up at App Academy and I want to say to anyone thinking about attending that the program is great, and that being said the people are even better. Whether it be the management staff, the instructors, or other students/graduates  nearly everyone involved at App Academy was very welcoming, helpful and really strived to foster an inclusive learning environment. Really can't emphasize enough how much I've learned in the last few months, and not just about coding but about being successful in general.

My experience at App Academy was great! I had so much fun learning how to code and am grateful for this life-changing experience! Like many of the online sources say, it IS really challenging. In the 3 months that you dedicate to App Academy, it is essentially the only thing that you can focus on. However, it is very rewarding in the end and you gain so much knowledge in such a short amount of time. Here are some personal tips and key points that I picked up from my experience at App Academy (Please note that this is from MY experience, and people accomplish/approach things in different ways):

1. App Academy is challenging, but not INSANELY challenging. In my experience, I was able to keep up with App Academy's curriculum while maintaining some social/personal life. Other people say that they dedicate every day, every hour, every minute to App Academy (which is fine), but I felt that there was more free time than initially expected. I would be able to spend my Saturdays and sometimes Sundays doing social/personal stuff, and I honestly felt that this was needed.

2. SLEEP is important. The instructors at App Academy can't stress this enough either. I think the thing that kept my stress level low and made my experience enjoyable was the fact that I forced myself to sleep with my regular schedule (I slept at 10:30pm and woke up at 7:30am everyday). I never felt tired during the working hours and I was still able to keep up with the curriculum. 

3. You have to put in the effort to maintain this healthy lifestyle. The only reason why I was able to have fun on the weekends and get 8-9 hours of sleep everyday was the fact that I worked hard during the working hours. It's just as they say - work hard, play hard. If you actually pay attention during the lectures and actually put in your effort during the projects, you'll be able to absorb the information better, especially if you're not tired or stressed. My previous advice isn't to show that App Academy is easy, it's to show that there is a way to maintain good health and a happy lifestyle while going through the rigorous curriculum. 

Closing thoughts:
I definitely don't know as much as those who dedicated every minute of their lives studying and working on App Academy, but I can confidently say that I was one of the happiest people there and truly enjoyed everyday of my experience with low stress. My approach was all about balance in my life, and I succeeded and made it to the end! Obviously, people work differently. If you need to lose some sleep to catch up on studying, that's fine. If you need even less days to study and can spend all weekend relaxing, that's fine too. I think the main thing is to not worry about what/how others are doing, and only focus on yourself and what YOU need to be successful and healthy.

App Academy was a difficult program but rewarding when you get through it. This is a bootcamp and it was meant to be gruesome. At times certain days would be a slow grind to do the projects but these are part of the learning process. The instructors will do their best to prepare you for the materials taught. You need to believe in their system and do your best. App Academy's curriculum will prepare you to be a developer in the current job market.  At the end of the day the work and time you put in this program will determine your success.

Things you should know before attending App Academy. 1. It is as demanding as people claim. 2. It is not as hard as it sounds if you do 100% of the work and devote all of your remaining time to filling in the gaps in your understanding of key concepts. You go through a lot of material very fast: keep in mind that your learning style will need to adjust to the demands of the environment. 

Personally, a/A changed my life! I met great people, and had interesting conversations. I look forward to landing my fetal SWE job soon. 

I'm decided to give coding a try after realizing that I did not want to pursue a career as a Physician Assistant. At first, I was really skeptical about joining a bootcamp. Questions like "Am i smart enough to code?", "Can I really learn all that in three months?",  and "Will I get a job?" were always in my head before I decided to do this. Currently, I'm a few days from graduation from a/A and I think it was the right choice. I am smart enough to code, I did learn a lot in the three months, and I believe I will get a job because most graduates on average find one within 1 - 6 months. The process of the bootcamp though was really time consuming and you are literally coding every single day for basically the whole day. However, it is only in this type of environment where you can learn so much in three/four months, where you can really get grasp whether you would like a job in this industry or not. A lot of the reviews I've read before a/A said that it was really stressful, but I personally did not feel that way. I feel like if you do what you're supposed to do, and follow the curriculum,  you can go through it not be stress. Plus, you also get to meet a lot of cool and smart people along the way. Shoutout to BCho and Sam.

 As a new developer, you will learn a lot from App Academy and they will teach u everything you need to know to start building full fledge web apps. After spending 3 months of learning the full stack, it was satisfying to finally make websites that I could be proud to show off to employers. Expect App Academy to challenge you, it is called a boot camp for a reason. If you are completely new to programming, the beginning will be tough since you will have to reprogram your mind to think like a computer. If you put in the hours and commitment, software development can be the most rewarding discipline where you can build anything into reality.

