Fullstack Academy

I had been eyeing doing a bootcamp for about 5 years, so I think my perception of them was from the earlier days. I honestly expected a more intense experience with more committed peers. A big surprise to me was that Saturdays are optional (and only a handful of us max were ever there) and everyone left campus at 5pm on the dot every day. 

The curriculum is split between 3 phases - Foundations (remote, vanilla JS), Junior Phase (learning the stack and how to put together a full web app), and Senior Phase (building 3 full projects). I found myself with lots of free time during the junior phase. I was disappointed that when I asked fellows or instructors for ideas on what else to work on, they mostly just told me to relax and have fun. 

Ok, that's the bad out of the way.

The good - Fullstack ultimately gave me what I paid for. The ability to get a job as a software engineer. I graduated 3 weeks ago and have already had 4 offers and accepted 1 at my top choice company. I felt very prepared for my interviews (although I think part of that was my exposure to the tech scene in my previous job). Learning React is key as I think that's one of the main things that set me apart from just CS grads and every company I interviewed with uses React. I was able to go from theater producer to account manager to software engineer and I don't think I could have done it nearly as fast without Fullstack. I will also say that Collin the instructor is fantastic. Eager to teach, knows everything, and great at explaining the underlying concepts behind the frameworks. I was very, very thankful for his code reviews and guidance. 

Suggestions to Fullstack - Please don't ignore students if they are bored/ahead. I really appreciated the extra workshops that started being available to me towards the end of Junior phase. If a student asked me what else they should work on, I would tell them to build a simple CRUD app. Then I would say re-do it using React Hooks instead of Redux. Then I would say use GraphQL. 

Suggestions to Students

- Pick your capstone project carefully, but not in the way you think. I was very focused on the actual product and wanted it to be cool, but I am so so thankful that we ended up using new technology and went through struggles and learnings I could talk to. This came up in all my interviews. Several said they brought me in because they liked how well I could communicate in my Youtube video and one had me give a 15 minute presentation on a challenging project to a room full of people. If you don't know how everything in your app works, ask your teammates to talk you through the code AND their decision making process. This was super important for interviews.

- This is something not everyone can control, but I think my exposure to the tech industry and how software is built was invaluable. The people in my class who had similar backgrounds really stood out and seemed to grasp the bigger picture much much better. So if you can work in the field before doing a bootcamp, I highly highly recommend it. I had no technical experience before landing a job as an account manager so I do think this could be an option for lots of people. 

- And go to the optional Saturdays and do the optional workshops! They were my favorite workshops and the most beneficial. 

I think Fullstack is a top tier bootcamp and I am very grateful for all that it gave me.

Simply put, Fullstack's cirriculum can help you change the trajectory of your life. After years working in non-profit and for-profit sector, I was ready to pursue my interest in coding. I choose fullstack because of its emphasis on a challenging cirriculum and only accepting good people. The instructors at Fullstack were more than willing to work closely with me as a student to answer any lingering questions I had after lectures, I was honestly surprised how much one-on-one time I was able to get with all of them. After the program I went on to become a teaching fellow at fullstack which gave me a peek behind the curtain and I can say with confidence that everyone who I interacted with on the fullstack staff level was as commited to helping students suceed as anyone I have met. From the more behind the scenes staff like Ben and Brett, to the instructors like Collin, Priti, and Finn everyone was kind and working everyday to make this a better program. Software is a quickly changing field and Fullstack provide the flexibility for the cirriculum to stay up to date with the newest tech and best practices. Also must give a shout out to the career sucess team including Holly in Chicago. No one has been more commited to getting me a job, Holly is the best! 

Prior to attending Fullstack's full-time immersive web development program in Chicago, I'd worked in logistics and operations within the publishing industry for a bit less than a decade. I self-taught a bunch of Python during that time for purposes of business process automation, and after coming to really enjoy this part of my job I eventually decided to try to break into the tech industry. After looking at the job market for web development, I realized that despite some demonstrable technical skills in order to actually get hired I'd need to do a few things: (1) learn the tooling and ecosystem that surrounds the immensely complex, fast-moving world of modern Javascript, which I couldn't do alone; (2) gain some experience writing code as part of a team, for having only ever worked in relative isolation; and (3) develop a portfolio showing proficiency in web technology stack in demand on the market.

