Fullstack Academy

The instructors at Fullstack are unmatched. My greatest fear before attending a coding boot camp was my ability to understand the course materials with-in a short period of time, especially as the courses get more and more complicated really quickly. Within the first few days of my cohort starting those fears were laid to rest due to how knowledgeable and how versatile my instructors were in breaking down complex materials to simple, easy to understand and familiar components. The learning environment is superb. Everyone on the staffing team at Fullstack Academy are very mindful of everyone's needs and personality from publicly outspoken opinions and needs that you may wish to express privately, you always have someone to reach out to. The classmates are a lot of fun too. Imagine an environment where you make friends, talk about programming, struggle and learn together and from each other. That is what you get at Fullstack Academy.

Fullstack Academy exceeded my expectations when it came to having an educational experience. The teachers explained all the topics and lessons in great detail and the fellows help you throughout the entire process. I was overwhelmed in the beginning as everything was new and there was a lot to learn but with hard work, determination and the help of the fellows I was able to successfully complete the bootcamp and graduate with 3 amazing projects under my belt! Ultimately I now have a full time position as a Software Engineer at an Info Tech company and it's all thanks to the help of everyone at Fullstack Academy! I would definitely recommend this program to everyone interested in learning how to code.

Anyone looking to get started in the field of cybersecurity without previous experience should definitely consider Fullstack’s Cybersecurity bootcamp. No prior experience is needed, and for someone looking to make a career change like me, it’s a fantastic opportunity. Thaddeus was a very thorough lead instructor, and Amir and Anjili provided a quality on-demand help as assistants. The program is very attentive to their students and it’s clear they care about the students experience and futures after the bootcamp. Fullstack also offers career support to help prepare students for interviews after the program.

Coming into the bootcamp with no prior knowledge (as well as many others in my cohort), was a little nerve-wracking. However, the instructors made us feel very comfortable, confident, and capable, from the first day - throughout the entire cohort. The cyber curriculum is in depth and goes extensively through blue teaming, red teaming, general security best practices, and amazon web services (AWS). I felt confident post-program to go out and find my first entry-level job in the field. The school provided us with a "career launch day" opportunity to meet some potential employers after the cohort was over, and I had got a job not even 3 weeks after graduation in the field. I would, and have, recommended this bootcamp to many of my friends.

I had been planning to go a a coding bootcamps for months before being accepted to Fullstack Academy. I thought I knew what to expect, but the program exceeded my expectations. The first half of the program is dedicated to learning tools and technologies to build a full stack JS-based application. The pace is fast, but there is ample opportunities to refresh on content and practice more. The second half of the program is all about projects, and in my case, was when I really began to understand how many of the technologies worked when applied. This was the funniest part of the program and the part that truly made me job ready. The Career Success team, through their series of workshops on networking and resume re-writing, as well as the 1-on-1 coaching, helped me prepare and anticipate what I needed to have ready in order to kick start the job search. I am tremendously grateful to all the instructors and program staff. I could not have successfully transitioned into a career in software development without them. 

Attending Fullstack Academy’s Flex Program during the pandemic was one of the best educational investments I’ve made to switch careers from architecture and design to software engineering. As a result of learning in a remote environment, I improved my video presence and ability to articulate technical concepts in writing, and learned how to work asynchronously with other students. These skills are advantageous to collaboratively effectively for any job that offers a remote work plan. 
Looking back (as a newly employed software engineer), I am really glad I chose the 6-month long part-time program over the 3-month long full-time program so I could learn the Junior Phase material at my own pace and retain the abundant amount of knowledge taught in the curriculum. It was important to me to take the time to learn, so that come Senior Phase, I could make strong contributions to team projects and effectively collaborate with my teammates. While anyone can learn web development on their own, I can vouch that Senior Phase is absolutely worth the cost of the program - you get to mirror a real work environment by pair programming with other students, communicating technical concepts, and participating in a hackathon to hone your learning process for any new technology. I want to shout out to the amazing instructors/mentors: Bienvenido (Ben) Rodriquez, Eliot Szwajowski, Eric Katz, and Stanley. They did a great job of teaching the material in an engaging style that made the classroom feel safe and collaborative.
In addition to the well-planned, relevant curriculum, I was extremely satisfied with Fullstack Academy’s career development support and received guidance from their Career Success Coach, Dezzi Rae Marshall. She taught me how to manifest the right opportunities and people through regular one-on-one sessions by crafting a personalized plan that I could adopt for today’s modern workforce. As a second life career changer, she helped me build the confidence I needed to fearlessly master the pivot and create a shift in mindset - one that projects an abundance of optimism and opportunities. While my time at Fullstack Academy has ended, I look forward to working with Dezzi throughout my career progression in software engineering. 

