App Academy

App Academy is an intense program.  The learning environment is rigorous.  The culture changes from cohort to cohort, but in my experience, people have been eager to collaborate, learn, and help each other succeed.  Felt like I was back in college (a faster paced and more intense version)

Everyday, you spend time pair programming, which means that you are coding with a partner.  One person explains the code, the other person types, and you switch off every 15 minutes.  As a verbal processor, I found this very helpful in my understanding of different concepts.

I would estimate that in addition to the 9-6 5 days/ week that you are at App Academy, you have about 2 hours/ night of homework.  That nets out to about 60 hours/ week for the first 2/3rd and this ramps up significantly when the portfolio projects start.

The projects are pretty brutal and require a lot of work.

I would recommend this program if you are serious about becoming a software developer.  A good litmus test is to try out App Academy's Bootcamp Prep course or some free/ inexpensive resources on CodeAcademy, Udemy, etc.  App Academy's entire curriculum is also available for free online.

Timeline: It took me about 2 months to go from 0 coding knowledge to being ready to take App Academy's technical interview.  After that, there was a mandatory prep course that was fully online for 1 month.  The actual program is 13 weeks.  I'm currently job searching, and the average time it takes someone to find a job after graduation is between 3-6 months.

The three questions I would ask myself before doing App Academy are:

Am I serious about wanting to learn coding/ would I actually enjoy working in this field?
Do I have what it takes to learn and master the material?
Am I financially able and willing to devote the above mentioned timeline to learning to code and developing projects without pay full time?

I know this was long, hope it was helpful!!

Great bootcamp. Although super intensive, I can definitely say I learned a lot. What's great about the program is not only the instruction, but the daily pair programming. Being able to pair with fellow students and work through difficult daily assignments allows one to find different learning styles and implementation processes. On top of all the daily assignments and assessments, what is very rewarding is going through the numerous projects, (both solo and group), reinforcing my understanding of the materials, as well as shedding light on what I need to work on moving forward.

I went through the May 21st 2018 cohort of a/A. It was one of the most intimidating, challenging, and rewarding experiences of my life. I will separate the pros and cons out and then give additional thoughts.

Pros:

- I made some amazing friends that I will try to stay in contact with, we bonded deeply through the trials that we went through. This was one of the best benefits of the program
- I am now employed as a software engineer and I am making double what I was earning before, living where I want to live, working for a cause I care about
- I feel like I have a skill that makes me marketable and valuable, that gives me a greater sense of independence from the employer I will work for
- I gained confidence in my ability to learn a complex skill fast
- I can type 75 wpm, despite starting the cohort at 35ish 
- My interview skills were far better than I expected after the program, I think the pressure of the assessments makes technical interview pressure pale in comparison
- I built a full-stack web app, mostly on my own that looked awesome on my portfolio
- I was able to get a job after only two months of applying after the cohort ended
- Lot's of people in my cohort got jobs at a/A after which helped them
- Strong emphasis on CSS which is boring at first but ends up being very important

Cons: 

- Serious lack of CS teaching
- I was horrified and unsure of whether or not I would make it through the program until I passed assessment 5
- I had to live in a place I hate to attend the program
- The assessments are scary and sometimes are significantly harder than the practice assessments, so you don't know what to expect
- Most TA's solidly taught and understood the material for our cohort, but often times the TA's are teaching you the just after completing a cohort, so they don't have mastery over it. I wish they had more experienced TA's with CS backgrounds who deeply understood the material
- Some people were far worse than others in the cohort an they sucked up lots of the instruction time, I felt TA's could have done a better job of prioritizing assistance
- They teach Ruby (which is a dying language) and JS, when they really should be teaching Python and JS
- Career coaches can come off as job application enforcers, and mine didn't help me get my foot in any door, he just tried to give me advice which was occasionally helpful
- 5/10k is a lot of money to lose if you fail the cohort, that's takes a real mental toll to try to study when you have that much money on the line
- Working 90-100 hours a week for 2.5 months was emotionally draining and I usually could only take 2 hours or so off per week

Additional Thoughts:

After searching for jobs for 2 months, I realized that Python would have been far better to learn than Ruby. Everyone uses it basically. Other bootcamps probably teach Python and JS and that might make the job search easier. I like Ruby, but I find it hard to recommend the program because of the decision to teach Ruby and not Python. 

The cost is fairly high, and so it is hard to enroll in a/A without some money in the bank. It ends up being a sort of accelerator for already privileged people, which is not what they necessarily advertise. This is just how it is unfortunately. Also the advertisements are inaccurate because most people don't get jobs at Google unless they were TA's at a/A for some time. 