I looked at bootcamps in Chicago, Denver, and a couple of other cities hoping to find a place that would help me in all three of these respects. I wanted a relatively selective program so I'd be working with people who already had a bit of technical experience (or the facility to acquire it quickly). I wanted a program that required students to come in the door with a fairly solid grasp of the fundamentals of the main language or languages used so classroom work could focus on frameworks and technologies rather than for loops and functions. I wanted the program to have a strong curricular component based on working together in teams. I wanted a program whose graduates' portfolios weren't just cookie-cutter copies of todo apps or simple CRUD applications; I wanted to finish with projects demonstrating some creative engagement with technically challenging problems so I could be competitive on the job market alongside CS majors. Lastly, I wanted a program whose curriculum seemed up-to-date, reflecting new trends and directions the industry is moving in (e.g. React, Angular 2, functional programing concepts and patterns), rather than older technologies, however battle-tested they might be (e.g. Rails, Laravel, etc.).

I chose Fullstack Academy (hereafter, "FSA") for it seeming to be a good match on all counts-- albeit after no small amount of research (including flying to Denver to spend a couple of days on a competitor's campus). FSA requires students to have a grasp of fundamental control and data structures in at least one language (as well as some demonstrable problem-solving ability) before being admitted. FSA requires admitted students to complete an at-home month-long "Javascript Foundations" curriculum before stepping the door, ensuring that everyone has a base level of proficiency. After getting everyone up to speed in its tech stack, the second half of FSA's program (“senior phase”)  assigns students to teams to complete projects in an environment designed to approximate the practices and rituals of a real-world agile workflow. In this "senior phase", students are not just encouraged but mandated to explore technologies beyond FSA's stack, finding interesting problems to solve along the way, documenting their work with videos and write-ups that prepare them to present their work on the job market. Finally, FSA's curriculum switched to React a couple of years ago emphasizes a functional style (e.g. you learn the syntax for OOP in JS, but SOLID is not taught; on the other hand, students spend lots of time thinking about how to write pure functions and that are easily testable). 

That's what my research taught me about the program. What I found at FSA vastly exceeded even these expectations. FSA's staff are extremely committed to instructional excellence for every student. In contrast to what I saw when checking out some larger, more impersonal programs, they get to know each student, identifying who is struggling with what and how to best help, on the one hand, and figuring out how to further challenge students who are breezing through the material, on the other. 

The curriculum is designed not just around teaching Javascript and the chosen stack, but at teaching students how to continue to grow as developers. At the beginning of the junior phase, the workshops do a lot of handholding, but as the program progresses the demands are ramped up: students take on projects involving larger and larger portions of the stack, moving from test-driven learning to building code that meets requirements stated much more abstractly, eventually in the senior phase being pushed to learn new technologies on their own and to solve problems with increasingly less instructor assistance. 

Throughout this process there is a healthy expectation that students will build up debugging resilience and gradually learn how to use Google to solve their own problems, though always with help from instructors and TAs. In some ways the purpose of the program, beyond teaching a particular stack, is to equip students with the knowledge of technique and confidence necessary to continue learning in a self-directed way, which is part and parcel of working as a software professional. 

The program places strong emphasis on learning to give and respond to feedback in healthy and productive ways, which does a great deal to ease the transition from pairs to teams and collectively acculturates students to the kind of social organization and processes employed in workplaces.  

All of this is wonderful, but it’s the approach taken in the “senior phase” and around the capstone project that really sets FSA apart. Throughout the first classroom-instruction phase, FSA collects survey data about which pairs of students work well together. In the senior phase, the instructors build teams based on this data combined with student performance scores and the results of further surveys which ask students what kinds of applications they’re interested in building. Teams are guided through a process which helps them decide between ideas, translate the best ideas into minimum viable products, and then into production-ready applications. The balanced, well-matched teams generated through this process are in a position to be pushed by the instructors and teaching assistants to build technically interesting applications that demonstrate students’ capacity to pick up new technologies and capacity for deep thought about architecture and design. 

