Ironhack

About Me

I worked in IT, and did some coding, but nothing past basic JavaScript. It peaked my interest, so I began learning on my own by taking courses online. I realized I needed to go about learning in a different way. I researched courses/boot camps and ran into Ironhack and decided to dive in and take it’s Full-Time Web Dev course after coming across great reviews/ratings.

Expectations and Course Run Down

Be ready to learn, because you’re going to learn a lot. It's a full time 9-5pm every day for 9 weeks (not including the after hours you want to put in as well) it's no joke so just prepare to fully invest the next 9 weeks into IronHack. You learn for 2 weeks and then immediately are sent off to create a project within a week - repeat again 2 more times after that. Come in prepared to learn, take in all the material, and be willing to put in the work.

Help During Course Work / Curriculum (TA’s and Teacher)

The instructor for our Cohort (Nick) was very knowledgeable. The only downside was that it was his first time teaching the course, so it felt like he was also learning as we were all trying to learn something too. Besides that, he was most definitely a great instructor and without his proficiency on the subject, I would not have learned as much as I did. As for the teaching assistants, all three of them were amazing (Sandra, Marcos, Ian). They were all very familiar with the coursework since they were all Ironhack graduates as well. It was extremely helpful having dedicated TA's who were former students helping us because they know the struggle so they WANT to help. There's more than enough help to go around, just make sure to ASK for it when you need it and you won't fall behind.

The coursework definitely needed some tweaking on some days, our instructor Nick pushed aside what he felt was wrong and obsolete and taught it the best way he could and it definitely worked out. During the course this was one of my top issues, the curriculum for sure needed an update, but from what I have seen after my time there they are (or already have) taken the steps necessary to do so. Which means they take your feedback seriously and won't brush your input aside.

Rest of Ironhack Staff

Since the first day I applied and even now the staff at Ironhack hasn’t missed a beat. They have been helpful and there for me with any questions I had. They have an idea as to what they want to do with the course, and they definitely make sure that you receive the best experience possible. It doesn’t matter who you try to contact, the owner, down to the TA’s, they all respond happily and make you feel like one of them.

Hiring Fair Prep

From the first week at Ironhack, you become well acquainted with a man named Brito. Take his advice seriously if your goal is getting a job. He walks you through all the necessary steps to prepare you, such as building your resume, creating your LinkedIn, and lets you know about networking events to attend. He constantly brings in people to give speeches to you weekly. Brito is a great source for help and information so make sure you are constantly checking in with him. Along with all this prep work, you are also creating your portfolio during the course. You create 3 projects (on your own or in a small group) which showcase everything you've learned in the course from beginning to end and is the first step to the building of your portfolio.

Hiring Fair Event

At the end of the course, Brito arranges companies to come to Ironhack and sit down with you for interviews. This is a valuable introduction for your first interviews. Eventually, you will be off doing interviews on your own and this hiring fair is a great way to evaluate what you did and didn't do so that ultimately you become more and more comfortable during them. Still, that doesn't mean you shouldn't take these interviews at the hiring fair seriously, definitely come prepared to nail them during the event - people DO get hired out of these. This is what you prepare for, and it helps to prepare for future interviews.

Post Ironhack Experience

After Ironhack, finding a job (if that is what you are there for) is the next battle. Brito is there with you every step of the way. He holds placements help meetings at Ironhack every other week and is always available for any questions you have. He guides you and reminds you that you must KEEP CODING and KEEP APPLYING. If you slack off on those two steps, the job hunt instantly becomes much harder.  Take your LinkedIn, networking, and resume seriously. Do little projects on your own after the cohort, and make sure your JavaScript knowledge is fresh by doing coding challenges on HackerRank/Codewars because they will help with the technical interviews.

I did not get hired immediately after Ironhack. I applied to around 300+ jobs and only got about two handfuls of phone interviews and in-person interviews. I got hired 3 and a half months after. I never stopped coding, I never stopped applying and I always kept in touch with Brito. This process in itself could feel more stressful than the boot camp, but do not quit.

