BrainStation

If you're reading this review then Wyncode is for you, and I'll tell you why. You know how to google, you have a passion for software development, and you know that the path less travelled by may be the path for you. 

Short review 

Wyncode is amazing because believe it or not they actually undersell themselves. I went to Wyncode expecting to leave knowing how to make a basic web application and get a steady job. What I actually got was, a network of peers and hiring partners, life long friendships, an amazing experience, a person who dedicates their entire day and night to getting you a job once your 9 weeks are over, connections with people all over the Miami tech scene and so much more. I went in skeptical and worried like most. I left confident, educated, well connected, and most importantly, after only 1 interview, hired. Wyncode did everything they promised me and more. I am Alberto Galvez, Pitchday winner, full-stack web developer and currently working at CareCloud.

Long review

My name is Alberto Galvez, I was born in the island of Cuba which I immigrated from when I was 4 years old. I've always loved computers and computer programming. I like probably most people who share my passion have read all the tutorials, seen all the videos and still didn't know how to connect the dots between writing code for the sake of writing code or writing code to actually build something. So being 19 years old and wanted a career in development, I had a choice on my hand, go to college like all my friends, spend 4 years of my life learning information I'll never use and spending tens of thousands of dollars just to get a pretty piece of paper that a lot of employers in the tech space don't really care for or go to Wyncode, spend just 9 weeks of my time and only a fraction of the money for REAL education. The type you can us to start a company, create an application, or join a software development company with. The choice for me was easy, and to help make yours just as easy, I'll tell you how my 9 weeks went.

My experience started once I finally made the jump and talked with admittance over the phone. It was an amazingly pleasant interview, so much so that I actually became friends with the person that interviewed me over the 9 weeks. Once my financials were in order, as I opted for the 1 thousand up front fee and a 9 thousand dollar loan, I was given access to pre-work. This is one of those times when they undersell themselves, they gave me a weeks worth of work for free. It had me do everything from setting up my computer, to actually getting a jump on the class. Then once the course actually started we didn't just get stuffed with information right from the start. They hold your hand into it. Ed, the head instructor, starts off the program by teaching the history of programming and other information that will slowly but surely help you understand and get into the flow of the class before he start actually teaching the core subjects. This is also the week they take everyone out to eat on Friday, so that you can reflect on the first week as well as meet other Wyncode alum. The fun doesn't end there you get a calendar full of social tech event you can go to as well as Wyncode events (like go-carting).

From that point on you'll learn object orientated programming and as well as syntax and build a few applications. By week 5, you'll be tired, maybe discouraged, and a little unsure if you're actually learning. This is the time that family and friends night comes around and they give you the seemingly impossible task of creating an application with 2 other people. At which point people start coming in extra early and leaving extra late, but as you work on this project you realize you've learned so much more than you thought you did. It's an amazing experience when you walk on the stage and show all your skeptical parents and friends that you actually do have something to show for those past 5 weeks. Once that's over you'll start learning more advanced things, like how to use params and databases. Soon, without your realizing it. Pitchday comes around. 

At the start of week 7, everyone gets a chance to stand in front of the class and pitch their best idea to everyone. Everyone votes individually on who's idea they like and with that info the Wyncode staff sets you up in a team of 3. At this point you have 2 weeks to design, build and prepare a presentation for your app idea. This is really fun because every team gives it their all to make the best app they can and claim the 1 thousand dollar prize and the title of 'Pitchday winner'. At the actual event you have a chance to meet and mingle with hiring partners, local business leaders, and other developers. Once everyone has presented their app to the panel of judges made up of very important business leaders and/or developers then they decide who wins based on several criteria, such as innovation, difficulty and quality of pitch.

My pitch was called 'Logoit', my team and I were the first to create a fully native android app that connected with a web server. We were also the first w]Wyncoders to implement augmented reality and image recognition seamlessly in real time. Our app helped businesses make their printed media interactive. We were able to accomplish our seemingly impossible app with the tools and technologies learned at Wyncode. We proved that with only 9 weeks of experience you can make something that can change the world. We won Pitchday, and I was hired almost immediately by one of the judges on the panel. My teammates and I also get a 1000 dollar cash prize. 

