Fullstack Academy

When I decided to switch careers to software engineering, I didn't look much beyond Fullstack Academy as a starting place. Their reputation and proven numbers were stellar and it didn't hurt their onsite immersive in Chicago was easily accessible to me. Chicago has other options, though, but Fullstack won out on quantitative results. Of course, none of that stopped me from being nervous about the program. With limited background in coding, I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle it. Their tried and tested system, patient instructors, and dedication to their students quickly helped me understand why they have the reputation as one of, if not the, premier coding bootcamps in the country. Don't get me wrong. It was difficult and stressful at times, but, that's why they call them bootcamps, and in the end I came out prepared to enter the job market and succeeded in landing a job in the industry in three months. To anyone considering making this leap, I can't recommend Fullstack Academy enough. And make sure you take advantage of their bootcamp prep course before applying.

Fullstack Academy played a very special role in my life at a time (around 40 years old) when I was finally daring to face down deeply ingrained fears and negative thought patterns about my ability to learn challenging new concepts and skills, and bet on myself in pursuing new and compelling pathways in life.

I attended the immersive program, which is so well structured and paced, relevant/current, and meticulously and lovingly crafted; the instructors are masterful and clearly passionate and invested in the success of the students (love to Finn, Collin, and Priti); and the student community is so intelligent, growth-oriented, warm, and supportive (coming from someone who usually has trouble fitting in), that there's no question this was a critical turning point in my life. Fullstack's career counseling- and especially, their Chicago lead, Holly- is the best I've engaged with anywhere in my life, and I've just accepted a software development role at a company I'm truly excited to work for.

I could ramble for a long time, but here are some subtle things of note:
- They have an actual 'No Assholes' sign, no assholes were encountered in my time there
- They have an entire lecture dedicated to unconscious bias, and I watched them make good on it with poise and grace when a contentious situation arose
- They demonstrate and fluently integrate a deep understanding of the learning process, including concepts like psychological safety and a hierarchy of activities that solidify knowledge acquisition (if you've always felt teaching is the best way to learn- you're in good company)
- I normally get icky vibes from CEOs (and I've met many), but when one of the co-founders, David Yang, came to do a Q&A with my cohort toward the end of our time there, he was so transparent, and took the time to truly consider and reply authentically, evenly, and without pretense to every question (even some challenging ones about company management), that the last piece of the puzzle snapped into place- this is a program founded and built by a group of people who have a deep, abiding love of technology and of learning, and faith in the potential of both of these things to change individual lives and the world.

I can't believe where my life is now. After about one year of programming and a short three month bootcamp sprint I am a fullstack software engineer for a medical imaging company that I am inspired to work for. I could not have been here was it not for the skills and support that was brought to me from fullstack academy. They not only taught me the fundimentals of coding, but also gave me confidence in my ability to learn. Despite the academy's currculum in fullstack javascript I acheived a position at a company who uses completely different technologies, solely because I am now an expert learning of software. I can't thank fullstack academy enough for accelerting me into work I love and making me confident in my proffesional abilities.

My time at Fullstack Academy was extremely fruitful. I was taught relevant and powerful technologies that the industry is using, and given all the resources I could ever need to succeed. I began my journey afraid of what the future held for me and unsure of my abilities as a coder, to then becoming a confidant software engineer who's eager to learn more and more. The fast paced curriculum is a bit intimidating at first, but it becomes almost addictive by the end of the program (especially during Project/Senior phase). 

The personal growth you see at Fullstack is incredible. At graduation, though I know I have a lot more to learn, I was proud at the amount of material I was able to learn in such a short period of time. The community is another incredible characteristic of Fullstack. Everyone is eager to learn just as much as you, and are extremely supportive of one another. The instructors are another gem. They are very down to earth and patient with you. Definitely, Fullstack Academy was the best choice for me.

 

Fullstack Academy made me excited to wake up every single morning. All the instructors are extremely approachable and always available to help. As intense as it was, honestly I was having so much fun. It's an incredible experience that I'll always treasure. There will be games and activites on certain days to balance out the work. The instructors are extremely knowledgable and it was great learning from all of them. After all, it is all dependent on your own willingness and responsibility to learn and how much work you are willing to put into reaching your goals.Their career success team is amazing that will give you great insight, strategies and knowledge to maximize your potential to landing a job. The career coaches will be available to you even after you graduate and guide you every step of the way. It was a hard journey, but if you want it bad enough, you will pull through.

I attended the Grace Hopper Program at Fullstack Academy of Code and I have to say, it was one of the best moves in my entry to Software Engineering career.  I went in knowing only a little about Front-End development, Beginner Python, and a little bit about JavaScript and came out an official full stack software engineer.

 I knew that I wanted to take my coding skills to the next level, so after researching and hearing from other people I had reached out to who had also completed Fullstack, I chose to give it a try.  Coming in, I was a bit intimidated, afraid for what would happen...would I be able to keep up?  What if I failed?  I had heard that the intensity of the course was very high and that a lot of new information would be thrown at me.  I chose to go forth, courageously and make the investment.  I am thoroughly glad that I did not let fear of the unknown stop me.  