Conclusion

Yes - you learn a lot at Ironhack and are given great guidance, but no they will not hand you a job. You get everything you need from them and now it’s up to you to put in the work and land it. They are there with you every step of the way. I would 100% do it again, I put my life on hold, invested in myself, pushed through and changed my career into something I felt would be more fulfilling. So far it hasn’t disappointed one bit. Not only do you learn a lot at Ironhack, but you make tons of friends and become part of their great community.

If you have any questions feel free to message me on LinkedIn and I will gladly answer them for you  

I recently completed the part-time Web Development course, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to expand their skills or technological knowledge base. I had an all-around wonderful learning experience. You don't need to have much computer knowledge going into it, because each class has multiple teaching assistants who will be there to help if you fall behind or are struggling to keep up. My class had 3 exceptional TA's, Manuel, Colby, and Adrian, who constantly were able to provide assistance when I ran into trouble, had bugs, or just got lost. They were always nice, patient, and willing to go the extra mile just to make sure I really understood deeply what we were learning, including coming in extra early on the weekends and spending one on one time with me in front of the whiteboard to go over each aspect of what we were learning in detail. I was really impressed with -and grateful for- each of them. 

I was also very impressed with the professor, Alan. He is an extremely knowledgeable person with a natural aptitude for teaching. Always patient, courteous, and welcoming of questions, feedback and taking time to ask us if we all understood or were running into any problems. What really impressed me most about Alan, is how he would take a little bit of time at the start of each class to go beyond the curriculum and to challenge us with computer science coding challenges, to prepare us to think like computer scientists, and get us ready for the types of questions we would likely see in a coding interview, and explain the different ways to approach the problems, and how to think about them in terms of time complexity or memory management. It was well beyond what I expected from a web development course, and I found these lessons particularly rewarding. Alan has a knack for breaking down complex and abstract concepts into digestible bits and getting the class comfortable enough to try and collectively attempt a solution. *Protip* Always volunteer to try and solve the problems he presents, I noticed the students brave enough to attempt these problems retained information better and walked away with a more solid understanding. If he gives you the marker, get up there and give it your best effort. Go home and research the concepts further. JUST DO IT!  Get a whiteboard, for your house, and write important concepts, objectives, goals, and problem examples from class. This will force your brain to reconcile this new information on a daily basis. You will almost certainly see these types of coding challenges in job interviews, and they're abstract, and frustrating if you are not prepared.

After graduation, you'll be counseled by Brito, your career counselor, who is also a very cool, down-to-earth and knowledgeable person. He has some real wisdom to share about the interviewing process, how to construct your resume, and specifically tells you to reach out to him before accepting any job offers. I am really impressed with his insight and willingness to be supportive, helpful, and make sure you land a good starting job, well after graduation. 

Looking back I am extremely thankful to Ironhack and humbled to have had the opportunity to study with such an awesome class. Everyone from my classmates to the teachers, to the teacher's assistants, to the career counselor have all been an absolute pleasure to deal with. 

Also, I was blown away by the Ux/UI students. We (the web dev class) got a chance to work with them in the hackathon (which was a totally awesome experience) and they were very impressive. I legitimately wish I could go take their class as well because they absolutely blew my mind with their systematic methodology, creativity, and organized thought processes. They were amazing. I loved working with them. 

 So to wrap it up, I wholeheartedly recommended Ironhacks web development course. 110%. Actively participate, ask questions, be engaged, help classmates, keep a positive attitude and this bootcamp will be a life-changing event for you as it has been for me. 
 

