Fullstack Academy

  I applied to the Grace Hopper Program after taking their Bootcamp Prep class, and was accepted on the first application, and began the immersive in June of 2017.  I stayed on as a teaching fellow for two terms, and finished my time there having received a total of five job offers, any of which I would have been happy to take, and which included my absolute dream job.  

  The curriculum prepared me both for the technical demands of a dev job, and for the soft-skills needed to actually land one.

  In many ways, Foundations (the remote, introductory part of the course) was the most challenging, in that the jump from what was tested in admissions to what was tested in Foundations, felt the largest (for other folks considering this course who don't come from a technical background -- when you are getting ready to apply/after you get in, take a minute and get comfy with the CLI if you've never used it before.  It just means one less thing to learn at the same time.) -- a bit like being pushed in the deep end. After that, it was much less stressful.  

I had a lot of support at Grace Hopper, and it felt great to be in a diverse, LGBTQ-friendly environment.  Both the students and the staff were friendly and helpful.  The atmosphere is demanding, but not competitive -- everyone shares the view that 'a rising tide lifts all boats' and wants to help everyone do as well as they can.  

Cons: it's a program where you definitely get out of it what you put into it, and it absolutely favors people who are solid self-starters and already good at time management (there's so much to do and learn, you absolutely *must* make choices about what does and doesn't get done).  There is more support available than sometimes is obviously apparent, and so if you're having trouble with something, personally or technically, it behooves you to reach out and ask.  While the staff and management are fierce advocates for their students, communication across the staff isn't always perfect and there were several occasions where it became clear that the left hand didn't know what the right was doing.

A short disclaimer: I did have some previous coding experience before I joined Fullstack, so I had a comparatively easier time with the curriculum.

But don't let that scare you. It's a great experience. The curriculum is amazing, the instructors are concise, easy to understand, and make learning an enjoyable experience. I became a much better coder during my time at Fullstack. Not just through the frameworks I learned, but the little stuff. I'm so much better at tracking down bugs now. 

Many people with no previous coding experience went in and came out polished software engineers. More importantly, they learned to be fast learners and break down problems. I highly recommend it to everybody.

I was very interested in Fullstack because of their excellent reviews online and decided to look into what the have available to prospective students. I was impressed. I took a one day JavaScript class and an online JS fundamentals course. While I felt like I had a good grasp of fundamentals, there was definitely more to learn. I attended both the online and in person information seminars and after looking around at other bootcamps, I decided on Fullstack. After applying, taking the admissions test, and doing the coding interview, I was very happy with my choice. I was accepted and began the pre-bootcamp online course, and would have continued, except I was offered an internship at a tech company. Though I’m employed right now, I do feel like I missed out on a great experience! Everyone I spoke with at Fullstack was professional and I felt like they had my best interests in mind. If you are interested in a bootcamp, I would highly recommend that you take a good look at this one.

To start things off: I graduated one month ago, and have not yet found a job. In fact, I have not even had as much as a phone screen after sending 50+ applications. If I do end up getting a job in a timely fashion, I'll update this review.

The course is alright, but I have some hesitation about the curriculum and teaching style. They throw numerous frameworks at you in a very short period of time. This is intentional - one way I heard it described is that it's like trying to catch up to a speeding truck, except that once you get close, it goes faster. Some of the technologies we learned such as React and Redux are in fact very in demand in the work force right now - I see them mentioned on almost every Front End or Full Stack job posting, so that's a plus. However, we also spend a lot of time learning Sequelize to manage back end. I haven't seen this on a single job posting, but most Full Stack roles DO want an object oriented language like Java or Python. The curriculum would have been more well rounded if something like Python was included.

We also spent almost no time on the most basic of web technologies such as HTML and CSS - you are essentially expected to figure it out yourself. However, I heard it expressed by multiple students (and myself) that this left a huge skill gap. The lack of time spent on standard web design means that students are not in the best position to succeed at Front End roles. 

The portfolio we graduated with is also pretty slim. There are only two projects that we can really call our own: a four day hackathon and a group project. So all you have to show is a hastily created app and another that may or may not be great, depending on the strength of the group. 