As in any bootcamp program, things move quickly. It’s up to students to dive deep into technologies or parts of the stack in which they would like to specialize. The portfolio projects can end up having a “hackathon” feel, for this being the environment in which they’re produced-- but employers of course understand this. Tough choices have to be made about what to cover and what not to cover. But these are all par for the course with all bootcamps for being built-in to the territory. 

There are a couple of potential challenges unique to FSA worth mentioning. FSA’s teaching-assistantship model (they’re called “teaching fellows”) is based on keeping former students around for a three-month contract to help guide more students through the program, in contrast with some other programs which keep around a semi-permanent teaching-assistantship staff (i.e. people with less expertise than instructors who are the front-line debugging helpers, coaches, code reviewers, etc.). While the instructors typically stick around for several years, teach many cohorts, and grow their own skills as programmers and pedagogues through this experience, the relatively short duration of the fellowship program makes it hard for FSA to accumulate experience and wisdom in the area of its teaching assistants. On the flip side, teaching fellows always have a fresh memory of what it was like to be a student and are in this respect well-positioned to help other students navigate the program’s many challenges and demands-- the program is quite good at selecting qualified former students for this role.

FSA prides itself on an always up-to-date curriculum and has a lot of infrastructure in place to collect student feedback on the curriculum and integrate improvements into it. But as of Fall 2019 FSA moved more slowly than should be possible in integrating this feedback due to the many demands placed on instructor time. I believe they are now in the process of reorganizing curriculum design into a separate department to help address this issue. These are growing pains that instructors and management will freely admit to-- and I am fairly confident that FSA will rise to meet them in the years to come. 

Whatever the challenges faced by the program, I liked the environment at Fullstack so much that I decided to stick around as a teaching fellow despite some leads for local jobs that would have paid much more (I should say that I've wrapped up that contract and am no longer employed by FSA at the time of writing!).

Some words on the alumni network and the career success program. When FSA advertises that they've helped candidates land jobs at top companies, they're not kidding. While obviously not everybody will end up at Google, or whatever, it's also not just a couple of outliers that have made it into FAANG companies. (In NYC, Google in particular has taken an interest in FSA graduates and it's not uncommon for a few grads in each cohort to go through the interview process-- whether they make it in, or not, it's a great learning experience.) FSA is known for its academically rigorous curriculum and the quality of its graduates relative to other bootcamps, and companies that have hired from FSA are likely to do so again-- facilitated by an alumni network that feels loyalty to the program and helps graduates navigate the complexities of the job market. It's not uncommon as an alum at career fairs or tech events to name-drop Fullstack and see faces light up: "Oh, great! I've heard good things about them / I've worked with a Fullstack grad / My coworker spoke so highly of a Fullstack grad they’ve worked with," and so on.

After the program I planned a move to a new city in which there was a *much* smaller FSA alumni presence than Chicago or NYC. But the few alumni in my destination city more than made up for their small numbers with a willingness to help me understand the market and find companies where I might be a fit. Not long into my search, with lots of advice from alumni and and the career success team at Fullstack, I was able to land a wonderful position at a Fortune 50 company. And that definitely would not have been possible without FSA!

Bit of background about me before I dive in: I spent 6 years in the advertising field before making this career change, I attended the Grace Hopper Program in NYC, then got hired on as a Teaching Fellow afterwards at Fullstack. I finished my Teaching Fellowship in July, and just accepted an offer recently at my dream company!

When I used to do admissions interviews, I often get asked about my experience at Fullstack. Obviously I can't speak to how it compares against other coding bootcamps in the city, but what I can say is that when i was "bootcamp-shopping", I identified Fullstack, Hack Reactor and App Academy as the top bootcamps, but after reviewing graduation outcomes on CIRR and interviewing with all 3, I chose Grace Hopper @ Fullstack because of its superior CIRR outcomes and the fact that they don't have weekly Survivor-style elimination rounds like the other 2 bootcamps. 

