Makers Academy

I completed the Makers Academy bootcamp as part of a government software developer apprenticeship scheme. This scheme sought to re-skill existing civil servants into software developers to help grow the talent pool and bring about value for money on large government IT projects. I had no prior professional coding or IT experience before starting the course. This was a complete career change for me and something of a step into the unknown - with all the nerves that accompany such a dramatic upheaval.

I did however have a keen interest in the IT industry which had led me to undertake some web development courses on platforms like Udemy, along with some minor (and largely unsuccessful) dabbling in Java and C++ during my free time. I would strongly recommend that a personal interest or passion for IT is an important component for being successful in the course.

The first thing I would say is that while it might seem daunting at first - to learn a discipline that you might have little or no experience with - don’t panic! Trust in the Makers selection process. It is rigorous for a reason, they are very adept at selecting only those who they think will make it through the course.

Makers is about a lot more than just typing away at a keyboard writing code. They very much take a holistic approach to learning, with a great deal of emphasis placed on mental wellbeing. There was onsite meditation and yoga coaches for instance, and regular social events such as pizza or climbing nights. All of this helped build a comfortable learning environment that is designed to take as much of the stress out off learning a technical subject as is possible.

The course began with a very gentle easing in over a period of about 4 weeks. During this time we got our feet wet with Ruby - a language that was used extensively throughout the course. We completed some pretty simple coding problems that steadily increased in complexity and helped ground us in the basic features of the language. Additionally during this time we were introduced to the terminal interface and some basic commands useful for development on a Linux or UNIX based Operating System along with version control via Github.

The course truly began in earnest when we started onsite training for 12 weeks. I personally was based at the Barbican campus, but there is a second, slightly larger campus at Aldgate East. Both facilities were excellent (better than every government workplace I have ever seen) with fully equipped and stocked kitchens, adjustable / standing desks with monitors.

The first two weeks of the course was essentially an introduction to Test Driven Development and this was one of the key coding practices that Makers sought to instil in us. The language we used during this time was Ruby. We would spend the first half of the day with a workshop led by a coach, before working on coding problems that were provided via Github and Maker’s very own workflow tracker Diode. In the afternoons we did pair programming on whatever that week’s afternoon challenge was. The pairing was randomised and you were very rarely with the same person twice. On Fridays we spent the whole day working individually on mini projects - like building a twitter clone or takeaway ordering app.

Next up was a two week introduction to all things web based. We did an overview of basic web communication and protocols, before getting to grips learning the Sinatra web framework for Ruby. Accordingly the projects were web based during this part of the course - building a Twitter and Airbnb clone. Following that we then switched things up and started doing Javascript - both vanilla and jQuery, which again lasted for about two weeks.

Towards the end of the course we started what were personally my favourite parts - the two engineering projects. At this stage we started learning and coding in whatever programming language - often referred to as a tech stack - our employers had informed Makers we would be using during our placement. In my case it was Java. We spent two weeks building a Facebook clone in our respective tech stacks before moving on to the final project - which is self selected.

In summary I would say the course was incredibly useful in giving me the skills and confidence to be able to go away and learn any programming language independently. IT is a difficult industry to break into, especially when you are attempting to do so self taught. Makers helps provide a structured and guided learning experience. The level of tuition was adjusted as we progressed through the curriculum - with regular, class sized lessons given by the coaches in the early stages of the course; which steadily tapered off as time went on and gave way to more ad hoc sessions as and when requested by particular students.

I would say that in order to succeed in this course self-discipline and a willingness to dictate your own study is very much needed - Makers teach you how go about learning a new language, but they cannot and do not teach you everything there is to know about said language. This detached teaching style might not suit everyone - but seemed to work well for my cohort. In terms of criticism I would say that perhaps too much time is spent focused on Ruby - which is great if that is the language you will be using professionally, but not so great if it is not. Secondly given that so much of professional development work is now cloud based or severless it would have been nice to have a week dedicated to this aspect of programming.

A recent graduate of Makers, I accepted a position as a Junior JavaScript Developer within 1 month of completing the course. I am a career-changer and had wanted to make the move into software development for years, and finally took the plunge in late 2018. I am SO glad I did! The course is very intense (it's called a bootcamp for a reason!) but I had a lot of fun and met some awesome people on the same journey as me. The technology they provide instruction on begins with Ruby (including Sinatra and Rails) before moving to JavaScript. This provides a solid groundwork for understanding the key principles of programming and provides a platform for 'learning how to learn' so that transitioning to a different technology or language is a smooth process.

