Actualize

As someone who was on this very website 5 months ago looking for a bootcamp to throw an exorbitant amount of money at, I understand the difficulty behind trying to pick which reviews to trust, which sound scammy, who just had a bad experience due to their own lack of effort, etc... In the interest of openness and transparency I was asked to write this review, however, that has in no way had an impact on the scores I am giving. I tried to pick an area I could maybe leave a 4 instead of 5 star answer to try and give this review a bit more trustability, but I failed, because in all honesty my experience has been 5 stars all around. My lead instructor Amanda Hale did a phenomenal job of being both engaging and informative. Additionally  Amanda did a terrific job of pushing me to my limits while still offering a helping hand when it was truly necessary. Our 2 teachers assistants were also an amazing help when fixing bugs and both super supportive throughout the process of learning this new skill. The environment was extremely welcoming and over the course of our five months together our cohort became great friends with each other. If I were to criticize a single thing to give this review a bit more validity among the skeptics it would be my personal distaste for Vue.js, again that comes down to preference and it is an incredibly popular framework and useful for the job hunt. Speaking of the job hunt, this bootcamp offers something unique that many other bootcamps do not, Career Services. At any point you can book an appointment with one of Actualize's two fantastic career counselors. due to the small class sizes you get very tailored, personalized help from finding a job, to writing a resume, to leads on different apprenticeships that match you specifically. All in all, highly recommend this bootcamp. 

Actualize is a great bootcamp, especially for this with little previous coding experience. They focus on teaching you how to teach yourself, which is extremely important in programming, and one of the main reasons I chose Actualize. The other main reason I chose this program was because they had been offering it online way before COVID, which was a huge plus - they definitely have the right structure in place. My only caveat, being someone who had a decent amount of previous coding experience, is that there were times where I didn't feel as challenged as I would have liked. Other than that, Actualize did a great job in giving me a solid foundation to further my programming abilities.

I cannot recommend this program highly enough. From the great instruction to the TA's to the Job hacking crew, everything is set up to help you be successful. Our instructor Amanda was amazing! She is so much fun, but also pushed us every day out of our comfort zone. You could always tell she truly cared about us as students and wanted us to succeed. She believed in all of us and was encouraging through the process. We had great TA's to help us as well. Meg and Jonathan did an outstanding job as support.

Bootcamp is very challenging and demanding. I was impressed by the lessons as we learned a great deal about both back end and front end software engineering. Actualize set me on a good path to continue my learning after bootcamp as well. I really appreciated the dedication to job hacking. Actualize helped us update our resumes, fix our linked in profiles, and connect with others in the industry. We did a lot of practice for tech interviews and were encouraged to start applying for jobs and put our resumes out there.

Many bootcamps have you work on a capstone project in a group, but at Actualize, we did our own project from start to finish. Although we had many opportunities to pair or mob program, I thought it was really important that we built our own app from the ground up. It gave me a much better understanding of the whole process and how the parts fit together. 
I truly appreciate all of the support, encouragement, and top notch instruction that we received. If you are looking for a bootcamp, look no further! I did look into other programs, but Actualize let me sit in on a class, they have Mac's that you can borrow so you don't have to invest in one, and they truly support their students!

I chose Actualize because after reaching out to a few different bootcamps they were the only ones to actually reach out to me and put me in touch with an actual person and after talking to the admissions manager I knew this was the place for me. My experience seriously could not have been better Amanda was an amazing teacher and was more than happy to help and teach you all of the stuff you are going to need to make a true run into the software development industry. From my classmates and the T.A.s everyone was super helpful and it makes you realize that you are all in this together and that you are all working towards the same goal and everyone is more than willing to jump in and help you with anything you may need. I would recommend this bootcamp to anyone that wants an actual in depth course on how to learn about learning software development and in the 12 weeks you are more than capable of building a full stack app and present it in a way that you know everything that you are talking about not just a bunch of vague nonsense. I would also say anyone that isn't happy where they are at that this is a great jumping off point for a new career I spent 15 years at my last job and had to leave and when struggling to figure out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life I am glad I went this way and chose in my opinion the best coding bootcamp out there.

After transitioning out of the concrete industry, Actualize gave me all the tools I needed to succeed in the tech field. Their curriculum is fast paced and covers a wide variety of information, but you never feel left behind. Due to the small class size, experienced instructors, and multiple great TA's, there is always a support structure to fall back on if you need it. If you're interested in a full-stack experience that will challenge you as well as teach you, then I couldn't recommend Actualize enough.

 I came across Actualize as I was making a career change from sales. Not only does it provide great instructors but the staff genuinely cares about their students and their growth. This course consists of a dozen of exercises/problems each week, a video explaining how to solve the problem, and then a section for you to solve the problem. The course is set up to learn new topics each week, and you get plenty of practice in class and in homework assignments. Moreover, there was a strong sense of community and we all quickly became comfortable with one another and trusted one another in the learning process. 

Like so many of the other reviews posted here, I want to reiterate what a fantastic bootcamp this is having just graduated from it myself. 

With an excellent, well-rounded curriculum that runs for around five months, followed by their job assistance program called "Job Hacking," students genuinely have all the support they need to not only learn full stack web development, but to reinvent their resumes and professional lives. 

I attended the most recent in-person cohort at their Chicago office. Peter, the head instructor, led this cohort. He did a fantastic job teaching us, and was always willing to take us through anything we needed help with step by step. 

Perhaps the biggest takeaway I got from all this was not necessarily becoming a pro developer after only five or so months, but learning how to teach myself how to code so as to be prepared for a fulfilling career. 

Though it may be hard to believe, this bootcamp really lives up to the hype.    

Going to this camp has been a great experience for me, I feel like I learned so much in such a short period of time. This course is quite intense but once you graduate you will feel confident that you can start applying for entry level positions in software development. I came into it with zero coding experience and the pacing of the class, while fast, did not leave me falling behind by any means. I highly recommend this to anyone who has tried to learn to code on their own and felt as though there was just too much to learn and got lost in the mess of it all. Actualize provides a structure curriculum that is tried and true. 

I had the opportunity to recently attend the in person cohort for Actualize's Coding Bootcamp in Chicago. With no prior experience in coding, I wasn't sure what to fully expect. I appreciated the instructor being upfront and honest about what the class was going to provide in a 16 week period. We focused on the fundamentals and basics of coding while learning how to learn to code. I believe this is a huge factor in being successful in the software development industry. It is constantly changing and with the help of Actualize's program and curriculum, I honestly believe I have been set up the best way possible to be successful in my job search now and many years after. The instructor also made sure every student had the resources and time needed outside of class to learn and get the help they needed. 

I chose Actualize because it was a full-time, full-stack bootcamp that is about 5 months long. 5 weeks of pre-work, that is self-paced and 12 weeks of virtual class that you attend every day. I was drawn by the fact that in a very short time, you were able to learn these skills. I appreciate that everyone at Actualize makes you feel very welcomed and cared for and they want to make sure you have a positive experience. The mental toll the bootcamp will take is talked about immediately and I love that. I would recommend Actualize to anyone that is looking to fast track their career into coding, but make sure you are ready for a rollercoaster ride and you really dedicate yourself.