Once I started at Fullstack, it was immediately apparent that EVERYONE there was committed to my success. There was an abundance of resources to help you succeed: custom workshop content, live-coding lectures, several Teaching Fellows (like TAs) who get assigned as your mentors, office hours for one-on-one coaching, extra lectures on Saturdays for those who need it, and a never-ending supply of additional study material (videos, articles). When I became a Teaching Fellow after graduation, I realized that this was fully-intentional; each Fellow would discuss how their group of students is doing, coordinating with instructors to make sure that lectures and assistance were tailored to their specific needs. They really leave no stone unturned.

Further, the staff maintains a startup mentality, in that they maintain an agile approach to their curriculum in response to student feedback. They regularly ask for feedback -- both on the staff memebers as well as the program itself -- and I've seen them implement them within only a few weeks.

I wouldn't in a million years regret my decision to spend this much money on a bootcamp. Before I joined, I was considering just doing a few nanodegrees on Udacity or going through FreeCodeCamp. However, there was no way those would be able to get me 1) live Q&A during lectures, since I have A LOT of questions, 2) tons of pair programming opportunities, 3) learning 5 new technologies in 1.5 months, and 4) a portfolio of full-blown applications and experience working in an agile team of developers, which I was consistenly asked about in my job interviews after graduation. 

Like other reviewers here said, going to a bootcamp, be it Fullstack or otherwise, might not necessarily guarantee you a job after graduation. It's not a silver bullet that will solve your life's problems. Like any other educational institution, the outcome you get will be positively correlated with how much work you put in. Be prepared to spend most of your waking hours thinking about, reading, and writing code. Work hard, but also work smart. Understand your learning style early on, as this is a bootcamp and things move at lightning speed. And most of all, don't forget to have fun :)

When I first heard about the phenomenon of coding bootcamps, I was incredibly skeptical. However, after completing Fullstack Academy's Software Engineering Immersive, I am a true believer that a good bootcamp can change your life (and career 😉).

Initially I chose to attend Fullstack for two reasons:

1. By requiring students come in with a baseline of knowledge, you are able to move more quickly and spend the limited time of the bootcamp covering more advanced topics (side note: I took the Bootcamp Prep course and was more than ready for to apply for the immersive by the end).
2. The idea of focusing on only one language/stack also leaves more time for honing skills and going deeper into concepts instead of learning different syntax for essentially the same things.

After completing the program, I still agree with both of those statements. However, they are only the beginning of what sets Fullstack apart...

Before attending Fullstack, I was a middle school math and science teacher. Coming from a background in education, I was very impressed with the curriculum and overall educational experience Fullstack provides for a variety of reasons, including:

• Each lecture is followed by a workshop in which students get to actually practice using the new information.
• The curriculum builds incrementally on itself, introducing concepts in a logical order. While new topics are introduced in quick succession (there is a TON to learn in not a lot of time), the nature of the workshops and projects requires students to continue using all of the skills they have previously covered. This not only provides additional practice, but also helps students understand how the various pieces fit together.
• Fullstack has found a good balance between explaining the most important ideas, while still requiring students to figure out how to implement them on their own. I think the most important thing I learned at Fullstack Academy is how to read documentation and teach myself to use new technologies.
  • This is then revisited in the second half of the program (see comment above) by asking students to choose new technologies/tools they are interested in learning about and using them to build a project of their own design.
  • When applying to jobs, I was able to tell interviewers that I was confident I could teach myself whatever languages and tools they use. (In fact, for one job application I taught myself an entire new language and became very comfortable using it in about one week!)
• It feels like the staff really cares about each student and their success. I saw this play out in two main ways:
  • Support: the instructors and teaching fellows are genuinely happy when students ask them questions or request office hours.
  • Assessment: it is made very clear that the purpose of assessments is to ensure that students have made an appropriate amount of progress, or to find out what they might need more help with. During the immersive portion of the program, there are no "passing" or "failing" scores — assessments are looked at holistically to determine what each student needs at that point to be successful.
• Fullstack purposefully crafts a supportive, collaborative environment by explicitly teaching in the first week such topics as why pair programming is important and how to do it well, how to combat implicit biases, and how to give clear, helpful feedback.
• The instructors elicit and actually respond to feedback! Not only do they make small tweaks if requested during a specific cohort, but they are constantly looking for ways to improve upon the curriculum and program as a whole and then implement them!
• On the topic of instructors: each of the instructors is extremely knowledgeable and brings examples from their own experience to highlight what they are teaching!

