Blaizing Academy

Wow, I didn't know there were so many boot camps! I chose to go to a boot camp to fill in the holes quicker and launch into a real coding job (or at least be a part of the coding team/department). I graduated with a Business Information Systems degree about 13 years ago and since worked a few technology jobs before going into the classroom as a k-12 teacher for the last 8 years. I've always enjoyed coding and realized now was my chance to really make it happen. I think what Eleven Fifty Academy is trying to accomplish is tremendous. I do think they are overselling their product. Non-profit? I think they are very much for profit. $13,500 for 3 months of school? How do you put a number on the tuition cost? If you ask me it was only worth $3,000. I think the pay a percentage models once employed look better. You think you're going to be learning from experts. Nope, your instructor just took the course before you. You do learn valuable skills in these boot camps. Much of it you can learn on your own, now that Microsoft has open sourced everything. Attending the bootcamp you're able to network and build those connections. I feel like most students were there because they were out of work and desperate for the next opportunity. Eleven Fifty Academy did an excellent job removing students that didn't measure up. Since most attendees are in their 20s I would recommend this opportunity to those in their 20s if you know what I mean. Eleven Fifty did begin night classes. I wonder how that is going. I've heard so many not get jobs for months or years after graduating. If that were the case for me I would definitely not recommend a boot camp. The biggest lie is that they convince you you'll get a coding job when you finish. Maybe after a year or so of really hard work and maybe you'll land something. Eleven Fifty Academy can connect you with the Salesforce Pathfinder program! Awesome! Until you find out that those with degrees need not apply. This is a give back to the community program for the disadvantaged. Another big problem is that most of the students start with no previous coding experience. The instructors can walk you through tutorials but you can do online tutorials yourself. The instructor can go on vacation and then that is basicly lost time. Lunch is catered every day so that is a big plus and when it's not well that is lost time too. The whole experience felt like a drug rehab retreat. You spend 8 hours a day with the same cohort coding together walking 1/2 mile to lunch, eating lunch together, comparing tattoos (no we didn't do that), and playing ping pong and foosball together. It was definitely good times for someone detoxing from public education and teacher burnout. Oh, and don't forget the snacks. There's free snacks and soda all day long. I think because Eleven Fifty is getting help from the Governor to stay afloat they are relinquishing their identity, muddying their brand and in so doing capsizing their ultimate goal. If they were so successful you'd see LinkedIn posts daily. The owner wants a million coders so with this goal, quantity is more important than quality. Career Services is very nice and helpful but still just as clueless as you when it comes to getting hired as a .NET programmer. There's no shortcut to Senior Developer though EFA gets you started on the right path. Maybe you do a bootcamp to gain enough experience to find out that you don't want to do coding as a career. Either way you're better for it. Through Eleven Fifty Academy I was able to land my current role as an application support analyst which has given me fantastic experience and I hope that this role will prepare and propel me into my next opportunity in technology. We all need a path for skilling up. I recommend Eleven Fifty Academy for doing just that!

I was working as a bartender before finding Eleven Fifty Academy. I knew I needed a career change, and I had always been in interesting in coding. The JavaScript course required a lot of work -- both in and out of the classroom. I would work on problems in the classroom and find my mind still thinking of possible solutions after class. The class changes your entire mindset and engages your problem-solving muscles. My teacher was willing to guide me to discover my own answers, allowing me to build better researching skills. I became extremely close to my classmates as we pushed each other to learn as much as we could in a 3 month period. I secured a job one month after graduation, and haven't stopped acquiring new tech skills! It's a great course, and the community really wants you to succeed here!

I am very satisfied with Eleven Fifty Academy. I took a 12-week Course here back in 2017 shortly after they moved to Launch Fishers and Immediately after completing the course I was able to get a 10-week paid Internship with the company followed up by a full time software job at my current place of employment just simply due to the skills I was taught at the academy. Eleven Fifty did a great job in teaching me the skills and technology needed in today's world to help me get started in a great career field.

