iO Academy

After 14yo in the music industry I decided to take a massif step in my life by continuing an old dream of mine, Which was to become a software engineer.
iO Academy Helped me archiving that goal with an incredible support and kindness. 
I got offer 4 jobs before the end of the school and got the chance to pick and choose ! So technically the school help me to get a job in 15 weeks out of the 16 weeks of school !
If you are like me and want to change your life around and start a career in web development do not think twice !
At first glance the school seems very expensive but if you start to do some research you will quickly realise that iO offer on of the best Curriculum concerning full stack development.
Regarding the fees there is funding available, the size of the class is perfect 8 peoples maximum, which for me this was one of the main point.
8 peoples in a class allow you to get to know everyone and the more important the teacher is not overwhelm by 20 student and can then focus on each of the student.
The curriculum is fantastic, the school make you aware of old way of doing thing but for the big part your are learning the industry standard of nowadays.

Do not be afraid to make the big jump with them you will not regret it  ! 

I’ve always dreamed of having technical skills and becoming a developer. I wasn’t sure how and where to start until I found out about iO Academy and decided to join the bootcamp. It was the best decision I’ve ever made!
 
You cannot believe how many things you can learn in such a short period of time (especially when you have amazing trainers but more on that later).The curriculum Is really well structured and it helps you build a solid foundation. The focus isn’t placed on learning a particular programming language (even though you pick up quite a few during the bootcamp) but more on logical thinking and understanding how to write best practice code regardless of the language used. Having a good understanding of the fundamentals puts you in a great position pick up other languages in the future.The course combines theory with project weeks where we worked as a group, following agile methodologies to complete awesome projects. Working as part of a team you also get a chance to develop your soft skills and learn how to collaborate with different people.The best part of the course is the people and building a bond with others going through the same journey. The trainers, students and everybody involved with iO Academy is really nice.Our trainer was Mike and he was the best trainer that I could have ever asked for. He was very supportive, always explaining things in a way that would make sense to you. Even after hours he was replying to any questions I had and was always there for us whenever we had down moments or doubting ourselves, offering reassurance and building our confidence.We also met Charlie, Ash and Neal who are some of the other trainers at iO and all of them were really nice and incredibly helpful.The support we received was not limited to the technical side. We had a lot of help with our job applications including writing CVs, cover letters, how to prepare for an interview and what are some of the challenges that come up during an interview.In the final week of the bootcamp I had numerous interviews and in the week after finishing the bootcamp I had already received a job offer.For me the iO Academy bootcamp was the best experience of my life and I’ll always be grateful because it helped me get my dream job. The only bad thing about the bootcamp is that it comes to an end!

I looked at quite a few bootcamps before deciding on iO Academy; the two main reasons were the size of the classes (8 people) and a shining recommendation from someone who went there and whose opinion I trusted. It was a slight risk because I live in London and imagined that any connections made in the industry afterwards might all be based in Bath and be less useful for me, however I now know it was a risk worth taking.

The support at iO is amazing; Mike is a fountain of knowledge and there's a real community spirit to everything that's done (which is no mean feat considering our cohort were fully remote!). The only thing I would have liked to have done differently is to have done it in person, so if you get the opportunity to do this go for it. 

In terms of job prospects, I had around 5 interviews before the course was even complete, which culminated in two job offers and I'm now starting my first job as a junior developer 2 weeks after graduating.

If you like small family vibes with genuinely good quality, conscious teaching then this is the place for you.

The Full Stack Track really gives you a an applied & focussed learning experience, providing you with all the tools needed to become a software developer. They teach you important principles to guide you to writing professional code, introduce you to important & modern frameworks & importantly help you learn the necessary soft skills for being a great dev team member. Everyone picks up the content/skills very fast due to the well designed course & the patient, knowledgable & friendly trainers. If the cost looks like a lot to you, please know that you will get your money's worth through the 9-5 attention of your team's trainer, the extra assistance in preparing yourself for job-seeking & the numerous guest lectures you will receive on a myriad of related topics.