There are life changing, self changing and thought changing experiences. If you're looking for a change in your life, Ironhack is the perfect place to do so.   I went to Ironhack not knowing what I was getting into. I was told it was like getting into a roller coaster and I didn't understand it until I was already in it.   You start each day blind, without any knowledge of how it'll end. You can be at the top of the roller coaster or in free fall, afraid for what's next. It's a must have adventure, that's for sure, there's no living the same experience anywhere else. That feeling of self-development you get after you finish Ironhack and see the HUGE adventure you've just went through and it's results. Everyone should do it.   It's like a little sect you don't want to get out of, even though you've just finished a course there is always something more to do, to learn, some new student to help and guide into his adventure. Ironhack is forever.   Tell me something and I might forget it. Teach me something and I'll remember it. Involve me and I'll learn it Ironhack style.   By: www.linkedin.com/in/aroaambroa

The best thing of all is the teachers. Our Lead Teacher Fabio is an amazing designer and connect very well with all of the students, he always goes beyond the learning units and sharing with us his experience and work. The support of the TAs is one of the keys of the bootcamp, they have all the knowledge and experience necessary to help us, together they create the perfect environment. 

Additionally, everyone involved in Ironhack are amazing, you have the opportunity to connect with all kinds of people and learn from everyone. 
I finish my experience growing up not only professional also personal.

If you have gone to college you will have noticed that when you finish it and go out into the real world you are more or less prepared just like you started it. That's why I would recommended the Ironhack Bootcamp.

I just finished the UX / UI course and it has been one of the best experiences in terms of teaching and learning. Being able to share this experience with people with all kinds of training is inspiring. Learning from any of them and sharing all our resources is one of the things that Ironhack promotes and is how you should always work in this design world.

 

Before I started this bootcamp, I was working in a TV Company , but I started to think about why people wanted certain things. I discovered UX/UI Designers, and I saw that they are a bridge between people and products. That's the reason I decided to do that bootcamp, I wanted to be that bridge.

I liked the agile methodologies and tools we learned because it's what I needed to learn to make the most of my job. In very little time you can do so much, in a week you learn about a problem in depth, see different solutions and validate them. It's amazing what you can do with Google sprint for example, it's useful in any situation. The way we worked was all about collaboration, we were all helping each other and in the end that made all of our projects. 

Teachers and teacher assistants were always looking out for us. They're their to test your limits and bring out your fullest potential, that's why they can be hard on you. They're hard on you because that's what you're going to experience in the real world, and I think Ironhack prepares you well for that. 

It is curious how the destiny of each one is woven based on the decisions that one takes in life, good or bad, and lead us to follow paths of success or failure that in the end will always be lessons that help us to form ourselves as beings human beings, pieces or enclaves in a society. In my particular case, immigrant and with more than 17 years previous working in the commercial area in Sales of Technology, having made the decision to invest in the training of Full Stack Web Development Boot Camp in Ironhack has meant a turning point in my career. And for me it has been precisely that: an investment in the future.

When I decided that I wanted to return to the roots of my studies (I'm an Computer Engineer) after so many years without writing a line of code, concerned only about selling products that in some cases I did not understand what they do, I started a search for a study system that I could obtain the necessary knowledge to go in search of a job in what many years ago was my livelihood and why not, my satisfaction. For this I enrolled in some basic PHP / Javascript courses with MySQL Database and an additional Oracle Database 12c course. But they were just that: basic courses. They gave me an aerial view of what Web development is in these times but they did not go deep enough to feel safe to go after a job in the development area.

And as in social networks there is nothing hidden (we know how the algorithms that make product suggestions work, learning our tastes and posting notices of topics that we have touched or visited previously) I saw in one of these networks, an advertising of a Full Stack Web training that caught my attention because of its content. It was not a simple computer course like other ones in the market. It was really a formal study where in two and a half months a good part of the tools, frameworks, methodologies, etc., would be covered for the development of Web applications. It described how we are going to go, from the basics to making applications that from a user's point of view were as complex as making calls to API's RestFUL of spatial geolocation to create technology trending Web applications. A walk through HTML, CSS3, Bootstrap, JavaScript, JQuery, JSON, NodeJS, Express, Ajax, Axios, Angular all this with MongoDB Database, alternating with continuous development tools such as GIT and project planning as Trello. I found it a challenge and as I said initially, an investment for my return to the area that brought me so much satisfaction. Of course, I did an exhaustive search of trainings of this type in Madrid to make a comparative table and I finally decided on Ironhack because it seemed to me the most complete of all the training I saw, in addition to the fact that I am very learning in person, to be near the instructor and surrounded by people who could ask for help to clarify doubts if that were the case. For this reason, I proceeded to write via email to the contact person that appeared in the promotion. The answer was immediate and I started the procedures to be able to register for the FULL STACK WEB DEVELOPMENT BOOT CAMP - FULL TIME JUNE 2018 training. Here the journey began.