Bootcamps like Fullstack sell students on the idea that they can fully prepare you for employment in three months. This doesn't seem to be the case. I do see that students who go on to do the Fellowship (which gives them an additional three months to learn, build a portfolio, and be able to put "mentorship experience" on their resumes) seem to get jobs faster/at a higher rate. So it should be noted that that option is there, but maybe bootcamps should consider that students may need more time, and that these programs should be longer (which would allow more time to fill all the gaps listed above).  

A note about me. I do not hold any type of college degree. I went to college for music, but started working professionally in that industry before I finished. I was successful, but I've always had an interest in the CS field and wanted to work and live in one place, rather than being gone on tour all the time. I'm glad I made the decision to switch. 3 months after graduating Fullstack Academy I got a job as the Lead Mobile Developer at a startup. I graduated mid-December 2017 and started working at my current company mid-March 2018. I think I sent out 5 applications altogether.

This review is about Fullstack Academy, however, a lot of people are trying to choose between App Academy/Fullstack Academy/Hack Reactor etc. So a note about App Academy - 

I went to App Academy for 5 weeks of their immersive program and failed out. It was not because of the difficulty of the material, nor that they push you harder as a coder. It had more to do with the method of their instruction. That could be my fault. I would say more, however, they gave me back my $5k deposit in exchange for signing a document that said, essentially, that I could not communicate anything negative about App Academy to anyone ever. I don't think this violates that agreement.

That being said, if you want to learn the most and best you can at the bootcamp that you choose, I recommend Fullstack Academy.

Fullstack Academy's instructors and curriculum are far and above any other bootcamp that I have had experience with. The instructors are not chosen based on being graduates of the program and thereby being cheap labor.

The instructors are great programmers, but they are also incredible communicators. They are great instructors who happen to teach software engineering, something they are really great at too. It is abundantly clear that they want you to do well and that includes caring about things outside of simply software engineering.

I've never had better teaching on any subject than what I received at Fullstack Academy.

Another thing, I visited the facilities of FSA, App Academy, Hack Reactor and Flatiron School, all in NYC. FSA has the most professional environment of all of them, hands down. Flatiron feels like college, Hack Reactor and App Academy feel hack-y, FSA feels professional. I was a professional before this. I was switching professions, going into professional training to be prepared for a professional job afterwards. I wanted a professional environment so I really appreciated that about FSA.

In regards to Job Assistance, personally I think FSA's strategy and implementation could use some work.

My experience was that their strategy is impossible. They encourage a "spray and pray" approach, but also encourage a personal (continuing the analogy) "sniper precision" approach. For me, that's impossible. I can't send out 20 applications a week and spend the necessary time to make each application convey that I am excited about the specific opportunity without coming off as rote. I think those are two different approaches that don't coincide.

They encouraged us to have a profile on every coding website under the sun that had a 'jobs profile' option. For me it felt like being told to do 10,000 things, each of which would take 2-3 days to do well, in an hour. It seemed like they didn't know what they were asking us to do, because what they were asking us to do was impossible. For me anyway.

I believe that the "spray and pray" approach is statistically more successful for finding a job post-bootcamp. I also believe that my personality and the "spray and pray" approach don't work together.

I'm a very hard working, secure, introvert. I value few deep connections over many shallow connections. I get along with people just fine, I'm not shy. I am overly serious and overly critical of myself and others at times.

I tried their approach, I chose to trust the process because that's what I did for the code instruction portion of the program. I tried to do everything the career success team told us to do while still in the immersive and it just seemed like no matter what I did or how perfect I tried to do it, it didn't have the results it was supposed to. 

It was the equivalent of being told that once I pushed this boulder up the mountain it would stay there and I would be rewarded. Only, after pushing it all the way up this mountain, it turns out the only thing at the top is a cliff...and I just pushed it off that cliff...No reward. I was pushing it up the wrong mountain.

Disclaimer: I do think I am an outlier with the way I chose to job search. I think my experience is more likely the exception, not the rule. 

So, after graduating from FSA, I avoided the career success team. I know that others in my cohort had good experiences with them, but this review is about my experience. Maybe things would have got better had I kept trying their way, but I doubt it.