It is very much a self-lead learning environment and you get out as much as you put in, but the coaches are approachable and knowledgable. Makers promotes best-practice methodologies such as Test-Driven Development, Agile workflows and Pair Programming throughout the course which means that graduates have experience in collaborative environments ready to join professional development teams.

Although I am yet to start my new job (I begin this coming Monday), I feel that Makers has provided me with the skills and confidence to succeed and am looking forward to my new career in software development.

I attended this course as part of my Software Dev Apprenticeship. This means I applied for the course through work, and once I'd finished the course, I returned to where I worked to complete my apprenticeship. Before starting this course, I'd already been interested in being a developer, but it's not the easiest industry to get into, and there's a whole lot of stuff you need to cover before you can really get to work. This course was exceptionally good at explaining that, and in no way avoided the reality of the situation. It forced me to tackle subjects that I'd avoided because I didn't get them easily, and introduced me to things I didn't know existed.

Before starting the course, I'd already done stuff online in order to try and get into development - this involved online courses on Codecademy, doing the edX CS50 course for an introduction to computer science, and trying to work on my own small projects. It's one thing to teach yourself about servers, but it's entirely different when you consider how they'd be functioning in a massive organisation, and all the different moving parts that need to be maintained and kept track of. There's a gap between how I thought about software development before the course, and how I think about now. And this is all down to the course - it's introduced me to topics and concepts at a suitable pace, and each week has brought in a new layer of understanding that fits on top of all the previous ones. 

For example, the first two weeks are spent learning about Object-oriented programming. This involves separating out your code into small chunks that can be handled in isolation - so far so good. The next week is spent learning about databases, and how to create a small code chunk that can interact with a database. You can start building up an application that has one small chunk that's dedicated to accessing a database, and fits in with the other stuff you've already done. 

Throughout these weeks, we were working in pairs, changing who I was with daily. Pairing is a somewhat standard format for developers to work in, so it made sense to practice it - although there were times where it felt a bit forced, and that the stuff we were working on didn't really require pairing. In particular, there'd be days where we were pretty much learning about a new topic entirely, and doing that in a pair didn't really smooth the process out. 

The course continues along this vein for about 7 weeks, building up the scope of what you can do, and making sure it can all fit together. I found this approach to be perfect for software development. A lot of the time you'll be working on a smaller part of a project, and you'll want to understand how and where it fits in, without getting sidetracked by how the rest of the project works. It's a really sensible way to structure your learning, and at no point did I feel like I'd missed something, or that there were bits of what I was doing that I couldn't explain in sufficient detail. 

The remaining 5 weeks of the course are primarily group projects - we did two weeks building a facebook-like application, complete with user accounts, profiles, friends and messages. The final two weeks were a group project that we got to choose ourselves. This also introduced us to some group work concepts, like organising work packages, and demonstrating newly built stuff to each other. Although this is all done in the context of the course, it felt really organic, and it was quite a genuine experience of working with people on code. 

I'm overall extremely satisfied with the course, though there are a few topics that I feel weren't covered. In particular, security didn't seem to be much of a feature, and I'm pretty sure a lot of the stuff we built would have been entirely unusable in the real world as a result. Additionally, the first part of the course involved a bunch of workshops where we'd be taught about key concepts, but these dropped off towards the end, and it felt like there were still some topics that could have been interesting in that format. 

Expect to take out four months of your life. This course is absoloutely amazing but it will consume your everything. The PreCourse is a great taster as to what to expect, with numerous Ruby challenges and the bare basics which lay a great foundation for the in house 12 week course. The Coaches are all fantastic, but I will say if you're looking to be spoonfed then Makers is not for you. The majority of the learning is independent, there are group projects along the way but please understand that you must become comfortable with setting your own work plan each day.

The location is perfect and easy to get to, any equipment you need is easily available and Dana (Chief Joy Officer) offers the perfect balance to unwind after a hard day of coding.

