Bitmaker General Assembly

It's been two years since I've been through the Rails course, and since I've held a great web developer job with a second one lined up to start very soon. In short, Bitmaker started a whole new career for me, but it's not your traditional assignment-in, assignment-out type of post-grad education experience. Your own efforts are going to weigh on the outcome of the course 100%. There are no grades, only the lessons you learn from going through with something so intensive and life-consuming. And it all hinges on your attitude.
So if you decide to take the adventure that is a full-time bootcamp, I can only give you some realizations of my own:
First, it's going to be more useful once you've got a clear vision of what you want out of it. Do you want to change the trajectory of your career entirely, or are you thinking of making something from scratch as a basis of a start-up? How you approach the course depend on your answer.
Second, it's an opportunity to push yourself to work on stuff that feels incredibly intimidating to you, every step of the way. The whole nine weeks, I was often overwhelmed, frustrated, but ultimately thrilled to find answers to a day- or week-long problem. The satisfaction in having your small wins at Bitmaker are going to be addictive and unlike any sense of achievement you've felt before. Lots of your fellow classmates will have their own personal wins and it feels great to celebrate them together. 
One ultimate benefit is to become a self-directed learner. This is an industry where changes and improvements occur constantly, and different ways to solve a problem always exist. The instructors are incredibly helpful, but not a short-circuited ticket to a quick solution. Ask for advice, not a crutch.
It's going to be a life-changing decision if you want and work for it. Good luck!

So much hype when you walk into this place. No joke, they make you feel like they are about to change your life and you will walk out of there with some crazy ability to code at an intermediate level. Then you go through the interview, which really is a formality, because judging by the class, they are letting ANYONE in. Like anyone. I think 4 ridiculous people couldn't even really use a computer. So I'm stuck sitting next to them and watching as our TA is trying to help them for like 30 minutes and I'm feeling like I'm watching exactly where my money goes. No matter. I'll get a job. Except I didn't. And don't have one. And their CEO doesn't know my name. But he knows if I paid or not. But what's super stupid is that when I talked to a guy who went there who interviewed me for a job in his startup, he told me the problems were the exact same like 2 years ago! WHAT?! So it's always been like this and nobody is fixing it? For sure people know the name which is probably worth something. Julie Hache was so good too. And really even liked some of their staff like Erik. Lots of these people cared for sure. Also, really liked some of the speakers who came in. If I had to pinpount the problem it's probably that their CEO (will remain nameless as I'm not about name dropping) could do a bit more to know the students and know what's going down in his own place. Pretty sure the dude just learnt how to code himself. 

Picked Bitmaker based on some of the reviews I'd seen on here originally so figured I would let anyone else trying to make that choice know what's up! 

I wouldn't say that Bitmaker was a bad experience, it was just not what I thought it would be. Having had friends that went to other bootcamps I decided to go to one in Toronto where I live. There were 2 that I found and Bitmaker was definitely awesome in looking at it from the outside. Great space, really cool people and interesting curriculum. 

The problem is this place is all about the money and has some pretty backwards policies. First off, compared to what I have heard from other schools, their career side is abysmal. Their '9 weeks' include 1 hiring week where they set you up with some interviews and that's it. They don't help you beyond the 9 weeks and once you are done the program they really do nothing for their alumni. I know bootcamps like Hack Reactor, MakerSquare, HackerYou and Lighthouse Labs all help you until you find a job. Also, pretty sure their 93% can't be true because I literally met so many alumni who are without jobs and many of which gave up. It truthfully made me feel stupid for not finding them before, so I guess that's my fault. Overall, they just take your money, teach you whatever they can and then let you leave and figure it out. 

Also, small things here, but they have 40 people in a class and 3 people on the floor at any given time. Not super helpful, though I must say that their teachers themselves are really cool and very good. Just not enough to really help 40 people! 

Look, I can code and that's awesome, so I'm really happy with that, and I won't say the money was poorly spent, but bootcamps are everywhere and from what I have seen and heard, I probably could have picked a better one. 

I owe Bitmaker Labs a huge debt of gratitude. Bitmaker Labs was a huge stepping stone in my career, and without them I don't believe I'd be where I am today. If you're looking for a career change, or looking to really immerse yourself and learn what it takes to program for the web - I would recommend Bitmaker.

I was a student in the pilot cohort starting March 2013. Since the program ended I have been working as a web developer and I'm currently working with an organization that I've dreamt of working with for years. 

I'd give an in depth review of the program, however I have heard that the program and school have changed dramatically from my exit, so a more recent review may be more relevant.

When I was there we had three full time teachers who I was incredibly privileged to learn from. We had classes all day for most of each day and had TA's to help us through any stumbling blocks. During the pilot cohort, the vast majority of the curriculum was on Ruby/Ruby-on-Rails with very little time spent on JavaScript or higher-level comp sci fundamentals -- both of which would have been helpful. The program was hard and I certainly still have had lots to learn in my career since then, however I definitely would not have been able to get here as quickly or as efficiently without Bitmaker. I also met some really great people who are still in my life.

