Actualize

After spending about a year not making much progress with books and tutorials, I was in need of a real teacher and mentor who could personally guide and teach me how to code. Actualize was a bootcamp that stood out the most, because of its teaching expertise. Once the bootcamp began I was constantly surprised how everything was already prepared and laid out in every step of the way conquer any challenge that I might face. All the concerns that I had before starting the bootcamp was already thought out and solved in advance by the designer of the curriculum. Also by the help of the amazing job hacking program, I am now interviewing for jobs that I could only dream about before. I truly thank Actrualize for opening the door to an exciting career in software engineering. 

When I was deciding on a coding bootcamp to enroll in I really wanted to make sure that the online course I pick was personable and at a pace that I could handle. The reviews for Actualize really emphasized how it was a small group where there is a lot of one on one interaction with the instructor and TAs. Overall I definitely loved the pace and when I needed more clarification or help the instructor and TAs were phenomenal at making sure I grasp and understand the concept in a way that I could understand coding. I highly recommend taking this course if you are a frist time coder like me. 

I was attracted to Actualize because of the great reviews that were left by the students. It was facinating to hear about the amazing experiencing and learning opportunities that received by the staff. I have never been challenged as much as Actualize has challenged me in my life. Peter, the instructor taught me how to believe in myself and pushed me beyond my limits. He taught me how to look at problem solving at whole different level. Actualize not only teaches you how to code, but they also teach you how to do well in job interviews. They really take the time to prepare you for the tech interviews. Because of this I was able to get my first offer as a Software Engineer on the date of graduation. I would highly recommend actualize to anyone who is ready to be challenged and is open to learn at a whole different level.

Found this place after extensive searching for Chicago area bootcamps. The curriculum seemed aggressive and a challenge in terms of scope and time, which is my preference. The course was an excellent introduction to full-stack development and you will definitely pick up the skills needed to fully build a web app from scratch, with all of the usual features such as user authentication, database building and querying, front-end and back-end communication, etc. And perhaps more importantly, the foundation this course lays provides an excellent springboard to learn other web development and mobile app development frameworks.

I had an amazing experience with Actualize. the lead instructor, Brian, was incredibly knowledgable, quick to help, and was excellent at leading the way to the solution without giving it away. Our TA's Cory and Josh, also recent Actualize grads were outstanding and a tremondous resources for all of us. Lisa, was able to provide us with awesome career advice as to how to obtain a job after graduation and provided us with tons of resources to help us be successful. Lastly, our pre-work instruction, Kevin, did an excellent job laying the ground work for us before we hit the ground running for the next four months. 

All in all it was a great experience and I feel as though I am prepared to take the next step and even made a few friends. I started receiving interviews with a month left in class and have no doubt my next adventure is around the corner. 

My journey with Actualize begins in the Summer of 2018. I was living in New Orleans and had just left my job as a teacher in a local public school. I knew I was going to make a career change into tech and I was strongly leaning towards a bootcamp setting. I researched dozens of options and finally settled on Actualize. I think it's important to be weary of too many promises of 'job placement rates' and when I talked to Actualize's representative on the phone, she spent time with me going over the support offered to students post-bootcamp rather than trying to reel me in with stats that seem too good to be true. 

I moved to Chicago and began the prework section in December of 2018. Actualize prefaces their courses with five weeks of at-your-own-pace prework to help students become familiar with programming fundamentals. While I was enrolled in this phase, there were some curriculum updates in-process and while parts of the lessons seemed disjointed, there were ample opportunities to meet with someone via video conference to go over questions and content. Kevin was extremely knowledgeable and helpful. He also took time to gather feed back on the prework experience to continue improving the material for future cohorts. 

I elected to take the class portion of my bootcamp remotely from home, so that I could continue to work fulltime to support myself. Remote classes are offered either on a daytime or nighttime schedule. Dani, our instructor was highly qualified and very invested in our learning. We also had two TAs available to help us with exercises. The class covers a variety of full stack languages and is designed to ensure student understanding of how web applications work. 

From the very beginning of the prework portion of the class, a huge emphasis is placed on career counceling called 'Job Hacking'. Actualize employs a Career Advisor named Lisa who works closely with students even beyond the completion of their cohort to find, apply, and negotiate jobs. 

