App Academy

Pros
- Being surrounded by like-minded people going through the same struggles was a great experience.
-Plenty of support getting to the interview phase for the Bootcamp compared to other places
- Overwhelming amount of knowledge
- Incredibly supportive

Cons
- The curriculum and the versions of the technologies that we were using were slightly outdated. 
- Unlike other boot camps, you can get kicked out of the Bootcamp for failing multiple tests or getting 10 strikes (but I believe this pressure makes for better coders)

My friends recommended App Academy to me because they have met several aA alumni in their workplaces and thought them to be great engineers. I have an engineering background so am used to rigorous academics, but aA still definitely required a lot of hard work and many hours of studying. I think it is a great place to quickly learn essential SWE skills, but a lot of the CS fundamentals, algorithms, data structures, etc. are not a big part of the course so we will have to study that on our own time for job search. It would also be great if they can update the curriculum to include more in-demand technologies (React hooks, for example). The instructors/TAs and cohort mates are awesome, but the career coaches really don't provide much help and it's mostly on us to gather as much resources as possible after graduation.

There  are definite ups and down. The curriculum is ever changing and evolving. I do not believe the iteration I went through was the best, but the main points and flow are there. They definitely teach you most of the foundation you will need to go forward. There is some consistency issues throughout the program. However, is patch by very passionate instructors. I do wish that we have more software engineer veterans and experience leaders. This program is not easy, if you looking  to give you basics and foundation to go forward as a software engineer and full stack dev this is worth it. If you really want to be software engineer this is almost required experience especially starting from ground zero.  Just be aware it is a bootcamp still so 60+ hours of work is expected, as for me who is a slower learner I easily did 80+ hours and barely scarped survived the program.

App Academy (aA) should really be considered a program under development. They pass this off as a feature rather than a bug and in theory it is but not they way that they do it. The company is overly compartmentalized which seems to be intentional to give any department the ability to pass the proverbial buck onto another department. Often you find that the materials lack in the way of pedagogy. In addition many of the instructors early in the program have not been given much in the way of training to educate students. The TA's have had less training in that regard from the start of the program to the end. An additional note on the TA's in some cases the TA's you will have will have graduated only days previous. I am not saying they are not capable software developers but there is a difference between being able to write code and being able to teach a person how to write code. aA will constantly try tweaking things to create "improvements" these improvements are often in good spirit but poorly thought out. Changes are not relayed from department to department, Instructors and TA's have not familiarized themselves with the new curriculum or the implementation of the improvement is just for lack of a way of saying it bad. This is normal when changes happen in a company, growing pains will happen of course. The problem with that is you as a student are only going to go through a portion of the program once or face deferral. If the portion of the program you are going through has had changes made to it for your iteration the mistakes made by the program are blamed on you and you face the consequences. Now those are the negative portions of aA.
These are the positives, The staff in most cases care greatly for the students there are some exceptions to that through. The program will teach you how to write code. I started with absolutely no coding experience and made it through the program and feel comfortable calling myself a software developer. The program is great for a person who may not have the discipline to teach themselves. You will make deep and real friendships in the program. 
Words of advice to students considering aA. Don't expect aA to read your mind, you have to communicate with the staff. Get to know your PTM and Assistant PTM. They will be your rock through the program.  Do not be afraid to give them real feedback on the program or things going on. They really do take it with grace and do care how you are doing. It is a Marathon and not a sprint. Take care of yourself and your mental health. Take the breaks when you have them (and there are not many.). Deferral is not the end of the world, you can and will survive it.

I attended a/A due to all of the great reviews and recommendations on different sites. After attending and graduating, I can tell you they were spot on. I never expected to feel so comfortable with applying for tech roles. Drinking from a fire hose is an understatement. You will repeatedly feel behind, but do not worry. You are not the only one. I would attend a/A again if I could go back. The cohort you join is a giant group of friends that are all wishing for your success. I did my best learning and networking during the mandatory pair-boarding sessions each day. 

My only issues with a/A would be maybe adding more leet code questions or more information on UI/UX. Overall, I would recommend a/A to anyone who has a support network and a strong desire for a career change. It will be tough, but worth it in the end.

 There's a lot of Hype for App Academy; their enrollment specialists promise big ($100k/yr job, ready for software development in ~6 months, you can do it you just have to work hard) but their delivery on that promise is extremely shaky. 

App Academy tries to get around this by putting the responsibility for learning solely on their students instead of admitting their program is badly formulated and leaves students behind -- but poor test design, subpar teaching, and a high degree of students having to teach themselves and fill in glaring knowledge gaps leads to App Academy feeling like a ripoff rather than a school. 

My experience was not great at this online bootcamp. While the instructors are highly knowledgeable about code they do not know how to *teach* the concepts effectively -- which when combined with the pace of the bootcamp results in instructors pelting the class with information and then getting salty when the cohort can't keep up. 

Half of class time is spent in pairs working off of pre-recorded material and problems to solve -- the equivalent of which could easily be found on YouTube and coding sites like leetcode for free. To be blunt, there is no possible way that this instruction could be worth $20-$30k. 

If you choose to waste your money on App Academy, know that you are paying the equivalent of a nice new car for the App Academy name on your resume -- and pretty much nothing else. Everything I learned at App Academy I could have learned for FREE elsewhere online -- this bootcamp is not quite a scam but it's a near-miss. 

This bootcamp relies on its price point to trick prospective programmers into believing it is good -- it is not. If you choose to leave mid-bootcamp, App Academy will charge you $160 PER DAY for their poor-quality instruction... even though their instruction is only 3 hours per day in the class. That means they are charging students $55 an hour for subpar instruction that is equal in quality to free youtube videos. 

App Academy tries to say that your fellow students are some kind of amazing resource -- this is a stretch of the truth at best. You could just as easily find beginner programmers on reddit or StackExchange and work together from there, saving yourself thousands in the process. 

App Academy is 80% hype. All you are really paying for is the name on your resume -- you will not learn ANYTHING in this course that a reasonably intelligent student could not learn on their own using the internet as a resource. Sign up for the bootcamp if you want, but be prepared to feel cheated when you realize how little you get for your money. 

Pros
- Great community of people and great alumni
- Great instructional team

Cons
- Curriculum could be updated

Overall, I really loved my experience at App Academy. There were times I wish it was in person because it would have been nice to have a full immersive experience, but I think they still did a great job in handling everything remote. It really is about the work you put in because they can teach you everything, but it's all about the effort you put in to try and understand the material. I wish they could have updated the curriculum a little bit, but I still came out feeling confident in my skills to code. You also meet a lot of great people there!

 I loved my experience at App Academy! I highly recommend it to anyone looking to join a software development bootcamp. I came into it with no prior coding experience and by the end of the 16 weeks I had completed 3 projects that I am incredibly proud of. They are not lying when they say it is an INTENSIVE bootcamp. It is extremely rigorous and you have to spend your entire energy on this program but it definitely pays off! I learned so much and all the TAs are so incredibly helpful! They are all excellent teachers and you can really tell they love teaching and care about your success. It was a great experience and I would recommend it to everyone :)