My approach was to spend most of my time learning and blogging about it. For professional profiles I focused on linkedin, github and twitter. I would go to 1-2 meetups a week(usually 1). I would only send an application somewhere if I knew that someone was going to look at it. (That’s a no-no, but that’s what I chose to do.)

When I went to meetups, I would hang out with one or two people and get to know them. Regardless of whether their companies were hiring or not. I would just try to make a connection with one or two professional developers. If I did encounter someone that was hiring, I'd ask them what their stack was and then I would spend time learning that stack. Even if they said they weren't ready to hire me.

I also spent a lot of time going deeper on the technologies that we had learned at Fullstack.

In the end, I was contacted by the CEO of my current company on linkedin, I did a coding challenge for him in React Native, which I spent 3 full days on, then I met with him and 20 minutes into that lunch/interview he said he wanted to hire me for a very good salary including a little equity. Not to be too specific, but I think the average salary for a just-graduated FSA grad in September 2017 was around 80k and I was offered more than that.

In conclusion, You will NOT regret choosing FSA. I'm certain their career success team will get better with time. But even without using them, in fact outright avoiding them, I got a really great job 3 months after graduating. (And keep in mind that one of those months went right through christmas and new years when there really isn't a lot of action going on with hiring).

There is absolutely no way I would have became a professional Software Engineer without Fullstack Academy. After spending more than a year trying to teach myself Javascript and Web Development, and making very little progress, I was very fortunate to be able to attend Fullstack Academy. FSA gave me the skills and confidence to pursue my dream career and within a month of graduating I was able to land a full time position as a Software Engineer.

I was part of the WDF program at FSA sponsored by the NYC Tech Talent Pipeline so I was in a bit of a unique situation but the curriculum was exactly the same with the exception of having to attend the Foundations portion of the curriculum on campus.

The instructors at Fullstack Academy are nothing short of amazing. They all have a great wealth of Software Engineering knowledge and years of professional experience which they will anecdotally share with you throughout your experience at FSA. It is obvious that the instructors care for each and every student, and hold us all to the highest standards in order for us to be successful in our future careers.

Fullstack Academy puts a tremendous amount of effort into creating a curriculum that will ensure the success of its students. The curriculum includes cutting edge Web technologies as well as solid fundamental programming knowledge and skills. I left Fullstack Academy with a deep understanding of JavaScript and a wide breadth of full stack development knowledge that I use on a daily basis as a Software Engineer. Not only does the curriculum include programming fundamentals and modern Web technologies, it includes whiteboarding and technical interview prep that is invaluable when it comes time to search for a position as an Engineer.

The curriculum is project based and you will leave FSA with full scale applications under your belt that you can display while applying or interviewing for positions. It is extremely challenging and you will be putting in long hours to complete workshops and projects but it is incredibly gratifying. I am still proud of the Senior Capstone project my team and I created at FSA

Fullstack Academy has an incredibly dedicated career success team that will assist you in creating a tech resume as well as increasing your online presence and assist you in growing a network that will greatly help you in your job search. FSA also hosts a hiring day where you will have ten minute sit down interviews with multiple companies, following your one on one interviews there is a networking time where you will be able to speak to all of the companies that attend hiring day. I was hired by a company that I met during the networking hours of hiring day. It is a great opportunity to establish a relationship with companies actively looking to hire developers. The career success team is not only there for you through your time at FSA but will continue to assist you in your job search after you leave FSA and are available even after you are hired.

Please be aware that it can take 3-6 months to find a full time position, and that is in part due to the nature of tech companies where the hiring process can be quite long. Fortunately the career success team and FSA in general will be there for you through each and every step of the process.

Overall my experience at Fullstack Academy was amazing. I was in a unique group of amazing people being part of the WDF program but I am confident that FSA could help any hardworking and motivated individual become a professional Software Engineer. If you are truly considering attending a coding bootcamp I could not recommend FSA more highly.