Once Pitchday is over and you have finished your 9 weeks, they don't just throw you out on the street. Now you have about 2 weeks of pre-prepared interviews (they call then wynterviews) with local hiring partners that have, in most cases, hired other Wyncoders in the past. If those companies aren't to your liking you also have access to a huge network of past Wyncoders some who have become business leaders or influential people in their companies and can help get you hired. They give you almost unlimited support until you find your first job and Rita, the hiring director, will help you with everything from setting up your resume to how to wear a tie (she actually tied my tie once). 

My experience at Wyncode wasn't unique, I shared it with all of my fellow Wyncoders and continue to go back and talk to the staff and program with friends I made throughout the course. I left Wyncode with a strong foundation in web development, lasting friendships, and I am currently employed and soon to have the title software engineer without having stepped a foot a inside a college classroom. If you want to look at it in numbers i spent 10 thousand dollars and got the same monetary result if I would have gone to college and spent 40 thousand dollars. If you want to look at it as a learning experience, I learned how to use current industry standard technologies, like Ruby On Rails, JavaScript, and GIT, in a real world setting as well as learning methodologies currently used in todays modern companies, such as Agile and Lean. 

If you are serious about being part of the growing Miami tech scene, then Wyncode is your best choice for the following reasons:

- Great curriculum (content), constantly changing: The program is built with a full stack approach, meaning that by the time you leave you have enough knowledge and practice to create working web applications. The languages taught (Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, HTML, CSS) are extremely popular and hence your skills are very marketable. After every cohort, Wyncode staff gather feedback and improves the content and format for the next cohort, so you are jumping on an evolving curriculum updated to the latest trends and needs.

- Students own their program: Every week, Wyncode staff listen to students’ suggestions on what to improve for next week. Nothing is set on stone, the students own their bootcamp and adapt it as it goes on. Obviously, everything is done democratically and suggestions need to be reasonable.

- Super savvy instructors and TAs: The lead teacher, Ed Toro, is an MIT-grad who knows just about everything there is to know in development and tech. He is a wealth of knowledge and an incredible storyteller as he integrates historical and philosophical remarks throughout the course. He is supported by a number of TAs, all of them very smart and eager to help out. You will never feel like you are all alone in this.

- Vast, Growing Alumni Network: The Wyncode family is extremely supportive and open to helping out other Wyncoders. After graduation and after hiring, you will still be connected on a daily-basis, be it via Slack channels, alumni events, or happy hour, with this ever-growing community of bright individuals spread throughout the Miami startup scene.

- Strongest Hiring Partner Network: Where Wyncode truly shines is in helping students get hired! The school keeps strong ties in the startup community and tech scene with both matured corporations and startups as well as key organizations like the Knight Foundation. In the last weeks of your bootcamp and all the way after graduation and until you get hired, Wyncode will set you up in “Wynterviews” with hiring partners where you can meet and show your skills and projects. These usually turned into 2nd and 3rd interviews, sometimes with technical challenges. It does not matter if you get your first, second, or third Wynterview, just keep at it! Wyncode will make sure to keep putting you in front of potential employers.

Thanks to Wyncode and hard work, I’m currently working as a Developer at LiveNinja, a Miami-based startup disrupting the customer service industry. I joined Wyncode after deciding to switch from a career in pharma and logistics. Before that I worked in Finance and Wealth Management for many years, and hold a B.S. in Economics and Entrepreneurship. Wyncode was a game-changer for me and a platform to chase my tech dreams.

I graduated from a good university with an Economics and Business degree, having done multiple internships in Private Equity. I wasn’t feeling fulfilled in the internship when they offered me to join full-time, I hated the hours, and I didn’t feel like I was really contributing as much as I could have. So I took a leap of faith, moved back to Miami, and joined Wyncode September after my college graduation and I can say that without a doubt it was the BEST decision I have ever made. 

Thanks to Wyncode, I wake up every morning feeling so lucky that I found my passion for coding. At my job, I get to work with people who are crazy awesome, super smart, and really care about the work they’re producing and the people they’re working with. 

- Instructor: Our instructor, Ed, was incredible (MIT Grad, knows his stuff really well). His lectures feel like your listening to a story, and he provides lots of context and history to make the lectures stick (and fun to listen to, too!) One of the best teachers I’ve ever had, both in high school and undergraduate. He also fills his lectures with things to pay attention to that hiring partners may be looking for, or advice for negotiating your first offer. He’s an all around great guy and I feel lucky and proud to have had him as a teacher everyday for 9 weeks.