At the completion of my cohort, I apply to become a TA for the next class of students, while continuing my own job search for a full time position. Through their career services programs, I found short term work with Girls Who Code, (a nonprofit that offers coding classes to young women across America) and from that found work with a local branch of a global tech company. The support I received from Acualize was unparalleled and I'm eternally grateful for the opportunity to study and work with them. I can't recommend their program highly enough. 

I chose Actualize because I was actually recommended to come here from an alumni. However, after researching Actualize and reviews; I really liked how I could attend my full time job and aferwards attend a part time coding bootcamp class. That was really hard to find, along with good reviews. I like how Actualize has a structured class room setting, which really helped me understand the basics throughly as opposed to other coding bootcamps I've heard of. I like that they take the time to lecture you and then you are able to apply in class. Not only is there an instructor teaching you, but there are TA's to assist you with any questions you may have during the lecture. Also, it is awesome how we do career hacking for an hour or two every Sunday class.  I can go on and on why Actualize was the best decision I've made, but you will not regret it. I came from a Finance background, no knowledge in coding just basic HTML/CSS, and I was able to learn all the coding basic in 15 weeks and build a pretty cool app. Thank you Actualize, and specifically Peter who was my instructor. 

I just graduated from a night time cohort at Actualize and I highly recommend the program if you are interested in coding.  I had no coding experience beforehand, and by the end I was able to make an app with multiple languages and APIs.  They do a great job at teaching you how to learn languages, so that after the bootcamp you can go on to learn another language on your own.  They also have a "job hacking" program with an advisor that helps with resume, job search,etc. I highly recommend this program.

I attended Actualize Coding Bootcamp in Chicago in the evenings in 2018 while working full-time in a client facing role at a tech company during the day. I was hired as a software engineer apprentice at a great company 2.5 months after I graduated from bootcamp. I had 3 final round interviews.

My instructor Peter Jang was fantastic and he knew how to keep our class engaged and excited even when we were overwhelmed. He provided a "2-week" philosophy that showed us that even when we were learning something brand new in 2 weeks it would be second nature to us. We saw this become a reality and trusted the process. The class started with work the terminal and git. Moved to APIs, back-end development with Ruby on Rails. We then focused on vanilla javascript and then learned front-end frameworks. Our cohort focused specifically on Vue.js and then after the class a few of us got together to continue working on a React Native App.

The final project of the class was a capstone project of our choice. This is the type of project that can vary. If you chose to and have time outside of class you can make a complex app but if you wanted to stick to something smaller you can still show off you knowledge of modern programming technologies. I really enjoyed working on my app and it was a great conversation topic in interviews. I modeled my app after something already existed and ended up getting a final interview with the company that my app was based on!

On Sundays throughout the bootcamp there was a career curriculum. This helped us work on our resume and encouraged us to network with devs. I received 2 interviews as a direct result of networking meetings several weeks after the meetings occurred. They encouraged us to start networking early long before we were ready to interview so that when roles come up you already have had a conversation and be on people's minds. Networking is what you make it and you can do more or less depending on your personality. The bootcamp encouraged us to have confidence in this process but didn't directly help us make connections.

Before I decided to attend Actualize I highly considered General Assembly and Grace Hopper at Fullstack Academy. I was not in the position to be without a job and was thrilled when I found Actualize since it was evenings and weekends. I attended without knowing anyone who attended and just from reading reviews and shadowing a class. It took my 2 years from when I started thinking about it to actually enrolling but in that 2 years I did Fullstack Academy's prep in a month (highly encourage this) and I did many different free code academy courses, free code camp problems and watched a lot of Whatsdev videos on youtube.

Overall Actualize is amazing experience if you are someone who will put in the extra effort to network and tell your story. The career development can guide you but it's not going to get you a job. There are several people in my cohort who are still looking for jobs. The role I took was from applying online via LinkedIn and I did not have a connection. It's all random and there's no clear way to get a job. Being authentic and having a lot to talk about, even if it's about what you don't know is great.

Actualize was a life changing experience and I highly recommend it!