I attended the Fullstack immersive (through the NYC Web Development Fellowship). The instructors were fantastic, and my fellow classmates were a constant inspiration. It's a great experience not just because of what you learn (which is obviously a lot), but because you have an opportunity to be around so many smart and driven people at various life stages that decided to pursue programming. As such, Fullstack is very challenging!

I couldn't have asked for a better outcome. I ended up receiving an offer from a company that I interviewed with during the career day organized by the school after graduation. I've been working now for almost 3 months as a software developer. My current job is not easy, and I feel Fullstack helped me develop a strong technical foundation and the mindset to be able to build on my knowledge and improve each day.

My background was as a fundraiser in arts and culture nonprofits. Very non-technical. After hitting a bit of a wall in my career, I was tipped off my husband and some friends about careers in tech. Curious, I started playing around with coding a bit on my own. I visited info sessions for a couple of other Chicago bootcamps (Coding Dojo, and now-closed DevBootcamp). Fullstack grabbed me for a few reasons -- the admissions were competitive, you needed to know some JavaScript basics to be accepted, and it was going to dig hard into one very in-demand stack. Coding Dojo boasts learning 3 full stacks in 3 months, but I wanted depth over breadth. (A friend of mine attended Coding Dojo -- I had surpassed him in JavaScript knowledge by the third week at Fullstack.)

So, I enrolled in Fullstack's Bootcamp Prep course, which was a bit exhausting when paired with a full-time job, but was a great opportunity to dip my toe into what Fullstack would really be like, as well as see if this was really something that I wanted to do. I was hooked, and applied.

Now, for the first half of the program, it's all about learning the full stack (JavaScript, Node, Express, Postgres, React, Redux). I felt off-kilter every day, but the key is that they're going to throw a LOT at you. Absorb what you can. Take the time in the evenings and on weekends to practice. You won't retain everything, and that's OK. Just keep going. For the second half, you just build build build, both alone and in a group. This not only gives you 3 great pieces for your portfolio, but also hefty relevant experience beyond the theoretical. 

Career prep is pretty good, including "Launch Day," where you can meet potential employers through speed-dating-like interviews. I didn't get a job through it, but it did connect me to a few great people that I ended up getting lunch with later on -- and it was a great way to rip off the interviewing band-aid, so to speak.

In the end, I was interviewing with 3 companies, and accepted a job offer from 1 just 4 weeks after graduating. 

Great things:

• You learn a very in-demand stack, and are well-prepared going into the job hunt.
• Knowledgeable, warm, funny instructors.
• The rest of my cohort. An incredibly fun, supportive, and smart group, almost 50/50 split of men and women, all different ages/backgrounds/hometowns/former professions/levels of expertise. (Disclaimer, this degree of diversity may be fairly unique.)

Not-as-great things:

• One of my biggest weaknesses coming out of this program was my ability to speak technically. At the end of the program, we had mock technical interviews which revealed this to me. Personally, would have appreciated the opportunity to practice technical interviews more throughout the program.

Advice (if you decide to go with Fullstack):

• It's hard to be an adult who has several working years under her belt, who knows her stuff, and suddenly be in a position where clicking a button doesn't do what you want it to do. It's humbling and uncomfortable. Be kind to yourself! And don't compare your progress to those around you. Focus on you and your learning, or you'll go crazy.
• You will get out of this program what you put in! Take ownership of your own education. Fullstack will give you the tools, but you won't magically emerge a software engineer just from showing up.
• Know yourself, and know how you work best. I preferred to get in very early (morning person) than work late. Use that knowledge to your advantage.
• Trust Fullstack's process. It all comes together. Just keep working and moving forward.

Highly, highly, highly recommend!

Last summer (2017) I decided it was time for a full-fledged career change. I had a few ideas of what I might want to get into, but kept coming back to the idea of programming. I took a C++ class in high school and really loved it - but never did anything with it. I enrolled in Fullstack's Bootcamp Prep course and was instantly hooked. My journey from CPA to Software Engineer had begun.

I entered Fullstack's Immersive Software Engineering program in October of 2017. It was one of the best experiences of my life. The curriculum is very well thought out and presented in an order that builds upon the foundations and helps you to truly grasp and use the large amount of materials that you get through in 16 weeks. 