- TA’s: Sean was beyond incredible. I would wait lines to talk to Sean because he was just so thorough at explaining concepts and helping track down bugs (and teaching you what to look for when tracking them down). We also have about 12 other TA’s that rotate (~3/day) that come from 3:30-9pm every day (even on weekdends) which helps immensely. 

- Program Length: 9 weeks is enough given that you will learn everything on the job. You get a great foundation on HOW to learn, as well as the fundamental understanding of how programming languages and technologies work and fit together. Don’t worry about the languages your going to learn or not learn because in the end each company does things so differently it won’t matter. What matters is the ability to learn new technologies and the more you learn the easier it comes. Also, languages all go by the same logic, syntax changes, so you will be able to pick up new languages fairly easily with a bit of practice. (I got hired to develop in Go and Dart)

- Job Hunt: Over 10 Wynterviews on campus, where hiring partners COME TO YOU for interviews. Literally, does not get better than this. I got hired as a Developer for a startup just a few days after my graduation and starting working one week later. Rita, the Director of Hiring Partnerships, really cares about finding jobs that fits each students individual needs and pushes for what is best for Wyncode grads. She has a huge reach in the Miami and Ft. Lauderdale Tech community and is constantly looking and attempting to gain more hiring partners for Wyncode.

- Community: Wyncode is the power house of South Florida’s coding school communities. We have such an active Slack Channel (internal messaging application) where hundreds of current students, graduates, and TA’s post tons of help, information, and gifs to motivate each other and push each other to grow daily. The alumni at Wyncode was surprisingly the most helpful I’ve ever encountered. Because they are working at so many different firms, they have opened doors for prospective and current students like never before! Take advantage and meet as many as you can! There will be plenty of opportunities like BBQ’s, Go-kart racing, at the LAB, etc.

- Growing: Wyncode is built as an agile company, meaning they do weekly retrospectives and daily standups to review how the school is doing (lectures, community engagement, student needs, etc.) and respond rapidly to requests and feedback. I have never been in an environment that really change in response to feedback which is a huge plus and gives students a huge advantage when it comes to learning. The school is growing and opening their third branch in Miami Beach, a testament to their success. They were also the first coding school to be licensed by the Department of Education! The school is only getting better.

- The truth: If you don’t bust your ass everyday coding (even weekends) you will be doing yourself a huge disfavor. It is only 9 weeks, so you do not have time to slack off. Cancel your life for 9 weeks, don’t bring problems or issues into the program because you will not do well. Wyncode is not easy, coding is not easy, life is not easy. So if you don’t bring passion, sweat, and tears with a positive attitude, don’t join. If you can, don’t think twice. The only option is Wyncode. 

I am a recent graduate from BrainStation Web Development Immersive program ! I must say that it was pretty awesome ! and now I have the skills to develop a web app from front to back.

I went with BrainStation because of the curriculum, languages and frameworks thought and the industry professionals that were teaching it. Also you will be learning upcoming frameworks such as  AngularJs and NodeJs, which are starting to pick up traction in the tech industry !

Also BrainStation is fuelled by Konrad Group which is a digital agency and being immersed within the company allowed for networking opportunities. Our classes were in there brand new innovation hub, located at 460 king St west. Which gives you access to a brand new building and new startups! 

The BrainStation User Experience Design Course was a great introductory / mid-level UX course. The instructor provided real-life applications and examples of the theory being presented week-to-week. Students also had to apply the concepts learned in class to a personal project. The content also seemed to be up-to-date and spoke to a number fresh / relevant concepts in UX.

Advice to future students...

• If you're thinking of taking this course / have applied.. start thinking of a potential personal project as early as you can. This helps capture the most value out of the course, as UX and user-centered design is as much about the process as it is a final product / application - so having an idea in your head early helps focus your efforts.
• Apply yourself (on your own time) into using design tools like Sketch, InVision and Balsamiq. These tools are mentioned throughout the course, but this is definitely not a workshop on "how to use InVision" (nor should it be). One suggestion I have for BrainStation would be to negotiate with these software providers and get a preferred rate or include the license with the course.

Whether you're a student, you're early into a UX career or looking to expand your skills to seek out UX job opportunities, this is a great course to get you on your way.

I decided to change my life and learn to code, and thanks to Wyncode and their amazing staff, I was able to do so in a mere 9 weeks. 

Don't get me wrong, 9 weeks may sound like a short amout of time, but the amount of knowledge and experience I acquired at Wyncode you really can't put a price on it. 

