Actualize

Before choosing a coding bootcamp to invest in, I researched extensively the variety of options that are out there - I am so glad to have settled on Actualize. The folks at Actualize have carefully put together a curriculum that is digestible and effective. It is a lot of content in a short period of time, so the syllabus was designed to cover material quickly but not to overwhelm. I had very little coding experience before starting this course, and that was A-okay - our lead instructor Dani, and the TAs alike, were there to support when we inevitably got stuck and challenge when we were on the right path. I was a little fearful to take the course online as I am someone who enjoys learning in-person, but that fear was lifted when the online format proved to feel like we were all in the room together. As a graduate, I look forward to utilizing their excellent, integrated career support, as well as connecting with their rapidly-growing alumni network. I am so grateful for my time at Actualize. If you're looking for a coding bootcamp that is challenging, engaging, and achievable - look no further. 

Early into 2020, I was laid off from my current job and decided it was time for a change. I had an interest in computers and programming that I had ignored for a long time, and I decided it was time to do something with that interest. During the pandemic, I knew online courses would be the only way to operate, so I landed on Actualize after being recommended by an Alumni and after speaking to admissions at the school about their already well-established online curriculum. It was an exciting choice, but nothing could have prepared me for how amazing the course would actually be! Personally, I am someone who has struggled in the past with staying motivated with my education, but this course was SO engaging. I had a very, very minor history with CS from my time in college, so the pre-work was a great refresher and more, but I'm confident that anyone could work through the pre-work and learn the basics necessary. Once the course is under way, the lessons are paced very well, and the lessons stack day after day in a very cohesive manner until you get a few weeks in and realize you can do some really cool stuff! By week 9-10, you will have more skills than you even realize until you start building an entire app from front to back and get to see all those skills in action. My cohort was instructed by Dani who was incredible! Clearly experienced and knowledgable, she taught the course well, and her enthusiasm and demeanor throughout the entire course took it up another notch. Class time was always engaging, always rewarding, and help was always a quick question away. If you are considering an online bootcamp to switch up your career or learn some valuable skills for your current one, I don't think you can make a better choice than Actualize!

Actualize was the best experience and choice I have ever made. I previously attended another bootcamp and realized the learning style wasn't for me. Actualize provides students consistent assistance and support from start to finish, including the pre-work portion! Dani and all the TA's want to see you succeed and will do whatever possible to make that happen. I was nervous I wouldn't be as successful with the online course as opposed to the in-person course but my fears quickly diminished after Day 1.  This bootcamp is definitely friendly for anyone without coding experience but not too slowly passed for someone that knows the basics. 

Actualize has been one of my best life experiences to date. If you are wondering if this is a group you can trust with educating and guiding you, I can respond with a resounding "Yes!" I am writing as someone from a completely different industry field with some self-taught experience of HTML/CSS in the past. When comparing this to the sheer amount of technical know-how I have received in these short months, the results are astounding.

I believe any learning program will equip you with not just outspoken technical knowledge, but also with an inner mindset - an approach and culture of how to tackle problems, and even your belief in your ability to do so. I feel some programs only do well in challenging that  belief with the goal of "weeding out" students. Instead, Actualize is a program that draws out that inner-belief. After all, it began with the name "Anyone Can Learn to Code". And I am happy to say that this mindset continues among how it leads students today. 

The coursework is challenging, but is never overwhelming thanks to the support of instructors and other students. Never did I feel that help was unavailable or that instructors were uninterested. The teaching  accommodates students of different work backgrounds and learning styles. I found the class to be professional in handling subject matter, but also very friendly in our normal day to day. The faculty must have graduated hundreds of students before, but they are always fascinated in seeing you grow. 

For the online program, students can expect 5 hours of class time and up to 1 - 2 hours of homework per day, depending on the subject difficulty. I found that I was freely practicing more to solidify what I learned. Yet I did not have to give up my entire life and values to make it through. Yes, they expect you to have a weekend away from the computer. Still, for the best experience, I would highly recommend bootcamp students to make this one of their few priorities, but if you absolutely must work part-time during the process, I could see that being a possibility. Please talk to faculty first! 

As a testament to the program's effectiveness, some student family members who were also tech industry professionals viewed our livestream of  capstone project presentations. Even they were impressed by what the students had completed from start to finish. Furthermore, the program gives a wealth of knowledge and support in the job searching process - a process that begins during the bootcamp months and continues for some time after. It is a well designed program that offers incredible support. I've only seen great things from Actualize, and I can continue to expect great things from the people who dedicate so much of themselves for others' learning and well-being. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about the program. 

I graduated college in 2018 with a finance degree and immediately started to work at a large financial institution. I always had an interest in various fields in technology, but never took the time to thoroughly explore the possibilities of a career within tech. During the two years I worked in finance, I started to dabble in various analytical tools such as VBA, Tableau, and Python. I was blown away by their abilities to automate and facilitate the work I was doing. At this point I had to follow this newly found passion. 