The program was highly structured and regimented.  The system was so detailed it became easy to pinpoint areas where there was a block in my understanding; coming from the military, I really appreciated such an organized platform.  This level of structure along with the immense support from the staff and fellows made it possible to tackle really hard subjects in such a short period of time.  It was far from easy, but attending Fullstack helped me to realize my own ability in learning new technologies in a matter of 2 weeks and really possessing the aptitude to create projects that I never believed I could have created a year ago.  This is just the tip of the iceberg of what makes Fullstack a top choice!

Fullstack Academy(FSA) has been such a career maker for me. Before I worked at a management level position within UPS, a fortune 50 company. Well I liked the people around me, I felt like I needed to make a change as I could do a lot more. Software Development was always in my mind post college but I shyed away from it because I didn't want to go through 4 years of undergrad. 
 

Coding bootcamps had always been in my mind as a possible solution but there's so many out there and from one of my personal friend's experience, it hasn't paid off. But FSA is covered by the government and verified as a legitimate education organization. My experience at FSA has been life changing as my mental capabilitties were pushed to the limit at such a short amount of time. The career growth FSA provides gives you an edge against other bootcamp grads and provides you with strong fundamentals to learn more programming languages as well writing clean code. 

 

Everyone at FSA was extremely helpful and crucial in me landing my first job in Software Developement. For those that are contemplating coding bootcamps, let alone FSA. I highly recommend FSA. They are a strong organization that produces strong future developers.

2 months post graduation.. I am now a software engineer.

I could give you my story about a job I disliked and how I got into coding, but we all have those. When it came to choosing the right coding bootcamp, I spoke with numerous engineers both in the Bay Area and in Chicago; people from companies such as Charles Schwab and Google. They were familiar with several different bootcamps, but the majority of them strongly recommended Fullstack Academy. They often worked with Fullstack graduates, or knew their company specifically looked to hire those with a Fullstack Academy background.

I took Fullstack's bootcamp prep course (highly recommend if you don't have a CS background), and then I applied for Fullstack's complete program. Here's a quick timeline:

December 2018: Started taking free coding courses online, learning JavaScript

January - February 2019: Took Fullstack's Bootcamp Prep Course

March - July 2019: Completed Fullstack's Full-Time Bootcamp

September 2019: Accepted position as Software Engineer

The bootcamp itself was TOUGH. Most days I wondered if I had made the right choice, and I was especially nervous about the looming job search. Fortunately, Fullstack takes its "No Assholes" policy seriously, and my cohort was full of kind, passionate individuals who were also there to learn and support one another. The instructors were extremely helpful, and any time I needed some extra help they were eager to make time and answer any questions as quickly as possible. 

All in all, Fullstack knows what they're doing, and their stack is current and what most companies are looking for.. which is the most vital thing to keep in mind when doing your bootcamp search.

Turns out, tons of companies are genuinely looking for engineers/programmers/devs. If you practice your coding, and stay familiar with the concepts Fullstack went over, your interviews will go well. Within a month of graduating, 80% of my cohort was hired, and 2 of them became fellows. 

Looking back now, I am so happy I took the plunge and chose Fullstack Academy. 

 

 

Fullstack is an incredible institution. I started my journey with Fullstack through their boot camp prep course (which I highly recommend), and upon completing the course was able to pass the admissions process to be enrolled into their fulltime immersive.

Upon admission, I chose to take the Sept'18-Dec'18 cohort and even passed on a half scholarship to another coding boot camp (Flatiron School). I had talked to a few people and it just seemed that FSA's education was substantially better than a handful of the other boot camps. 

Based on my research I had high expectations for Fullstack, and to be honest they exceeded just about all of them. 

Given how much you learn in a relatively short amount of time, the instructors for these programs are probably the most important part of your experience, and I can honestly say that my instructors (John, Geoff, and Dakota) were the best instructors I've had in any educational setting ever.

There are no dumb questions at FSA, and the institution does everything they can to make sure is staying on track and up to speed with the rest of the cohort (office hours, extra study sessions, etc). I can't tell you how many questions I asked my instructors, but they always were able to bring it down to my level, and always able to help me walk away feeling more confident.

The experience is intimidating at first, and it does require a lot of work, but the experience was hands down the most rewarding of my entire educational career.

FSA is a springboard for a new career, it still requires you to be dedicated to learning, and to have a strong work ethic, but if you are truly committed to learning this curriculum and to opening the doors to a new career, then I can recommend this boot camp enough.

I started researching coding bootcamps while in a job that I loathed. I had only one friend who had done one, which is what prompted the research, but other than that, I had no idea what they were about. I was an English major in school, and had taken pretty much only humanities classes, and so never even thought that computer science or engineering would be something that I could even do at this point! The Grace Hopper Program stood out to me for 2 reasons: a) all women's and b) deferred tuition. Overall, it has proven to be a great choice, and I do not regret it.