Prior to joining Wyncode, I was the Sr. Executive IT Recruiter at my former employer, an award winning recruitment and staffing firm here in Miami, FL. The last 6 months of work I wasn't really happy with the idea of my success being reliant on so many outside factors that I wasn't in control of. During my time as a recruiter, specifically within the IT space, I built many relationships and friendships with software & web developers of all kinds and got really curious as to what it was that they do all day, but more specifically why they were so in demand. 

I had known about Wyncode for quite some time and had attended a few of their Pitch Days. I was really impressed by what I saw. I asked myself, how were these folks able to build a full-stack web application in 2 weeks without any prior coding experience? It seemed that this was an impossible task that there would be no way on Earth that I'd be able to complete. After some soul-searching and evaluation I decided that the recruiter life wasn't for me anymore and decided to take a leap of faith and enroll in Wyncode's 7th cohort. 

I have to say that the Wyncode experience was the best and worst 9 weeks of my life. From the beginning you are fully immersed into Web Development and placed completely out of your comfort zone. Since day 1, I trusted that the Wyncode staff would have my best interest at heart and I knew that things would work out...basically, I fully trusted in their curriculum, structure, and workflow. 

They always above and beyond the call of duty in terms of teaching me how to learn again and provided me with the solid foundation to hit the ground running after completion of the 9 weeks. Not only did Wyncode provide me with the solid foundation of tools to get out there and start coding, but also assisted me 100% in job placement after the cohort has completed. 

A note to future Wyncoders out there, it's all about the relationships you build that will get you placed afterwards. Whether it's through the many hiring partners that interviewed me through Wyncode's amazing services or through relationships you build on your own, it's all about how you sell yourself and your work ethic. Through the 9 weeks of intense learning, you are conditioned to feel confident about yourself and everything you've learned. You may not realize it the time, but you know more than you think you know. It's all about being positive and selling yourself to prospective employers, which Wyncode does almost too good of a job training you in that aspect as well. 

It's not all about Wyncode teaching you all the tech skills, but also teaching the business acumen necessary to market yourself and get hired as soon as possible. Luckily for me, I was hired the last day of Wyncode's 7th cohort by an amazing dev shop and am currently their only Jr. Developer working in the same working space as Wyncode. It's not about what's out there and available in terms of developer roles(which the supply is way fewer than the demand...which s a great thing)...it's about carving out a position for yourself like I did. I now have the opportunity to learn many different technologies from a crack-team of Sr. developers and stay close to the Wyncode family. You're not just a student at Wyncode, you're a family member and their network and reputation for producing quality full-stack developers is second to none. 

I couldnt be happier with my experience at Wyncode. I recommend anyone who wants to learn to code, change your life, and enroll in a coding bootcamp to definitely join Wyncode. You won't be sorry. :)

P.S. Special shout-out to Juha Mikkola, Johanna Mikkola, Ed Toro, Matt Campbell, Rita Rovira, Sean Selleck, Gabe Noboa, and the rest of the Wyncode staff for making my time at Wyncode a remarkable and amazing experience. 

The content covered is relevant and interesting. I really like appreciate that  our final project is based on a real life problem that we need to solve. This requires us to apply the knowledge we've been learning each week. Before I took the classe, I read that the class size was small and I was really looking forward to it because it  fosters better learning. Unfortunately I was enrolled in one of the biggest classes they ever had. That makes a big difference because I found that a large group didn't offer much time for an engaging conversation about the topics covered. It could have been more dynamic with a smaller group. Overall the course addressess topics that are constantly changing. The reading material is interesting and I recommend they continue sharing more reading material that add value to the lessons learned that week. I would have loved to have had an in depth hands on approach to dealing with topics like paid search for example. On the other hand each week we learn from different instructors with expertise of the topic covered. They are passionate and available to talk to us one-on-one if we have any questions.

The course is great so far! The contest is relevant to a large group of such a diverse student base. However, some of the topics I feel require more attention than others. For example, in the first couple of classes, there was a lot of overview on what a brand is (which I'd hope the class already knows), and, while I understand it's important to touch on for brand voice/tone on social, lot of time was focused on how to reply to customers on Twitter. I wish this time could've been used to go into topics like paid social media advertising in more depth, as I feel like we only got to just scrape the surface. Looking forward to learning more analytical skills!