One thing that I loved about Fullstack is that they have a competitive admissions process. In my experience, this resulted in a cohort full of brilliant people who were extremely driven. This provided me with an environment where I was motivated to stay on top of the material but also had a room full of rock stars to work through problems with. I think Fullstack does a great job of finding a personality fit for their program as well which led us to work great together and have some fun outside of the classroom as well.

The program is tough. There is a ton to get through in a short amount of time. But I believe that the learning model they have in place is revolutionary and is the main reason I can now develop fullstack web applications. While it can be difficult at times, the support system is great - your peers, your TAs and your instructors all want you to succeed and can help you with anything from technical questions to interview prep and everything in between. 

The program is also very adaptive to the real world and you can be sure that you're learning the most valuable and in-demand skills. This makes you a competitive candidate in the job market once you graduate. In my experience, I ended up receiving 2 job offers, both of which I was very excited about, within 3 weeks of finishing the program!

My biggest piece of advice is to trust their system. They're great at what they do and truly want you to succeed. I did my research and due dilligence and selected Fullstack because it seemed like it was the best coding bootcamp out there. After going through the program I can say that it truly is an amazing place filled with smart people and if you too choose to go through Fullstacks' software engineering immersive program you will learn more than you ever thought possible. 

Fullstack is the single best coding bootcamp in Chicago. They have their sh*t together. They constantly work on updating and refining their curriculum. The skills you learn are highly relevant to actual jobs in the industry. The instructors are knowledgeable. 

After graduating in December, I didn't start job searching until the first week of January. By February 15, I had my first offer at a company that hit all my requirements, paid a solid salary, and was still interviewing with 5 other companies. Keep in mind, I'm more socially-skilled than most as I used to work in marketing consulting for 4 years, so your results may vary based on your temperament and skillset.

On attending the academy:
1) It's very liberal. As a conservative/libertarian, it was painful sitting through all the 'everyone matters, women empowerment, be careful with your language,' talk. Look, I'm here to learn relevant skills so I can get a job in software engineering. I didn't come here to learn your ideology or engage in thought policing. Depending on who you are, this can be a drawback or a bonus. Knowing what I know now, I still would have attended Fullstack Academy because it is the best option in the city. 
2) If you don't live in the city, get a place within 15 minutes commute of the academy. At most, 30 minutes. DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT try and commute from the suburbs. I lived in Gurnee, IL and took the train to the city everyday. It was about 3.5-4 hours of total commuting time each day. You need all the time you can to work on the coursework and relax. It will be stressful. You need your sleep. And everything will be worth all the pain and effort. 
3) Invest time in the relationships you'll build with people there. Everyone is pretty high quality, generally has their life together, and will be beneficial to keep in your life. I'm working on a side project with a classmate and regularly talk to a few classmates I've had. Adding more smart, motivated, and hard working people to your life is never a bad idea. 
4) Plan for 3-6 months of expenses after Fullstack for finding a job. Fullstack won't give you a job on a silver platter - you'll still have to work for it. Talk  to the career counselor at the Chicago campus. Most college career counselors are utterly useless. Thankfully, this is nothing like college. The Chicago counselor linked me to a number of opportunities within the first 2 months post-graduation. Listen to them.

I had no computer science or technical professional experience prior to doing Fullstack Academy (FSA). I did the online/remote immersive program from my home. I graduated at the end of October, grinded hard in the job search for about three months with little traction (Nov/Dec is not a good time to look for a job), and then finally at the end of January, I got slammed with interviews and managed to land four (four!) job offers in two weeks for software engineering roles, including at two major corporations with huge software departments, both of which started at $70k with excellent benefits (adjusted for cost of living, that's equivalent to about 140-160K in Manhattan or 125-145K in San Francisco). But I ended up taking a full-stack support dev role for $65k at a small-ish custom software company because their work and tech stack more so aligned with my professional interests and goals. I've been on the job for almost a month now and I gotta say, I feel like I have been well prepared. I've been able to begin contributing and pushing code to production relatively quickly. And the company has only recently switched to using React, Redux, Webpack, and some other tools I learned at FSA, so I am actually more knowledgeable than some of the more senior devs about how to use them. 