It is hard to get in. My advice would be: take at least 3 months to prepare for the interview. Take all of the pre-bootcamp stuff that Fullstack recommends, but do even more than that. The Foundations course (the first month of the bootcamp, which is online) is really hard. Meaning that even once you get in, you need to pass the hurdle of actually passing Foundations. This was not made very clear to me when I applied: Foundations is HARD and the only way you will pass if you have no background in coding is if you study 24/7 and also take some months to just get the muscle memory down and let the vast amount of information sink in. I had to take Foundations twice; the second time it was even harder! By some miracle I passed. Consider yourself warned, though! It will take time and grit. You will need to sacrifice lots of things (time with friends and family, outdoor activities, any other activities....). But it is possible!

The on-campus experience once I finally passed Foundations (phew!) was generally very good. The cohorts are pretty small (25-40 people from what I have seen), and they really do try to foster a collaborative, friendly atmopshere where women can feel free to be themselves and explore a field that (most likely) they are not comfortable in. That said, there were quite a few people in my cohort who had been engineers in the past (maybe a different kind of engineer, but still), and so they hit the ground running and were clearly faster than the rest of us. I thought that everyone was going to be on the same page, but some of us were most definitely not. On the other hand, I certainly learned from pair-programming with them.

In general the on-campus experience was very positive. The first half of bootcamp, called "Junior phase", was all about absorbing tons of information (they called it "drinking from a firehouse") -- so the day would be full of lectures and labs (where you'd either work on it by yourself or with a partner, usually with a partner). Sometimes the lectures would be just 20 minutes long, but you'd have 3 or 4 interspersed throughout the day with labs in-between. You'd have a different partner each day so you really got to know people that way, plus it was good experience in pair-programming. We would have checkpoints (tests) each week, but they were take-home, and technically weren't graded, though actually your fellow (a recent grad who stays on to be like a TA) does grade you just to know how you're progressing. They do keep tabs carefully on each student, by the way, to make sure that everyone is on track and will be in good shape to get a job by the time the program is over. If for some reason you seem to be behind, they will let you know and try to assign you a remote tutor and give you some tips on how to study/survive bootcamp better. Anyways -- aside from the checkpoints, you also have two timed, in-class exams: the mid-term and the final (which is called the "senior checkpoint"). The mid-term (called "pillars") doesn't actually have any real consequences, it's just another way for them to gauge how you're doing. Senior checkpoint, though, is make-or-break. In that if you don't pass it you don't get to move on. Although I think recently they've offered a re-take option. There is also a final project that you do at the end of Jr phase. If your project and exam are up to par, then you move on. If not, you may be asked to either a) repeate Junior phase or b) leave.

I was asked to repeat Junior phase because my project wasn't quite there. I welcomed this opportunity, though it did end up costing me 3k more in the end. The pace during bootcamp is lightening speed, and I'm not necessarily to quickest learner, so I felt I needed more time. They rarely don't let people repeat, but it did happen in my cohort. 

The second phase is "senior phase", and that's all project work. This part was really fun. Stressful, because you have very limited time to do your projects, and on top of that you have to start worrying about career stuff, but it was still fun because it was so creative. You can think for yourself a lot more; it's less about grades. At that point they basically can't kick you out, either, so that is some aleviated stress! I really enjoyed senior phase. Career counseling was very good, I thought.

Once you leave the program, the (in my opinion) hardest part begins. Now you are no longer surrounded by others who are on the same journey as you (that is, you can be, but you have to make a big effort to get together with them). You don't have the support network and the encouragement of being on campus. You are at home. In front of your computer. Checking your email and LinkedIn obsessivley because you never know when you'll get that message that could lead to a job interview! I do not recommend going on vacation after bootcamp. You will lose your momentum. Stick it out, and keep going full steam ahead. That is what I did. I didn't apply to any jobs cold -- only went through friends, undergrad, and bootcamp networks, mostly through LinkedIn, and talked to people over the phone and over coffee from there. That sometimes led to a referral, which sometimes led to an interview. I've just accepted a job 2 months out of bootcamp, and the offer is good :) But it was a ton of work, probably just as much as bootcamp itself. 

In sum, I never would have gotten a job like this if it hadn't been for GH. So I am so grateful for that, and for the alumni network which I am now a part of. It has been very empowering to learn how to code. However, it was been a grueling journey, so don't go into this thinking it will be an easy way out. It is no cakewalk. It feels like a bootcamp. There were days when I could barely get myself to roll out of bed because I was so tired! It will take a lot of perseverance, but it can help you greatly improve your career, salary, and life. If Jess Bracht and Geoff Bass are still there, they are awesome. Get to know them.

Finally, the all-women's aspect definitely makes a difference. People would always comment on how the atmosphere on our floor was so friendly and convivial. It really does become like a sisterhood.

Best of luck!