I've supported Eleven Fifty Academy since its inception.  The vision for this non-profit was pure & beautiful to me and I wanted to make certain I contributed.  As an instructor, apprenticeship director, and a continued community voice for this academy, I've seen hundreds of students pass through!  Every student is given opportunities to be great.  Those that lean into the opportunities succeeded wildly.  Those that don't, are the ones you'll see writing negative reviews on sites like this.  Eleven Fifty Academy is an enabler, not a guarantee.  But I CAN guarantee that if you attend, lean in, and take every opportunity that they offer you, you WILL succeed!  Again, I've seen it repeated hundreds of time.

Eleven Fifty has been a phenomenal experience both intellectually and interpersonally. To the point:

- Experienced Educators able to provide constructive feedback and answers when stuck for a while on a piece of code

- Exceptional career services staff willing to dedicate as much time as needed to landing a job

- Diverse group of students. Some personalities did clash, but this provided a fundamental insight into potential workplace environments and how to handle them

- Difficult projects weeded out individuals who did not put in time and effort, or were simply not suited for code - giving the name of Elevent Fifty respect in regards to rigor 

- I would 100% recommend this program if you are serious about code and have time to dedicate. Remember, this is not just a hobby. 

I came to Eleven Fifty a little hesitantly, as I wasn't sure I would be able to keep up with a bootcamp style learning environment, but the staff here made it simple. The teachers here are all excellent, and really connect with the students beyond teaching. The environment is more like a family, and the materials provided are extensive and go the extra mile. This school was started by Scott Jones, the forerunner of voicemail technology, and the experience and influence in the coding industry shows in the extras you're given in the curriculum. They assist with mock interviews with real employers in which you are given feedback, resume review, and job placement, as well as workshops in Intellectual Property, Contracting and Law, and Soft Skills, among others. I chose this school because of a friend who went through the program, and was (and still is) gainfully and happily employed in the industry with their help, and I would reccomend it to anyone looking for a quick chance to jump into the nation's largest (and quickest growing) employment field. 

Before I continue with this review- the background: I have given this a lot of thought and held out to write a review since I was removed back in September of 2017 to avoid coming off too emotional. I want to be honest and give my full critique of this Academy as objectively as possible so those future enrollers go in with all the warnings, what to expect, and that sort of notion.

First the positives: Eleven Fifty looks promising. They have a nice faculty/instructors and plenty of space to kick back and study within their walls. They even offered lunch and snacks. They even have a shower.. In case you stay a night.. or more.. So since I have last attended they provided 24/7 access which is great if you want a private place to study away from home. This location also has places to shop nearby if needed for anything. The course itself- the material I thought was great but also a bit fast (as advertised). I've already had some background in Javascript and I needed something to help focus on advancing further in that realm of coding. The prospects of the course from start to finish seems very promising if you do your part.

The negatives: The main part I want to emphasize and get my message across.. The policy of Eleven Fifty at that time (and most likely still is) was very strict in the sense of the final projects to be turned in during the end of their individual tiers throughout the program, otherwise you will be removed.

In my case, I made some bad choices during the program and tried to remain independent of getting caught up which I failed to do so as well as to bring to attention prior to the end date of 1st tier. They say that they want to maintain some sort of business ethics upon their decision making and that allows them to uphold this overprivileged policy of kicking you out despite how expensive this place is.. over $10K. Regardless of the circumstances, would any of you individuals out there posing as someone running a business just take people's money like this? I wasn't asking for a refund. I was asking for a second chance- all in vain because of bearucratic powers that be "policy".

To my defense- I have seen what the other students turned in and being more than nice I can say that I could have expected high schoolers to create higher quality projects. This was the first tier however.. still sort-of-the-beginning of the program right? If that's the case why wasn't this given more consideration for my desire to stay and push through? My projects that were incomplete had bigger plans that I wanted to use to WOW the other students as well as the instructors. I aimed a little too high for my goals- is that always bad business practice? I strongly dislike turning in low quality work. I have always dealt with time-managing skills with difficulty- any other human being would say the same to some degree of themselves if they're honest.