Another thing is that a/A is somewhat of a revolving door, I am noticing that the best instructors leave almost as soon as they become fully capable instructors. This might lead to lower quality instruction. a/A doesn't have good organization as a company and people working for them complain about things like not getting paid and constant misunderstandings. 

I would never go through something like this again, but I can't deny that it worked for me and most of my cohort. About 50% of us landed jobs, and fast. However, a few of the other 50% of students were able to get through but some of them mysteriously seem like they still don't understand coding, and were able to get through by just memorizing practice assessments. I think this set of people is might struggle for a long time and maybe give up. The weeding out is not as intense as it should be. 

a/A was scary and intense but it imposes immense focus on you that allows you to surpass your previous ignorance and gain serious skills that make you employable, and eventually well paid. I turned my whole life around in just 9 months (I studied a lot before the program). I have a love hate relationship with it but more love than hate overall. My life has become drastically better and I feel empowered now in a way I never felt before. 

I would say that this is a very fast paced program and there is no time for you to take a break once the program starts.

Once you fall behind its tough to catch up.

There are Assessments every week to test your knowledge on what you have learnt last week.

They are very important and have  a say on your standing in this program.

I would say that come to this program prepared to put in all your time and effort into it for the next 3 months of your life.

Its all worth it and you will learn a lot of stuff in 3 months.

I am now in the job search after App Academy's curriculum.  The claim is that you'll work 80+ hours a week.  This is 100% accurate.  Everyone here is brilliant, and everyone works their absolute butt off.  I have a background in elite international sports, and this is by far the hardest I've ever worked for an extended period of time.

You will learn a HUGE amount of web development in a hilariously short amount of time, and by the end of it, you'll be building a clone of a full scale web app in 10 days.  I did spotify, and it is a project I am tremendously proud of, and had a great time doing it.

That said, it is hard.  App Academy will challenge every part of you.  It straings you mentally, emotionally, and physically, and puts a tremendous strain on any relationships you have during the program.  Talk with your significant other about it before attending, because you will barely see them during the 12 week program, and when you do, your mind will be on code.

Its tough.  I'm happy I did it, but there are few words to describe how challenging of a program it is.  If you fail 2 tests you get kicked out. My cohort started at 72 people, and ended as 55 people, so over 20% of people failed out.  These people were good, smart, hard working people who just couldn't quite do it.  Its.  Tough.

App Academy has been an intense ride. There were many highs and lows throughput the process but I do feel like I've learned so much in such a short span.  a/A teaches you how to learn quick. Although recently they have published the course online, the support system here is the real value. The instructors/TAs here are super supportive and patient. The pair programming experience was both amazing and dreadful pending on the people. Everyone who was enrolled definitely have the potential but quite a few folks have been dismissed from the assessments...but doesn't mean they won't become a developer one day. This program definitely isn't for everyone because it's both fast pace and stressful. My real grip with the program is that I wish they did deep dive a bit more on topics but at the same time, you can only fit so much in a 12/13 week program. 

 My biggest advice for anyone who's aspiring to take this journey:
- make sure you understand the concepts well. Don't just be "oh I get it". You should be able to explain it to anyone. The material does build on top each week and some topics will be reintroduced a week or two later.
-get some sleep. to be honest, the homework does HELP you but don't lose sleep over it. they do go over the topic/concepts the next morning but I would advise not completely ditching it

App Academy is the most fun and rewarding thing that I will never put myself through again.

The 90+ hour workweeks are incredibly grueling and the course only picks up pace as time goes on.  However, being surrounded by dozens of people in the same shoes as you who are all friendly, hard-working, and highly motivated is a blast.  I met several people who I hope will become lifelong friends, and after 10 weeks of hell, I really feel like a full-stack web developer who will be able to find a job in tech.  My only gripe is that parts of the curriculum, especially most of the homeworks, feel totally irrelevant and useless - wastes of my time when time is so precious and every hour of sleep counts.

App Academy is incredibly difficult and fast paced, but you learn an impressive amount in such a short time. The program really trains you to be a fullstack software engineer - by the end of the course you will build fully functional applications. I am also able to have full on conversations about the different technologies and languages that we've learned and used, whereas before beginning app academy I hadn't even heard of them. The TAs and other students were always happy to help out, and career coaches are here for assistance as well. If you are trying to get into software development but don't have the traditional background, I'd highly recommend the course.