Constructor Academy

From Nov 2022 until Feb 2023, I attended the Full-Stack bootcamp in Constructor Learning (previously SIT Learning). I had previous experience in coding with Python, but I had never before attended a bootcamp. My experience in the bootcamp had positive and negative aspects that I will try to summarise in the following.

1. Learning pace
I understand that the pace of a bootcamp is quick, but I want to say that I don't like it. I found that there was no real time to acquire the concepts properly and to pay attention to details. Everyday we started a new coding project for which there was not enough time to finish. I learnt many basic concepts, for sure, but I have the feeling that I didn't have time to internalise them nor to focus on details.

2. Curriculum
I find the curriculum very good and appropriate for the job market. Moreover, it is structured and contains many resources. Personally I would skip the part of the curriculum about coding interviews and simply give some interesting websites where one can practise. Instead, I would recommend to include some material about developing a mobile app.
An important issue about the curriculum is that it is not inclusive. When reading it, I spotted many times the use of the pronouns "he/his" to refer to a generic user or developer. I find this discriminatory towards users or developers who identify with other pronouns and who also exist (as I am the proof of their existence :D). Fortunately, this problem has a very easy solution, which is simply using the neutral pronoun "they/them", and voilà!
For skeptical people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

3. Remote bootcamp
Although the bootcamp is sold as remote, I wouldn't call it that. I would rather describe it as bootcamp that is streamed because the interaction that the remote students can have with on-site participants is very poor. In order to improve this, I would recommend buying better equipment for the class.
Another issue for remote students is the teacher assistance. In the afternoon we always had exercises and we could reach a teacher assistant (TA) if we had doubts. However, the TAs were on-site, and thus much more available for on-site students. Online students had to wait in general a lot to obtain help because TAs were attending on-site students.
As a remote student I also had the feeling that communication could have been better. Sometimes, remote students would receive organizational information because on-site students told us what TAs said, instead of receiving it directly from TAs.
Here I want to mention that TAs do a very good job, especially Daniel and Adrien. However, I think they need more support and maybe a solution for the problems mentioned above could be to assign one (remote) TA for remote students. Another suggestion is to explain clearly at the very beginning of the bootcamp how remote students should ask for help such that TAs receive the notification.
A positive aspect of the bootcamp is that all lectures were recorded and we have access to the recording forever. This was very useful for the afternoon exercises and I guess for future projects.

4. Last project
The last three weeks of the bootcamp are dedicated to a single project that is built from scratch. This has been a very enriching and satisfying experience thanks to my team, but I would have appreciated more support from TAs & co. During these weeks it was (even more) difficult to reach TAs and many of the planned feedback sessions didn't happen. From my point of view, we started receiving feedback when it was too late and, moreover, the feedback we received was not so meaningful. I would have appreciated a much better organisation during the last project.

The above wants to be a constructive review in which I tried to point out things that could be improved. To sum up, I learnt a lot during the bootcamp and feel now more prepared to work as a full-stack developer. Maybe I would have liked to learn in a slightly different way.