Important to clarify that I did not have the money to do this training but here is another advantage that immediately allowed me to strengthen my decision. At Ironhack, they have two financial support institutions that could finance the training with the necessary flexibility to cover the costs. What more could I ask for!

Now, I went through a series of questions and qualification interviews to validate if I had the capacity to do this training and that they did not represent a problem for me to enter since I had the advantage of having studied Computer Engineering 25 years ago and something was left of the programmatic thinking. I went immediately to the Pre-Work, a series of exercises and activities to soak students with certain basic knowledge and thus start from the first day to learn everything necessary to carry these two and a half months of intensive training. And that's what it is, that's why the denomination of "Boot Camp". Let's understand the concept. Here you come to work. And work hard. Every day, from Monday to Friday and including several weekends, is hard work. Beginning with the fact that two exercises (or projects) are done daily. One in the form of pair-programming, which gives us the notion of what it is to work with a team, and the other project you work individually. And some of these exercises tend to be extensive which makes it difficult to finish without staying up late (my personal recommendation for those who register: do not get up late, seek to do what possible but put a limit on working hours because fatigue accumulates day after day and every day you will see important matter that requires attention and all the senses in it). And every two weeks there will be a large project (three in total) where you can practice what you have learned in the previous weeks. For this reason, if you feel that some of the concepts were not well learned, calm that in each project will have the opportunity to resume and apply these concepts.

It is true that many concepts are seen, but the learning methodology, being able to use continuous development tools such as GIT, working as a team in various exercises or projects, is basically what you face in real work environments. And for that they prepare you.

Another important point to note is the support and ongoing advice on human resources issues, where you will have sessions to improve your Linkedin profile (or create it for those who have not registered) and your résumé. As an anecdote, just changing some things in my profile, I got the first day two contacts of people looking for Web developers from England. These consultancies are worth their weight in gold and should be used as much as they are part of the Ironhack program that seeks to position their students in the labour market. And believe me, its work.

Finally, after two months and a week of continuous learning, Ironhack organizes a week called the "hiring week" where they invite a group of companies that will be validating your projects and interviewing students for possible work places to be filled with Boot Camp students. It is time to show your talents and you have a high chance of getting a job related to the topics seen. Particularly I had already gotten a job before this week so I did not attend and yet you have saved the opportunity to attend some future process if you wish.

Finally, it must be understood that Ironhack, besides being a learning academy, is also a community. A community where events are constantly being published where you can review trends, new technologies or simply have an invitation to spend a Friday evening with friends with some beers. As a member of this community you can call to give a talk to new students about your experience, how to handle the stress of the activities, or simply accompany a new student under the figure of "buddy" in order to listen and advise how to carry The Boot Camp to these new members.

Ironhack has been an experience, an investment that has paid off and allowed me to reinsert myself into the technical world, something that fills me with satisfaction. It was a total good experience in which a made a good friends and contacts in a web partners that for sure, is going to be maintained for years.

 

Jesús Martínez

www.linkedin.com/in/jesus-martinez-alvarez

 

I've recently finished the MEAN stack 9-week bootcamp in Madrid with no previous coding experience and, let me say, what a blast! There are certain things I think they don't make more of an emphasis when you sign up for the full time bootcamp, 90% of which can boil down the the following warning: it's really intense. Drop-everything-else-you're-doing intense. Self-doubt-inducing intense. This worked in my favor which is why you don't see this listed as a con but that can be unhelpful for people that are making plans to continue working/studying or that simply appreciate or thrive in a slower-paced learning environment.  