App Academy is an incredibly fast-paced and time-intensive program. The way their course system is set up, once the immersive starts, you are pushed into the deep end and must devote 100% of your time to learning to succeed. They do a very good job of integrating solo work, pair programming, and whiteboarding to truly learn how to work with other people. The curriculum gives just enough of technology to truly understand it, then moves on to a new subject right away. Things move at a very fast pace, and it's very easy to get behind early if you take it too easy, and if you do this at the begining it snowballs.

The main draw of App Academy over other programs is that they are invested in your success. They make the curriculum hard on purpose because they only want people with the drive to succeed. There is more curriculum than anyone could reasonably get through in a normal day, so be 100% prepared to have no life while you're working through it. The 80-100 hours per week that people talk about is not an exaggeration.

All Things considered, the past 24 weeks have been a grueling but very rewarding experience.

App Academy was probably the most challenging and most rewarding experience of my life. In the 4 months that I was in the course, I learned all the tools necessary in order to call myself a software engineer. I went from knowing absolutely nothing about coding to creating my own Instagram app clone.

My favorite part of App Academy at was the networking and the amount of friends I was able to make in such a short span of time. By the end of my cohort, I was acquainted with most of the students and had developed meaningful relationships with them. In addition, my cohort mates were an excellent asset when it came to asking for help when the TAs were busy helping other students.

App Academy's deferred tuition model was the reason I chose to attend. As a risk-averse individual, I was instantly drawn to this business model because I knew this meant that they truly believe in their program. If I was ever stuck on a project, the TAs, who are very knowledgeable of the material and super friendly, would help me within a moment's notice. While they do not guarantee you a job after graduation, this is probably the closest thing to a guarantee that you can get. All of the career coaches are invested in your success and will give you all the tools and resources you'll need to succeed.

This program was very rigorous and time-consuming, but I am proud of myself for having made it through to the end. I now have a great foundation coming out of it and can't wait to showcase my skills during the job search.

In this review, I'm going to cover some general questions based on my experience with the App Academy online cohort.

1. Should you apply for a coding boot camp? I can't give you a straight answer for this because it depends on your situation. But in my case, it was worth it for me, since my goal was to learn about full-stack web development and software engineering to be as fast as possible. I think App Academy does a great job at that, and you will be surprised at how quickly you can learn here. It would have taken me far longer of self-studying to be where I'm at today. Not to mention, I've also made some great friends along the way that I talk to every day.
2. How should one prepare before applying to App Academy? I did the intro-to-programming section offered on https://www.aaonline.io and felt that I was ready to schedule a technical interview with AA. I was not, I failed my first interview and was lucky enough to get invited back for another. After failing, I realized that I needed much more practice. I practiced on https://www.codewars.com every day up until my next interview. You need to time yourself and talk out loud through the problem-solving process, preferably to a friend or family member. You should also be very comfortable working with arrays and hashes in Ruby and solving problems that may require nested loops. Sidenote: https://www.leetcode.com is another excellent place to practice. 
3. How many hours per week to get through the program? Like many have said before me, this boot camp is no joke. Even if you put in 80+ hours per week, you will only be scratching the surface of the topics covered. But this is the tradeoff of getting yourself job-ready as fast as possible.
4. How stressful is the program? If you have no programming experience, you will need to study hard to pass the six assessments. They cover Ruby algorithms, Ruby Object-Oriented Programming, SQL, Ruby on Rails, React, and JavaScript. If you fail two of the assessment tests, you must retake one of their choosing. If you fail the retake test, you will be booted out. Yes, it's stressful, but keep your focus on the material and the great job that you're going to get out of it, and you'll be fine.
5. How is the curriculum? I think that some of the newer content at the end of the curriculum could use some improvement. But for the most part, it's fantastic. I know some people may be turned off by Ruby and Ruby on Rails, but don't worry about it, you will also build full-stack applications with the MERN stack.
6. How are the instructors? From my experience, they were knowledgable and friendly. Leave the ego at the door and pick their brains as much as possible. They are a valuable resource. 
7. What is a day like at App Academy? At 8 AM we would meet on Zoom, the instructors would cover the daily material before splitting us up into random pairs to work on the day's projects. Throughout the day, we had access to the instructors to ask them questions. About an hour before the end of the day, we would all meet to cover the material in the day's project. Before the next day, we would then complete the assigned homework.

Great experience and I would do it again.