As someone who has tremendous anxiety around applying for jobs, I particularly took advantage of the Career Success team. During the bootcamp, I appreciated the guidance on such topics as creating a technical resume or harnessing LinkedIn. Then, during my job search I consistently refered back to the materials they provided us. But most importantly, I felt like I could always reach out to Holly, our Career Success counselor, for answers to even the most inane questions! She was beyond helpful in my search for that first job out of bootcamp, which I can't wait to start next week!

TL;DR Fullstack Academy provides a well-designed curriculum, supportive and knowledgeable instructors, and personalized career support. I couldn't recommend it more!

I found my love for programming very late in college, and as a result was unable to pursue it very far while I was still in school. I weighed the option of a masters vs. a boot camp, and ultimately decided that a boot camp made more sense for me both professionally and financially. When it came to choosing which boot camp I wanted to do, I didn’t shop around much. I figured that if I was going to invest so much time and money, I was going to do it at the best boot camp.

Coming out of Fullstack, I can confidently say that enrolling here as a student was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made for myself. The program offers high quality instruction, and the staff and instructors are dedicated to creating the best possible experience for students. My fellow cohort-mates as well as the alumni I’ve met have also all been incredibly supportive. I’m now gearing up to start my new job, and couldn’t be more excited for my future!

I had two expectations for a bootcamp:

1) to learn the skills of web development quickly and thoroughly

2) to gain a great network of really smart people

I am happy to say that I got both. Creating our capstone project was a great boost of confidence in the skills that I had just learned. I know I could have learned all of this information on my own, but it the organization of the information and the efficiency of how fast I was able to learn was well worth the cost of the bootcamp. I estimate that it would have taken me at least a year to pick up the same skills on my own. I didn't have to waste time figuring out what to learn and what were the best ways to learn them. 

I have a lot to learn in software engineering, but I have a great framework of how to improve and learn new technologies on my own. I also got my first job in Software Engineering because of Fullstack!

I also still get together with my classmates and it is really great to have a network and friends who code right out of the gate. I highly recommend Fullstack!

I always thought coding seemed cool, so I thought I'd pay the super resonable fee take Bootcamp Prep on-campus and just see what happens... 8 months later I am nearing the end of my fellowship, having accepted a life-changing job offer, and I can now officially define myself a software engineer. This is not the way I ever imagined my life would go, considering I graduated college with a creative writing degree, but I've truly never been happier or ever felt this proud of myself.

The curriculum, the staff, and the other students are all incredibly dedicated and hardworking. I feel as though I have gained lifelong friends and mentors.

If you're considering a coding bootcamp, no matter if you're considering Fullstack or a lesser camp, take Fullstack's Bootcamp Prep to experience the deeply supportive culture and supreme curriculum. Who knows, maybe 8 months later you'll be crushing it as a software developer at a major international company just like me! 

I had a great experience during my time at Fullstack Academy Chicago, and the people there really foster an awesome environment for learning. The instructors are very knowledgeable, friendly, and accessible. The fellows are always there to help someone through a bug or a difficult concept. The students are committed to learning and helping each other out. The career success lead Holly did a great job helping me transition to my first software developer role, even months after I graduated. Fullstack really built an incredible community with good people, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone trying to break into the software development field.

First and foremost if you are thinking about Fullstack, just do it! The knowledge, experience, and friendships you will gain are life-changing and lifelong. I attended the Software Engineering-Immersive course and allow me to say, it was certainly a journey. Here is some background about the course.