 

Pros

• The team, both educational and administrative, is really fun to be around and work to make sure you get that family vibe. Sometimes it feels borderline cult-like but the social outcome is nice. 
• The student environment I found very enriching specifically because of the variety of backgrounds found among us. Our group had a number of people with experience and a few with none and which made for a great learning experience.
• Support in the job search. Even when it's not the outcomes manager posting, there's a thread in the Slack with offers coming in at all times.

Cons

• Not the world's most organized or punctual bunch. 
• We didn't touch React, which we were asked about during our hiring week so I felt that was a massive disservice to us (but did, strangely enough, have the time for an introduction to Docker the day before the presentation of our last projects). This has since been changed in the curriculum but I'm still salty about it.

In this review, I aim to provide an honest account of my experiences as a student in Ironhack’s April - June 2018 cohort in Miami, FL. I chose to wait until after I had been out of the course and in a job for a while before reflecting on my experience and evaluating how well Ironhack prepared me for what I am currently doing.   My Ironhack Experience:   Application:     I did a great deal of research within a small period of time before applying, going through the interview process and leaving my previous employer to join Ironhack. Like many other students, I decided on Ironhack because of the curriculum, the reputation of Brito as an Outcomes Manager, and the reputation of their lead instructor Nizar, however, when the cohort started I learned that we would have a new instructor, Nick, an Ironhack graduate. When I registered for this course many of my classmates and I was under the impression that Nizar would be our teacher who I understood was someone with years of real world experience and was the primary reason for all the great reviews about Ironhack. I decided about three weeks before the cohort started to join in April which was just enough time before it was too late. The coding challenges and pre-work used the same online portal which contained their learning modules. Once I got the learning material I had to get them done within the one week I had before the cohort started so I worked that week on the online material full time to get ready for the first week. I cannot stress how important it is for you to really focus on the pre-work and understand the meaning behind what it is that you are going to be learning and do further research when necessary. If at any point you find yourself questioning whether or not this is for you, take time away from the problems you are having and come back to it with a fresh perspective. This is a habit you should try to incorporate in your learning as you are working with abstract concepts you haven’t been exposed to yet or are re-learning. It's really easy to get frustrated when you are first starting out which causes some students to drop out of the cohort before it really has time to start.   Curriculum / Lectures / Projects:     The first week is spent developing a browser game which when I initially signed up sounded like a lot of fun, and at times it was, however, I do not feel that it fits the curriculum when considering how much better the time could be spent. I would recommend spending more time to focus on the fundamentals, working collaboratively (git-flow), and more time on coding challenges/interview prep.     Many of the examples within the modules when learning these new concepts were essentially the same which made it harder to grasp some of the concepts we were going over. A large portion of information, direction, and dependencies for the labs and lectures were out of date or not set up properly. Some learning modules were skipped altogether and a lot of time was wasted on bugs that can be avoided if the lecture notes and labs were updated or reviewed by the instructor before the lecture for the day began. I was also having a hard time grasping these concepts when I was encouraged to just copy paste what was in the modules to do my labs and my projects instead of thinking it though.     There was a sudden change the day before the final project weeks started where our cohort was preparing to put together their individual projects for our personal portfolios and then it was announced that we would be working in groups for the last project. We were not told from the beginning that we were to take into consideration that we would be working on the final project in pairs or groups of three. We were never taught best practices dealing with version control and how to go about working with multiple people on a project at the same time. The brief overview that we had on collaborative git practices lasted less than 30 minutes and didn't even cover how to deal with merge conflicts or common errors that would come up in collaborative scenarios.     