This is the whole point I am making.. So early in the program- you cannot predict a student's prospects so early unless you are arrogant by nature. I admit I made mistakes and wished I handled it differently- but how does that justify their final decisions or the policy that stands? It would have been more reasonable if it were during the 2nd tier if you were to remove me- not the first.

I even took the pre-course to determine if I would excel in Javascript- which I did! To be fair they did leave me access to the slack channel, so I can still try to "learn" even though the whole point of enrolling for me was to learn in person as I always perform better in. And even when I decided to check on the slack channel several weeks later- I no longer had access to it. Just lovely.

I wouldn't care if they stripped the job assistance from me to maintain their golden image of themselves if I could have stayed and learned, but they did not budge or do anything that any other human capable of sympathizing would do. I understand not everyone at Eleven Fifty is capable of overriding decisions/policy.. But nobody has tried or shown any real sympathy. Saying sorry and acting in the opposite nature.. That's just a recipe to break someone down.

Summary: If you have difficulty learning/focusing... if you have budget restraints.. if you already have plenty of loans as it is.. I do not recommend enrolling here. If you will be paying out of pocket to some degree for this place- I would recommend finding cheap online courses like udemy or udacity instead of bootcamps and build a profile from what you learned. You would save more money and avoid heartache if this were to backfire on you like this. But if you have money to throw around and enjoy a challenge with high stakes with a good healthy demeanor and most importantly a natural talent for these sorts of things.. go for it. I gave job assistance 4 stars because majority of the graduates find it useful and I cannot leave it blank.

My message to Eleven Fifty: I have not reached out to you since I left because I don't know how to reason with unreasonable people- further efforts would have seemed futile as it was for me at the end especially the way I was feeling for several months after.

You should really consider changing the policy to better reflect student's needs a little more in the sense of not removing a student during the first tier to be the nonprofit you claim to be of helping the community. You let some students who didn't have high enough prospects for this sort of work graduate anyways just because they turned work in on time.. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I wouldn't mind coming back to regain what knowledge I lost in the future if it were possible- but I already paid majority of the program and got very little out of it other than a heavy dose of reality. I don't hate you guys. I loved your instructors while I was there- their enthusiasm for teaching shown brightly and helped keep my self-confidence afloat when I struggled. You show some promise in respects to bootcamps such as yourself, but this policy really leaves a bad taste in anyone's mouth who is dealt with it. Reflect.. Learn.. and improve as I have done since I have left this cohort.

Eleven Fifty is a great program and offers very talented instructors. I was thoroughly impressed at how willing to help each of the instructors are. This is a very tough course and your learning curve will no doubt skyrocket. As long as you love to learn and aren't afraid to ask for help, you will excel in the program.

The staff are still trying to improve curriculum and are trying different things to see what works best. There are some things that still need to be ironed out, but you really can't complain because of how robust the rest of their program is.

I was would like to see a little more help with trying to find a job. While a lot of students are held other jobs, there are a good amount of young students, such as myself, who are straight out of high school and it would be really helpful to have some guidance with job searching.

Overall I would highly recommend Eleven Fifty and their program.

I just graduated from Eleven Fifty Academy last week and am overall happy with my experience. I have specific things I liked that I will talk about but I will also touch on some things I didn't like and wish I had known before I started in August to better prepare.

First things first is that I do have a paid internship lined up that I will be starting within the next month. I received the offer for this before the bootcamp was even finished. Full disclosure, getting the internship had way more to do with my network, personality, and state grant that provides funding for training and employment than my technical training or Eleven Fifty's job placement.