I signed up for the part-time software engineering bootcamp at Fullstack Academy because I wanted to test out whether a software engineering career would be right for me, and I'm so glad I did. Firstly, taking the course over 5.5 months part-time vs. being in a 10 week immersive program means that material can marinate a bit longer, and I personally found that helpful. It also adds a sense of security because most people in my program had a full-time job, and were doing this bootcamp part-time. One drawback of being part-time is that you don't have as big of a fire under you to get employed as a software engineer after the program is over, because you already have a job. I took a break of a few months after graduating from the program, and ended up recruiting successfully afterwards, but it is can be easy to to lose momentum if you already have a full-time career in your life.

Pros: 
- good instructors. We had 2 instructors during our program. Both were great, but the first definitely used some dated technology, while the second was a currently employed software engineer and basically told us that we were 'behind.' While this was frightening, he luckily ended up catching us up and we as the students felt more prepared as we neared graduation.
- pace: as mentioned, the pace of the part-time program was great because you had time to let the material sink through. I heard that the full-time immersive is much of a 'drinking from the firehose' vibe where you are just cramming information
- support of TAs: the fellows assigned to our course to help were fantastic. We had 3 fellows and they were available on Slack or to hop on a video call with us to help us with our projects, explain concepts, etc. You will have more interaction with them during Q&A than with your main professor
- access to AlgoExpert: Fullstack has a relationship with AlgoExpert, which is a site created by a fellow Fullstack alum and ex-Googler, that is used for algorithm practice. It is a paid subscription but Fullstack gives it to students for free. AlgoExpert was CRUCIAL to prep in the job search. It is one of the few resources that has a detailed video (~50 min) where the actual instructor walks you through the problem and various solutions. On free sites like LeetCode, you are on your own to figure that out and scour YouTube videos for randos' solutions. I used AlgoExpert pretty exclusively in the job search and was well prepared for technical interviews as a result - so thanks Fullstack for that hookup!

Cons:
- variety of instructors: We had 2 instructors with a hand-off a little after halfway through the program. This lack of continuity wasn't fantastic, and it was clear that the second instructor seemed more experienced and used more relevant technology. While both instructors were great, I think the majority of my class wished we had the second professor for the whole time
- career services engagement: Finding a job after the program is completed is very much up to you. Don't expect daily or weekly newsletters from the career team with job listings. I got those maybe once every other month. You get a resume review and some general lectures on networking, and then you're on your own. Follow-up to see how you are doing was nonexistent. If you want help or to set up a time with Career Services, you have to reach out - Career Services is not proactive in helping you get a job.

Overall, my cons are really limited. I am super happy with my decision to go with Fullstack, and will be starting my first software engineering job shortly. Most of my classmates, according to LinkedIn, are also employed in software engineering jobs 6 months out of the program. I was debating about accepting Fullstack vs. Codesmith for the bootcamp, and Codesmith seemed like they kind of threw you to the wolves and expected you to figure things out, versus Fullstack was more hand-holdy. I very much appreciate that Fullstack takes a very deliberate, supportive approach to teaching students software engineering and it helps you really digest the material and get support when you inevitable hit hard topics. If you are thinking about entering software engineering as either an interest or as a full-time job, and are looking for a place to learn the skills to do that, definitely consider Fullstack Academy. I'm super happy with my decision to go here and thanks to the program and my performance there, am now able to become a full-time software engineer. Thank you Fullstack!

Instructors:

The instructors are fantastic. They are really passionate about teaching and they really care about the students. (Most of them are probably taking a significant pay cut to work at Fullstack, compared to what they could be making in industry.) As a Teaching Fellow and as a student, I got to work with 4 different instructors. Everyone had their own sense of humor, but some were more laid back and others were more strictly regimented. All of them were great to work with in different ways.

Curriculum:

The pace is very quick, and at times overwhelming. There is a method to the madness, though, and most students will be able to pull it all together by the end of junior phase. If you are struggling, there are lots of resources -- office hours with fellows, office hours with instructors, invitation-only Study Saturdays -- to help you out. 