If you're looking for a real experience of what to expect as a newbie joining the world of world of tech then Makers is really for you. The Careers Team are a force to be reckoned with. They organise amazing careers talks and are available for talks whenever you need them. In my opinion, this is where the £8000 fee pays off. The advice and knowledge they provide is just fantastic and all the online blogs in the world cannot match them. 

However, you still need to be proactive. A job will not just land at your feet. 

The curriculum is fast paced so you need to be strict with yourself but also very organised. 

Overall, Makers is the only bootcamp in London really worth your time. If you are umming and ahhring about whether to do, be like Nike: Just Do It.

I live in the United States but I attended Makers in July 2018. Makers provided me with the most fun and knowledge-filled experience I have had in my life. The course moves at a fantastic pace - just fast enough to keep you in that magical zone between comfort and panic. Everyone I met at Makers was an absolutely pleasure to get to know which speaks volumes about their selection process. The staff is extremely receptive to suggestions on how to improve the course and it is obvious that the course is improving constantly. Makers provides each student with a fantastic location and sense of family both throughout the course and after - allowing for continued 'post-course' direction from both coaches and the career team, as well as a great network of alumni and events to attend. I was quite sad to have to leave back to the United States after graduating, and was a bit nervous that the Makers reputation would not carry over to my local companies, but I received an interview within the first week of applying as well as multiple others that I had to cancel after getting a great offer from the very first company. I'm beyond impressed with Makers and the results I have witnessed since attending and I would recommend this course to anyone willing to make an effort to change their lives.

Makers Academy is the place to be if you want to bring change into your life. It does not matter where you have come from if you are committed and determined you will achieve your goals. I was surrounded by wonderful, motivated people from different walks of life but Makers also attracts like-minded people when it comes to persistence, work ethic, and open-mindedness. The curriculum was very hard sometimes, and I strongly recommend reading blog posts about the experience because it is a very intense course. The weekly and weekend challenges were diverse and they were regularly updated based on feedback from previous cohorts. We were introduced to quite a few technologies as well as encouraged to look into things interesting to us. The coaches are great and very helpful but the students need to know when to ask for help. This is a skill that's worth practicing during the course. Other than showing us the best practices for coding, this boot camp also stands out because of its fantastic emotional intelligence curriculum, daily meditation and twice a week yoga session. After finishing the course, the careers team supported me all the way to make sure I was ready for the interviews. Their optimism and energy inspired me every day, and they worked really hard to find the places that are perfect fits for juniors.

I can not tell anything else than if you want to become a Software Developer then there is no better solution than Makers Academy. 

The course is tough, but the methodologies, the principles and techniques you learn during the course are in the highest demand on the market at the moment. They also keep the curriculum updated to demands. 
I had such an amazing 14 weeks with makers ( course on site + jobhunt ) and I can only recommend it. 
I've learnt a lot about myself thanks to their Chief Joy Officer, Dana, whose curriculum about Emotional Intelligence taught us for example how to be kind to ourself so that we can push to our really bests. 
The onboarding team, the careers team, the whole Makers staff and of course all the students are amazing poeple. I've made friends for life here and I'd be more than happy to life my life just coming back and doing the course over and over. 

I can not say anything else than thanks for changing my life, thanks for helping me become a Software Developer and thanks for bringing such a big value to people. 

If anybody wants to reach out for any questions, I am more than happy to answer, find me on LinkedIn or twitter.

This is an excellent bootcamp. The course is highly selective so you get to train with an excellent cohort of students who are driven and ambitious. The tutors are supportive and although you learn to work independently you are carefully guided if you experience any more intransigent coding issues. I am absolutely thrilled that I was able to experience this course and it is no exaggeration to say that completing the course has changed my career opportunities. The career support at the end of the course is outstanding and after graduation you automatically become part of a close community of coders who are leading the way in coding in the UK. My advice: Sign up now! You will not regret it!!

Makers academy was an amazing place and environment to learn how to code. The sense of community right from the start of the pre-course is incredible, with your cohort and the Makers community as a whole. 

The course itself not only teaches you syntax and certain languages, but also how to teach yourself. This makes picking up new languages and technologies much easier. The methodologies taught, agile and XP, are invaluable in the real world and very sought after. 

The careers team were so helpful in finding a job. Any issues or questions I had they were more than happy to help me.