I really enjoyed the cohort experience but it worked as well as it did because of the personalities in my cohort. The staff at Eleven Fifty is wonderful and I don't have any complaints about them other than that sometimes it seemed that they forgot that we are all adults. For example, there are 2 points throughout the bootcamp at which a student may be asked to leave the program due to poor performance. We had 2 students leave at the first checkpoint and there was no discussion in class about it until another student asked. I understand discretion, but at that point we had been there for 3 weeks and were starting to develop friendships. We wanted to know if we weren't going to see certain classmates again.

The curriculum was good and bad. The first 4 weeks of curriculum went fairly well but from there things fell apart in my opinion. The class dynamic still held on strong though and that made up for the curriculum short falls.

Eleven Fifty intentionally provides a lot of instruction at the beginning of the bootcamp and gradually lessens it so that you are teaching yourself at the end. This insures that you can be a lifelong learner and that you can work yourself through an issue when you are on the job. With our cohort though, it seemed less gradual and more abrupt. Our time with AJAX, Express, Mongo, React/Redux, and Angular could have been much more productive and meaningful if they had provided one day of instruction and 4 days of self-teaching for each of the topics instead of the way they chose to do it.

With that being said, no one ever gave me the impression that they would teach us "everything". They were very open about that from the start, I just didn't understand how that would play out and could have prepared more if I had. The full blame for this time is not on Eleven Fifty, however, as I had classmates who walked away from those weeks with a lot of knowledge and understanding, but there was still a good group of us who felt the opposite.

While Chris is absolutely amazing and incredibly helpful, I gave job assistance a 4 because Eleven Fifty does not guarantee you a job. For the price tag, it's hard to sign up for programs like these when the outcome is unsure. There is an expectation that the student be in control of their future but I know that this was hard for me to accept and almost stopped me from signing up. Chris provided a lot of assistance for me with my resume and organizing the grant requirements for my internship but I was never presented with an employment opportunity by him or anyone else at Eleven Fifty other than a fellow student. The mock interviews that you participate in can result in job offers but it only happens if that company is hiring and usually requires that you see the same company for your soft skills and technical mock interviews. This didn't work out for my cohort because of some students in the class not effectively preparing for the soft skills interview, which ruined it for the rest of us.

There were at least 2 students who received offers from mock interviews but in a cohort of 21 that isn't reassuring and only happened because their interviewers also asked technical questions during the soft skills interview. Perhaps the solution is to have the interviews last longer, be both soft skills and technical in one sitting, and happen twice throughout the bootcamp. That way students can see one employer at week 8 and another at week 12, if they don't get an offer from the first.

Again, overall I am happy with my experience I just would have liked for better outcomes for my classmates. There are about 20 of us who graduated and I know of 4 of us who have accepted job offers. Again, a large part of that falls to the individual students' shortfalls, but there is more that can be done to improve this. Some of the necessary steps to success were presented as though they were options and I think simply changing the language that is used can help a lot of students better prepare.

The big question is would I do it all again? The answer is yes, although I would buy additional resources for the subjects I mentioned above and probably try to spend even more time at school studying even though I put at least 2 extra hours in each day already.

At Eleven Fifty Academy, you're not only taught the fundamentals, but also given the knowledge, tools, and resources needed to excel within the program AND in the workforce.  The staff put in endless hours to help each and every student succeed and reach/be put on track to reach their goals.  You are given honest, helpful feedback in your work and transactions with others, and provided with many opportunities to better yourself as a coder every day there (and not just through coding!).  The instructors connect well with the students and go above and beyond to encourage student's learning in their own styles.  The curriculum is very evident in how well-planned and thought out it is.  The career-readiness prep is extremely helpful and sets you up for success (I even accepted a job offer on my second to last day!).  The administrative staff cares a lot about the students and constantly pushes them to be even better than the day before (literally!), and the President has a very hands-on approach in guiding this program down the best path.  My experience at Eleven Fifty Academy was truly exceptional, and I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone wanting an accelerated, very intensive path into the tech industry.