Our instructor Nick was gone during the second to last week which was one of the most important weeks of our cohort. The majority of people in the course have been stuck on the same issue which dealt with having a login session persist across views in Angular. The only example we have to go off of was incomplete because of all of the bugs we ran into the week before Nick left and the TA’s were not able to figure out how to resolve the issue. If the Ironhack staff knew that he was going to be out during this important week that should have arranged for a substitute or have prepared the TAs to take over the curriculum for the week. The TAs would only be able to help to a certain extent until they are unsure of how to proceed due to their lack of experience and we're left to wait in line to be assisted by Nick, however that week we did not have the option so there was a great deal of lost time. My group members and I should not have been feeling the need to pay by the minute on tutoring websites like Hackhands and to make up for the lack of education we had received to get our project done in time.   Learning Environment:     I can’t speak for other cohorts, but the April 2018 cohort was fantastic. Everyone got along really well and we all still keep in touch with one another regularly post-graduation. Building.co is a fantastic workspace. Free beer, coffee, fruit, snacks, and there are plenty of good options for eating in the area. My only criticism is that Building.co can get a bit cramped at times as far as private areas for studying and meetings go, but that’s expected considering it’s a co-working space.  The TAs were incredibly helpful throughout the cohort. Shoutout to Sandra for always staying far later than she needed to help us with our projects throughout the cohort. I’m sure I speak for all of my classmates when I say that we wouldn’t have been able to achieve what we did without the support of the TAs. Brito also brought in some great guest speakers and organized a panel of alumni to come to talk to us about their post-graduate experiences.   Career Week:     Career Week is the most important week you will at Ironhack. The content during this week is crucial to your job search and should be followed to the letter if you plan on getting hired and will be applicable beyond entry-level job searches. If you haven’t heard of or really considered Career Week as a selling point for your investment in an experience at Ironhack I would highly encourage you to reconsider and look at some of the companies that Ironhack is partnered with and the companies that graduates like myself are currently working at. Career week is a fantastic opportunity where companies come to Ironhack in order to interview graduates in a "speed dating” fashion. You get to meet with many companies, and if you are inexperienced with interviewing like I was at the time, it may help you to get over the nervousness of being in an interview. If you've read any of the other reviews on this site or other sites about Ironhack Miami I'm sure that you have read or heard the name Daniel Brito or Brito for short. Brito is the Outcomes Manager, and it is his responsibility to work towards partnerships with companies and bring them in to meet potential graduates as candidates for entry-level jobs. He’s one of the most connected people in the Miami tech scene and has your best interests in mind. Ironhack would not be the same without his efforts. He was one of the most supportive people throughout the entire cohort and has continued to help me after graduation and reach out to me to see how my new job is going.    Post-Graduation / Job Search:     I received my job offer from CareCloud, one of the companies that came to our hiring fair, about a month and a half after the cohort ended. However, do not place all your bets on getting a job from one of the companies that come to career week, this would be a huge mistake. Brito will be there every step of your job search from interview to offer letter as long as you follow the guidelines and strategies that he goes into detail about throughout the week. Never stop coding during your search, it’s important to keep your committing to new projects and continuing your learning so that you have something to show employers what you’ve been doing with your time since graduation. If you lose your motivation to teach yourself after the cohort is over you’re going to have a very hard time finding a good job.   Overall, I would recommend Ironhack to someone looking to make a career change, however, I would also like to see many things improved as it continues to grow. I felt that my cohort was disorganized and that there was a serious lack of curriculum preparation. I did not see efforts made to improve the quality of our experience throughout the cohort's duration although we were giving them feedback every few weeks. I was not satisfied with how my education at Ironhack turned out at the time of graduation. I went through career week and then graduated lacking the confidence in my skill set necessary to get through a real technical interview. The weeks following graduation I spent all my time working on projects and learning React which I knew would help me stand out more when looking for a job while reinforcing JavaScript fundamentals and applying to jobs using Brito's advice.   I am currently writing up an accompanying article for this review that I hope will fill in any other gaps for those who are looking into or graduating from Ironhack and boot camps like it which will include helpful resources that I used before, during and after my boot camp experience that helped me get my new job at CareCloud.   Feel free to add me on LinkedIn or shoot me a message on the Ironhack Slack channel with any questions or comments that you may have.   Best, Ryan Martin