General Assembly vs App Academy

I chose App Academy because it was one of the few bootcamps that still offered an in-person experience. I attended App Academy’s 16-week in person software engineering program in San Francisco. Being able to have your instructors there with you and pair... Read More program with your peers in-person was invaluable. If being in-person is something you can commit to, I highly recommend it!  The coursework is extremely rigorous (about 8 hrs of lectures/programming during the day and a few more hours of readings/homework at night) and the job search after is even more rigorous. But they do provide you with all the tools you need to succeed with experienced instructors, opportunities to build projects to showcase your skills, and career workshops and partnership jobs after. The in-person curriculum may be lacking Python, but App Academy prepares you to learn and implement new languages and frameworks on your own.  I was previously a marketing manager with little coding experience. The job market was slow at the time I graduated App Academy and it took me 6 months to receive 2 software engineering offers. The program is tough, but definitely rewarding if you are dedicated to shifting your career into engineering. 

I took the 24 week online course and I didn't expect to learn as much as I did in this time. When you look back it is crazy to see the amount of work you did but it is all worth it. There were many long days (and nights) of coding and preparing for the... Read More next day but that was essential for understanding all of the information that you had to learn. The course itself was great. You are provided with homework to prepare, lectures in the beginning of the day and pair programming in the afternoon (sometimes timing of that varies). They provide study time to prepare for the upcoming assessment and provide a study guide. They want to see you suceed so ask as many questions as you can. You will learn a lot and won't be able to retain all of the information so going back over the content once you finish the course will really solidify your understanding. Instructors are App Academy graduates so they know what you've been through. They break down the concepts really well but be prepared to feel like you are in over your head. That's going to happen but don't let that stop you, everyone feels that way. If you have prior coding experience a lot of the info is pretty easy to understand but you learning new concepts is still a lot. The job search was a lot of applying and rejections (especially in this market). Expect it and don't get discouraged. a/A provides you with so much support and has a team of behavioral coaches and a team of technical coaches to help with each aspect. USE THEM. That is where you will get the most out of your time. They provide workshops and mock interviews to make you think in a new way and prepare you for the interview process. They really work with you but you have to communicate with them. They have partnerships with companies but that doesn't mean you get the job. You have to go through the interview process like anyone else. Partnerships go in and out because they all aren't hiring all year around. Most have certain times during the year they hire.