If you're debating joining iO Academy, do it! it's the best decision I've ever made. The training and support is great and they really help prepare you for your first role as a developer. And the support continues even after finishing the course, helping with any coding problems and searching for jobs. I started the course in person and after a few weeks got moved to being remote which I was dreading but it was actually even easier than in person. Can't recommend the academy enough! I got a job a week after graduating and am excited to begin my career as a developer.

 Having been a stay at home mum for 5 years with absolutely no coding experience at all, I strangely decided that software development was for me and applied for iO academy.  I am incredibly glad that I made that odd choice, because it turns out that not only is coding great fun, but I couldn’t have chosen a better place to be trained up. The content was great and has set me in good-stead to be taking on my first technical role with technologies that are relevant. The trainers were absolutely brilliant - patient, helpful and all round good eggs, and didn’t mind answering all my very basic questions. I generally felt incredibly supported and like being part of a really close-knit team.  The on-going support after the course has been wonderful as well, with help offered searching for jobs, getting in touch with recruiters and keeping up practicing skills.  Overall, I could not recommend iO Academy enough. It was a great experience and I now have a whole new career ahead of me with skills that I had never even heard of 4 months ago! Can’t be bad. 

I left my job in Sept 2020 (in the middle of Covid... perhaps not the soundest decision but it turned out very well!) to attend iO (or Mayden Academy, as it was named at that point. The name changed, nothing else!). 

Before iO: I did some research on coding generally, some short courses on Codecademy, some of the free tester sessions you can find online. I wanted to be as sure as I could be that I actually would *like* coding - nothing I saw put me off, so I started researching bootcamps in my area. I was optimistic that I would be able to find one I could attend in person (at this point we were in between lockdowns, it was summer and it sort of felt like that would be feasible... yeah, I know). Anyway I did a lot of reading reviews, lots of digging into old blogs and so on, and I interviewed at two bootcamps. I already had iO pegged as my favourite and the interview confirmed it. There was also an entrance "test" - I got really hung up on this beforehand but would reassure anyone reading not to get too worried. It's not the kind of test you can revise for, and if you're the kind of nerd who's considering a coding bootcamp, you're probably going to find it fun. I took it online, in my own time, and had my face-to-face informal interview later.

During iO: We did actually start in person, which was really nice. We were masked and behind plexiglass, but still. We moved to remote working in week 4, I think. I was worried about it but honestly it was actually really easy, and working in pairs over zoom is actually much more intuitive than working in pairs through plexiglass..! So if your cohort look like they're going to be fully remote, don't worry. 
The course is intense. It is fast, and if you've been out of education for a while, like I had been, it might take some getting used to! I would advise you to do any and all of the prep work you get sent beforehand (I did it for about half an hour an evening for a month or so beforehand, just to get to grips with things). You do a week or two of theory, followed by a project week. The first couple of projects are solo (you can obviously ask for help and so on, but what you make is personal to you), and then the rest are group based. Programming in a group was probably the biggest learning curve for me; it was so not what  I was used to, but by the end our final project was something none of us could have achieved by ourselves, and we were all really proud. There are well-timed talks throughout the course from people in industry; these range from broad overviews of how certain companies work to fairly in-depth looks at how certain software works. Lots of the speakers are ex-students and it's really nice to see them and how happy they are in their work.

After iO: Well, I'm only just after iO now, and I start my new job in two days! I had a few interviews during the final couple of weeks and the role I have accepted is a Masters degree apprenticeship - I do not have a computer science degree, I have a very doddery Film & Media degree from the dark ages, but in a couple of years I will be a software engineer with a masters degree! It would have been unthinkable to me this time last year, I'm thrilled. iO have lots of hiring partners within Bath / Bristol, and they will introduce you to whoever is hiring at the time you graduate. We graduated at Christmas, during covid lockdown, during a time when it is really hard to get work, and still had a handful of partners keen to interview us. 

Other notes? There were eight people in my class. We were all totally different in terms of learning styles; and all of us were accomodated. The size of the team means you get to know each other well and you get to learn how to work effectively with people who have different styles to you. It also means your tutor can take the time to give you each the individual support you need.