Towards the end of my 2nd year out of college, I knew I wanted make a career transition into software development. I began looking for coding bootcamps, taking into consideration the recommendations of friends and reviewers from sites like this one. Until I came across Actualize. What caught my eye with them was their message that they promise to teach you how to think like an engineer. With an emphasis on learning how to approach difficult problems, and how to pick up new skills with ease, they break down the barriers that seem so impassable when you first delve into the world of coding. 

From the very beginning of the course, our amazing instructor Dani worked to mold our mindset to be one that approaches challenges with confidence. It was clear that she was not only a very skilled developer, but also incredibly passionate and skilled as an educator. It is as if the core message of Actualize that I previously mentioned (to teach you to think like a developer) is embodied within her. Anytime we had trouble grasping a concept, Dani helped us to figure it for ourselves. In my opinion, this is the most valuable ability an educator can have. The ability to empower their students with confidence that leads them to answer their own questions, no matter what they may be. 

For career counseling, we worked with Lisa. Like Dani, Lisa is very passionate about educating her students, and pushes you to take control of your own destiny. Lisa gives you the tools to succeed and shows you how to use them properly. All thats left between you and success is effort. Like many things in life, securing a software development gig is something that you have to put 100% into in order to achieve it. However, if you do your part, I'm certain that Lisa will be by your side, coaching you through all of it. And you will be that much more successful because of it.

At the conclusion of this course you will not be able to solve insane algorithms problems in 5 minutes, or build the next big social media platform from memory. However, you will have the ability to teach yourself anything, as well as the mindset to reach any goal you desire. I 100% recommend Actualize to anyone who wants to become software developer.

First off, some context: I graduated from college in 2015 and I had known that I wanted to transition into a tech career from business/marketing for about four years prior to enrolling in Actualize's online program. Actualize was a school I applied to among several others when I was looking at potential bootcamp options in January of 2020. I'll link that list here, if you want to view it: https://www.coursereport.com/best-coding-bootcamps

Now, what made me choose Actualize was a few things.

Staff of Educators
First off, something that had stuck out to me was that during my first call with them, it was stressed to me that their staff are unique in that they are not only experts at coding, but also skilled at teaching the concepts and educating students. This emphasis on the staff being educators wasn't something I was hearing from other bootcamps, but this was a big differentiator.

Sometimes in school, I've taken a class where the professor was really good at the subject but couldn't communicate it to others who didn't know how to do it; if you've ever been in that situation, that was what I was avoiding and I can confirm that Actualize's staff are very good at breaking down complicated concepts through their material and course.

Course Structure (Online)
The second reason I chose Actualize was their course's structure; in January, I was informed that because I was based in Dallas, I would have to take the class online (unless I moved to Chicago). Originally, I was really dead-set on taking a class in person, but by the time March 2020 rolled around...everything was closing anyway because of the pandemic. Still, I couldn't shake my instincts; even before the pandemic, Actualize was such a strong choice for me and my only hesitation was the online structure.

In response, Actualize was very transparent in answering all of my questions beforehand; I was able to join in-class to observe an online lecture and talk to the instructor for that lesson afterwards and get any questions answered. This transparency and ability to sit-in and see how the online class went made me more comfortable with the idea of going online, though the pandemic completely wiping out my chances of doing in-person anywhere also played a role in my decision. I understand this is a unique case, but I will vouch for Actualize's online and say that in my experience, they had proven their ability to deliver the material online just as effectively as they would in person.

Career Resources
Additionally, I was able to talk to their career advisor in two different calls where she helped me by letting me know how the class worked and emphasizing Actualize's career focus - which, after taking the class, I actually found to be better than anything in my 4-year university's offerings. Another thing I want to say is that none of these resources just "go away" after you graduate. Applying for jobs happens way earlier in the course, too, and every week the course has a built-in career aid to assist you in being in the mindset of getting hired. There's a real-world value in the course offering this that I wasn't seeing from other schools.

If you take Actualize, you'll have 5 weeks of pre-work to get you ready with programming basics, 12 weeks of class (mine was 11am-4pm everyday with a few hours of homework), and a post-graduate structure built around student success (including coding sessions to help students continue to build their portfolio out).

After taking the course, I can say that my experience was pretty good, especially in respect to the "educator" edge that Actualize informed me of; my cohort had a lead instructor and 3 TA's, with office hours after class every Tuesday and Thursday; sometimes, TA's would stay in office hours longer to help students figure things out. I'd say another plus, Actualize makes an effort to get each cohort a better experience than the one before it, so keep that in mind, too - they shift with the times. After every cohort graduates, Actualize asks what can be done to make the course better: I weighed in with that, too, so if you're reading this way after 2020...just know that they've likely just continued to refine their course for students.