It starts off with a four-week remote portion called "Foundations". This is where you will learn or refresh on some fundamental to fairly advanced topics regarding JavaScript. For some, this was the most challenging portion of the course. Something to keep in mind is that throughout all of Foundations and the rest of the in-class portion, you are required to pass several "Checkpoints", and short of a passing grade, you will be held back. But do not let this intimidate you... In fact, it is for good reason. It aids in your development as an engineer/teammate and ensures that everyone you are working with is on the same page.

Once you pass Foundations you begin on a grueling 6-week Jr. Phase portion where you continue to build upon the concepts you learned in Foundations. But it doesn't stop there. You will learn cutting edge technologies, data structures, abstract data types, and more. As someone who recently graduated and is now happily employed I strongly recommend that the most important thing throughout this entire experience is your health. Make sure you give yourself enough time to eat and sleep. Give yourself every chance to come into class the next day psyched and ready to learn... because it is incredibly fast-paced, and it is easy to get overwhelmed. But just remember everyone feels the same way and to 'Trust the process".

Lastly, once you pass Jr. Phase, you will start... Yes, Senior Phase. To be totally honest this is where it all clicks. You start having more than just a high-level understanding of how data is flowing through the stack, and you are able to make a decision that impacts your entire application. And I don't mean add a div here or a div there... I am talking about highly educated and insightful decisions to engineer a full-stack application. For me, this was the most incredible part and a feeling I will never forget.

With that being said, you still have your fair share of challenges. Several projects, REACTO, Career success, and most importantly your health. At this point, you will have started the last 6 weeks of the Fullstack experience and it is definitely less intense, but even more impactful.

To sum it all up there is an incredible Carrer Success team. Fullstack goes out of their way to make sure every student is as prepared as possible to find a job as soon as they graduate. From Mock interviews, Resume workshops, Career counseling, and everything in between, Fullstack does not skip a beat. I know we all come here to learn how to code, but learning how to represent yourself as a candidate to a potential employer is seldom taught anywhere. Which is yet another thing that sets Fullstack apart from other bootcamps.

Every instructor I interacted with is amazing. Everyone is brilliant, helpful, and engaging. I never once felt any sort of negative vibe from any instructor. Even after the first day of Jr. Phase, you start becoming more than just another class going through the program, but you become a family. A family that supports and encourages everyone to do the very best they can. All in all, I highly recommend this program to anyone interested in learning more about Software Engineering. It is beyond just another "learn how to code" bootcamp. It is a life-changing, challenging, and gratifying experience.

All my respect to future Fullstackers, fellow graduates and instructors in the program. Thank you for everything, and I am excited to see the Fullstack family grow!

Fullstack Academy is the bootcamp for you if you're looking to learn the right technologies as well as get career support to find a job quickly. The teachers, career councelors and the staff are very student-centric and are always available to provide support.

The curriculum is very enhanced, so be prepared to work a lot and dedicate as much time as you can if you want to make the most of the process. Pair programming is a big part of the course and is a great way to absorb the material faster. The curriculum also includes career workshops that prepare students for the market.

I loved having Corey, Matt, Dakota and David as my teachers, Jackie as my career councelor and Emily as the program lead. They are all wonderful professionals and I've learned a lot from them.

The first place I came when i was interested in starting a developer career was right here to look at reviews, so I figured I'd do my part for the process as well. 

Fullstack was a great experience from day one. You're thrown into a mix of students from all backgrounds, and immediately need to start absorbing information. I graduated from a top university, but have never had an educational experience as demanding and productive as this. The course is fast paced and challenging, but you come out confident that you can use the skills you acquired, and learn the skills you haven't yet.

The staff is very knowledgable and helpful. The instructors, Ben, Collin, and Finn, really seem to care about every individual's performance and success. The Career Success aspect of the course far surpassed my expectations. Holly works with you every step of the way, even once you're finished with the course, to land you a job. 

Overall, Fullstack was a great expereince, both in the classroom learning how to code, and the support they provide coming out into the world and looking for a job.