It's hard to know if FSA was the best possible choice. If I were to choose again, there are some new schools now that I'd strongly consider.  But FSA has certainly worked out for me. I enjoyed my experience and think that their curriculum and instructors are top-notch. They go in depth in all the right areas, and yet they also expose you to the broad landscape that is the software engineering profession. That broad base of knowldege is just as important as the in-depth stuff they teach. And I love that I was able to do the whole thing remotely. If you're skeptical that a remote program could possibly be as good as the on-site program, please trust me: It is just as good if not better. There's less distraction, it's cheaper, more comfortable, and it forces you to really get your Git workflow down.

They do provide career support to prepare you for the job hunt / interviews and advise you along the way, and I think they do a pretty good job of it. But there's nothing they can really do to help you get a job. That's on you. And finding a job sucks, so be prepared. The average seems to be about 3 months, but some people land one immediately, and some take 6+ months. There's too many factors to know how long it'll take. Just do what is within your control, be patient, and put on your optimism hat, because you're going to get rejected or ignored for all kinds of stupid reasons before you hear from a sensible human being who is actually qualified to assess your capabilities. 

The only changes I'd like to see at FSA are for the program to be a bit longer to re-enforce things through repetition, get into more advance concepts and disciplines, and provide more opportunities for students to build out their portfolio. But that would of course drive costs up, which touches on my only other gripe: I wish they would switch to a deferred tuition model like App Academy, Thinkful, Lambda School, and many others. It's an obviously more beneficial model for business and students. Also, I was actually pretty disappointed with the state of my portfolio by the time I graduated. I didn't have anything that really looked show-worthy, not even my cap-stone. Your projects are mostly done in teams, so you're at the mercy of your teammates' skills and work ethic. Lucky for me, a lot of employers didn't even take the time to look at what I made and relied more heaviliy on technical interviews. (On that point, don't waste time fixing up your projects after graduation. Perfect your resume/LinkedIn. Write to-the-point cover letters for every application. Get a hold of an actual person however/whenever possible. Keep studying/practicing/commiting code.)

Now, as great as FSA is, you need to understand that your growth and ultimate success or failure depends primarily on your ability and/or willingness to prioritize your training and sacrifice your hobbies, relationships, and relaxation. The hard proof of that could be seen in the fact that about 25% of my cohort was held back because they did not pass the junior exam to graduate to senior phase. The problem was not that they weren't smart enough, they just had too much else going on and weren't focused. But even if you pass the exams, that only means you've got the minimum pre-requisites down. I appreciate that they at least set a reasonably high bar to get through the program, so you can feel confident that you know what you're doing when you graduate. Other schools that don't set high graduation standards (or any at all!) are doing their students a great disservice. But don't rest on your laurels just because you pass some test. If you go through FSA (or any school) with an attitude where you're content just scraping by, you're robbing yourself of a great deal of knowledge and expertise you could have gained by reading more, asking more questions, putting more hours into your project. It's three months. You'll be alright without Netflix, video games, outtings with friends, etc for three months.

With all that said, I think FSA is worth the price. Six months and $18,000 later, and I'm making $25,000 more per year and doing something I atually enjoy for a living at a cool company. I'd say that was a smart investment.

I deeply enjoyed my bootcamp experience at Fullstack. The Grace Hopper program in particular had a friendly, collegial atomsphere and a lack of intellectual arrogance and competitiveness that helped it go down. If you have any thoughts about taking the full time program and having time for other things in your life, put those aside, it was VERY full-on. I learned more than I could believe at the end, and I did some cool projects that I'm still proud of. And more than anything, I now have a six figure job in tech and a bright career ahead of me.

All that being said I do have some criticisms:

- Some of the teachers don't have any teaching training or experience and are honestly people from the industry who are slumming. Those people should be shown the door.

- The administration/teachers tend to soft pedal things which I found very annoying. Just be real! The more information students have the better decisions we can make for ourselves. Don't be vague about things, students' futures depend on it.

Besides that, it was a great experience!