During the pilot cohort we also had a week long round-robin/speed-dating interview process with several hiring partners. Outside of the interview week, I'm not sure how much job assistance was available to those that needed it.

Again - take my interview with a grain of salt. Bitmaker is expensive, however for me it's one of the best expenditures I've ever made. That said, the teachers, structure, curriculum, and job assistance, have all apparently undergone some sort of transformation since I've left according to talks with other students.

Great team, got the sense that they genuinely wanted everyone to succeed. Good focus on real world skills and practical solutions. It wasn't perfect, but their intent was continuous improvement and it showed.

Taking the course at 42, I was at the top end of the age range in Cohort #4. I came in with some basic skills in HTML and CSS and some ancient BASIC experience. I came out with everthing I need to build an end-to-end web application. I have been working on that app for the last year, and the company around it.

I would highly recommend Bitmaker.

I was in the fourth cohort. Keep in mind the curriculum and instructors have probably changed significantly since then. Ask for their curriculum if you are considering it. When I was there there was a mix of Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and a dash of CSS. 

First you have to look at your own goals and experience. If you already have coding experience and have done things like Lynda or the Michael Hartl Rails tutorial you probably won't learn that much from the instructors / and are obviously able to learn things on your own. However you will still benefit from working full-time on coding and having a space to do so. You will also benefit from explaining stuff to your classmates. 

The job assistance thing has changed a lot since I was there so I don't think it's fair for me to comment on that. We did get some interview coaching and some information on what technical interviews are like. 

The instructors were a mix. Code skill and instructing skill are different and some were better at it than others. 

If you are wanting to launch your own app / business, you should consider that $9000+ is a fair chunk of change, and could buy you a month of developer time to work on your idea. 

For my own part I knew a little about coding (high school) but no Ruby or modern web development. I learned a lot and met some great friends and feel like I have a good foundation for learning on my own. 

Seriously brutal lectures and a disappointing experience.  Lecturer was disengaged and brutally bad.  TA did not show twice for scheduled appointments to help at start. Unprofessional and poor quality.  Only good thing was finding out by accident about other online sources, like Treehouse, which is far cheaper and better.

Curriculum and online materials are okay but pretty dated. But don't waste your time or money with this newbie tech school charging people lots of money for poor quality.  

Bitmaker will accelerate you through the basics. If you don't do the prep work beforehand, you're pretty much screwed for the course, but if you do and work hard you'll get a basic understanding of web development and will have to work really hard for many years after to get better. That's fine. 

Here's the thing. The numbers are all BS. How do they calculate 90% of people graduate in 3 months? Thats a lie. Well over 10% of people in my cohort still doesn't have work. The career support  has now become almost nothing. No more scheduled interviews, no personal introductions to companies. Company reps that come out to a one-day presentation aren't hiring. If you think you're paying for career support... do your research. If you think that their numbers are accurate... ask for some recent data. Ask how many people were in the cohort versus how many people found work. 

Take this program if you're a self-starter and can financially support yourself until you find work, and ask for some hard numbers. 

I took the full-stack web development course in 2016 spring, and it was one of the most intense learning I had in my life. Bitmaker focus 70% back-end web development, which means you will be dealing with  lot of algorithm and database structure, and we spent relatively very small amount of time for front-end, such as HTML,CSS, and Javascript. so If those are your focus, it may not be your place. I don't regret my choice to go to bitmaker, because I have done some part time courses in other coding bootcamp, and certain I like coding enough to make it to my job. It is not a easy nor cheap commitment to make if you want to "just see if I like it". I suggest to go to some of the free front-end workshop Bitmaker offers first and try talk to current students. In reality, in any coding bootcamp, how they count the 90-something % rate of employment in 3 month is very particular, (such as "who is looking" and "who is employment-ready") and it doesn't mean literaly 90 % of people from one cohort get a job within 3 months. If you came in thinking " well I won't be the 2 or 3 people in class who are probably lazy", that is not quite the reality in any bootcamps nowadays. So give some time think about if you actually like and want to code for job, do some research, then make a commitment. It would be sad for you and even for instructors to spend that much of money, commitment, and effort, only to find out you don't like it that much And if you decided to do the course, it will be a great experience. 

For the most part you are paying for guidance and how to approach frameworks/languages. You aren't exactly learning what you need to land a job but the know how on how to pick new material up and how to look at certain things rather than just being uterly confused by new material. 

Also a great community building step when entering a completely new career space which helps land new gigs and solve programming problems.

They preach that 80% get hired within the first 3 months of completing the course and I didn't really trust that statement... But I found work within the last legs of the 3rd month after viewing my Bitmaker profile and profile.