The curriculum is mostly project-based. Almost every day in junior phase, there is a lecture, followed by a workshop. I don't retain much from lectures, so I quickly learned to use the lectures as an introduction to the topic. The workshop and projects are where the real learning occurs, since most people learn best by doing. 

While the curriculum could be slightly updated, it really doesn't matter because the emphasis is on teaching you how to think, not on learning any specific library/framework. Once you understand how to think about solving problems, you can go learn whatever new technology later (and most reasonable employers understand this). 

Administration:

The program leads are (in my experience) incredibly supportive. Have a death in the family, a health issue, a sick kid/spouse/parent, or anything else stressing you out? The program leads will bend over backwards to work with you and help you get through it. 

The limiting factor is often not the resources provided, but the student's own reluctance to seek for help. Most of us deal with imposter syndrome and some of us have a hard time admitting that we are struggling. If this is you, then do what you have to do to ensure that you don't get trapped in the "I don't want to ask for help because I should have asked for help 2 weeks ago and now it's hopeless" mental trap. Ask for help. FSA is incredibly supportive and will work with you on just about anything. 

Job Assistance:

My career success coach went above and beyond. She helped me negotiate a salary that was ~$15,000 to 20,000 more than I was expecting to make on my first job offer. She helped me with my behavioral interviewing skills, cleaned up multiple drafts of my resume and cover letters, was regularly available, and was just a fantastically supportive and insightful person to work with. 

The Remote Experience:

Due to the pandemic, my cohort was 100% remote. The one disadvantage of being remote is that I didn't get to know my fellow students as well as I would have liked. I came away with one close friendship and a few acquaintances that I really like, but that's about it. Otherwise, the remote experience was fairly smooth, and in some cases can be an advantage (pair programming is sometimes more difficult in-person if you are paired with someone who doesn't understand basic social etiquette and will literally grab your keyboard and start typing on it). 

If you are in a major city (NY, Chicago), now that COVID vaccines are widely available, you will probably find that students are organizing get-togethers on their own. 

What Could Be Better:

Just like any mid-sized company, communication can be... imperfect. Sometimes one person will tell you X and another person will tell you Y (deadlines, policies, etc.). Be willing to ask clarifying questions and go with the flow sometimes.

Summary:

FSA is a great bootcamp. It is hard work! Do not expect to attend FSA and do the minimum and succeed -- you will probably have to work after hours on some weekdays and some weekends. But if you are willing to do the work, you will be able to get a job. (I had no prior coding experience and had not taken any math/science classes in over a decade.)

Fullstack has everything you could want in a software engineering course, and will supply you with the fundamentals to software engineering, as well as sufficiently preparing you for the job search. However, if you are not prepared to 100% focus on the course, don't go. It will eat up at least 80-90% of your time over the length of the course. If you are a hard worker, logically/mathematically inclined, and able to thinking critically about problem solving and design, then GO. I loved FS and legitimately cannot think of anything more it could have done for me.

I had a wonderful experience with the Grace Hopper Program at Fullstack Academy. Their self-paced bootcamp prep online workshop prepared me for the admissions interview, and the program itself was very well-structured and supportive. The instructors were incredibly smart, but more importantly, they were good teachers who knew how to instruct a group of people with varying levels of experience and never made anyone feel silly for asking a question. The career support team was incredibly professional and gave us so many resources to prepare ourselves for the job market. I appreciated the constant reinforcement from all staff that we could achieve learning all these new skills in such a short amount of time, and their dedication to the productive struggle definitely made me a better developer and learner. 

I graduated from Fullstack's WDF-2011 cohort in February of 2021. Regarding the stack we learned, based on my conversations with other developers, and what I've seen in the job market - it's a solid group of tech. PostgreSQL, Node.js, Express, React/Redux, plus a few other associated libraries - all of them seem to be in demand skills for the current openings. But more importantly, and perhaps most valuable, was Fullstack's focus on pair-programming, technical communication, and teammwork. Every day during the immersive, you had the opportunity to code with new people, talk through problems together, and ask for help if necessary. These practices, in addition to the group projects during senior phase, taught me invaluable lessons about how to work with other developers, how to prioritize features, and how to ask for help. Doing this for months has taught me how to talk technically about almost any problem, and start to think about how to solve them. The instructors, fellows, and other students were all extremely supportive, and I'm proud to say I am still in touch with many of them, and I anticipate I will be for a long time to come. The network you build here is so valuable, and I am grateful to have gone through Fullstack thanks to the NYC Tech Talent Pipeline.