Who Would I Recommend Actualize To?
My Actualize cohort had about 14 students in it and was fully online. I'd recommend Actualize to anyone in Chicago who'd be able to take the course in person (once it's available again). If you need to go online, Actualize is a very strong contender to go with - especially because their staff have that educator approach that is a necessity for learning, especially one in the online setting.

Before starting my course at Actualize, I had worked with HTML, CSS, Wordpress, and JS. If you have any kind of background in coding, this course is a great way to build those skills out and learn the bigger world these languages live in. If you don't, it's okay, but I will say it's like anything...the more experience you have doing something, the less of a shell-shock it will be. Nonstop learning/Googling your answers is your friend, being a developer is just knowing you won't know everything and not minding that, it's just constant and continuous growth. That's part of the "growth mindset" that Actualize really wants you to get into. If you're comfortable with this and know that tech is where you want to be, this course is for you.

On Jobs

• You'll use and learn Github in this course. Computer science majors are not learning this in universities, but this is a required skill for working anywhere as a developer. 
• This course is less computer science theory, more "doing" the code - it's all repetition, but conceptual understanding is actually really heavily hit on, too. 
• There's a "2 week lag" where you may not 100% understand new material until about 2 weeks after, as you catch up to everything. 
• You'll build/present a capstone app by the end of the course (needs to have a database, backend, and frontend). It's really cool to pull all of what you do together. 
• There is technical interview prep sessions in this course - if you want to start preparing right now, go onto Hackerrank.com and make an account, technical interviewers pull their questions from it. 
• There's a whole world of jobs out there: backend, frontend, full-stack, UI/UX design, these skills you'll learn will make you worth the interviewing, but be really aggressive applying for jobs anyway. Focus on that portfolio. 
• Nothing should be taken for granted. A job can't be guaranteed, but hey, employment can't be guaranteed after you find a job, either, it's just part of the game. What I will say is, this course is a great place to go to get in the right mindset for chasing your tech dreams - and there's people who change careers for this field without doing a bootcamp like this, so just look at this as a really great resource because that's what it is. 
• Your Linkedin account will help you out a lot, their career support is there to help you. There's a very extensive career support program that is a part of the course, again - it is so much more extensive than what my 4-year college had. That, in combination with the coding/Github practice, it really good. 

A former co-worker told me about Actualize, and because it's in Chicago, I was super excited to take an in-person class... until COVID hit, of course. With only the online option remaining, I was admittedly pretty hesitant about the prospect of taking an online course for weeks on end, and that's because of how much I value the communal feel of a brick-and-mortar classroom experience. But Actualize immediately wiped that apprehension away.

The five weeks of self-guided pre-work (focused on Ruby) were thoughtfully and effectively scaffolded, and the live instruction that followed took that torch and ran with it. Our fearless instructor, Dani, was terrific: highly knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and humorous. And she did what all great teachers do: She let us make our own mistakes and learn from them. And then (after a brief, playful scolding), she'd guide us toward a better way of solving whatever problem we were trying to solve.

With Actualize, much like with any kind of intensive learning experience, you get out of it what you put into it. And from the beginning of the live coursework, Actualize provides a bunch of "deep dive" exercises (in addition to "regular" homework) that offer students the opportunity to put in that additional time and effort and get introduced to new concepts.

As an Actualize student, you won't become a master in every relevant, cutting-edge tool or concept, because that's impossible in 17 weeks. But you'll learn how to learn, and you'll become confident about your ability to pick up new languages and frameworks. In the software engineering world, that seems like an awfully important lesson, and one which Actualize has succeeded in imparting (with flying colors).

I needed to choose a coding bootcamp so that I can receive help on the basics of coding and develop projects while under the bootcamps supervision. I needed a guiding hand to point me into the right direction for my career. I choose Actualize not only so that I can acquire coding skills, but to also help me with getting a job within the industry. Actualize helped both improve my coding skills and gave me tips in the right direction of how to acquire a coding job. They also helped me with getting pass some of my issues and habits that I have been struggling with when looking for a job. For anyone who is unsure of themselves and need a hand in the right direction for their coding careers, Actualize is a great starting point to get pass the fears of job searching and wall of seemingly high learning curve.

I enrolled in this bootcamp after I went to observe a class. That was the first thing that stood out to me about this program. The fact that they were unafraid to welcome you in to observe their classroom was unique during my bootcamp search. I was impressed by the passion, knowledge, and patience of the instructor Peter and when I heard that he was teaching the next cohort, I made sure to sign up. I was not disappointed because he expressed the same level of energy and interest in my cohort as he did in the previous one I went to observe. The full-stack approach to web development is evident in their curriculum and they teach you the fundamentals to go on and explore other tech stacks and feel confident about going forward into the job-hacking portion of the bootcamp. I loved the career counselor Lisa's great job-hacking tips that she shared with us on Sundays and I'm excited for this next phase of the program that will dedicate 100% focus to landing a job and further building your portfolio with group projects. They stick with you throughout and that's important, especially if you are new to the tech field or looking to level up!