The Iron Yard

The Iron Yard has made my dream of becoming a web designer possible! When I first came upon The Iron Yard, I was blown away by how authentic and nice everyone was. I understand that the staff at every coding bootcamp are supposed to be nice to you. After all, they want your business. But, it was different at The Iron Yard Austin. They really care about your journey and progress from start to finish. I graduated from the user interface design course three months ago. Three months later, Karly the campus director, still checks up on me and offers career support. The staff is what make this place great. Learning a new skill in three months is no easy feat, but the support that the TIY Austin team provides makes you feel like anything is possible. 

My experience at Austin TIY was nothing short of exceptional. If you are even considering attending TIY or even just a career in coding. I suggest you attend TIY crash courses. It's a great way to make sure you will like the teaching style and if TIY is a good fit for you, also they are FREE!!  

I can not applaud the staff enough, the professors are very knowledgeable and share great insight with their job experience. They are very caring and do all they can to help all students be successful.

The staff is wonderful and are always looking for tools and resources to help the students be successful. What I wasn't expecting was the soft skill and the tangential topics that were covered by the staff and guest speakers that offered a more well rounded experience that is essential when transitioning from a different career path. Through the dedication of the professors and staff I was able to get a job as apprentice software engineer a week after graduation!! Sounds like a lie I know but it's true.

Coming from non computer science background and having hardly any experience coding, TIY is perfect for someone who is determined to make a career change.

If you come from a background with a lot of knowledge and experience coding this might not be for you. This program is most helpful for those who require to learn a lot in a short amount a time.

I had a phenomenal experience with The Iron Yard Charleston. There are a couple of things to keep in mind:

• You must do the pre-work and take it very seriously. It is immeasurably important that when doing the pre-work you do not only do the assignments but also make an effort to explore the concepts on your own and come up with applications for the concepts you're learning on your own. You will not learn these concepts by just completing the assignments in rote, neither during the pre-work or during the cohort itself.
• You must spend more than 40 hours a week on your assignments. Between completing the assignments themselves and applying them in new, creative ways, you will not be able to achieve the necessary amount of proficiency in the material to be able to get the fantastic job you can get at the end otherwise. As important as expanding on your interaction with the pre-work mateiral is, it is even more important to interact with the material during the cohort in the same way. That means side projects, if you have time for it. That means going back to your earlier projects and making them better, from scratch, with the new skills you learn every week. 
• You will not copy and paste anything. To solidify syntactical and stylistic rules and norms you will have to spend a significant amount of time typing the same things over and over again. You wouldn't copy and paste your algebra homework if you wanted to get a job doing it. You won't want to do that with coding either.
• You should read trade blogs and news outlets as often as you can. Hacker News is a great resource for learning where to find these things. Even if you don't understand everything (you won't at first!) still read it. It will help you get a sense of the industry, how people work and act in the industry, and the general technologies that are popular and being used. 
• You must attend technology meetups in your city. Like the previous point, you will not understand everything, but you will meet people who will explain these things to you and who know things your instructors sometimes will not. And contacts in the industry are so much easier to make in a casual meetup setting.

If these things sound like a drag or like they're going to take up too much of your time, then you're going to have a hard time finding a job in this industry. It is a fast paced one and there are thousands of people trying to get into it. The only way to stand out is to get involved and to take your learning the material as seriously as you can.

I began researching The Iron Yard about 4 months before starting it. In deciding whether I wanted to do it I spent a modest amount of time working on learning some things on my own before the cohort started. This gave me a really great foundation to succeed during the cohort. Even though I had that great foundation, I still found ways to spend upwards of 80 hours a week working to become a software engineer. Take it seriously.

This is also hands down the most fun way to learn anything. If you are a focused and self-driven person then you will thrive. If you are willing to ask questions and admit you don't know things then you will thrive. On the other hand, you will be sorely disappointed with the program if you aren't that kind of person. It's not for everybody, but for those who are willing to put in the time, it is perfect.

Terrible experience,  I should have known because when I toured the campus, it sounds like you are about to fall through the raggedy wood floors. Also, when I took my assessment, their website crashed and said “ 500 error That means we can’t find what you are looking for or there is a BLUNDER IN OUR CODE” . How are you going to teach me to build a good website and your site crashed due to bad code?  This school is not worth the money, check out comparable schools in the area like Thinkful or General assembly.

It went fast, as in time flew by. Alot of my classmates are also jobless after 4 months of graduation and the school director just quit to exacerbate the issue. They do have decent wifi and the salvation army is across the street so you can have an idea of where you might be afterwards: jobless. And a huge debt to pay afterwards. Sounds kinda like what an orange guy with a red tie has been saying for the last 10 months. This is mostly negative but it is the truth for most of us. My review would be better if at least I was close to getting a job but so far its been silence from everywhere, even the supposed job support sucks. They just send blasted links from places I search anyway. Its sort of embarrassing. Though, its cool that now I can make a site if I want but as long as a check to my name is not coming. then screw this. And for that reason, I'm out. Ps I just saw all the glowing reviews so I assume my comment will be stuffed to the last pages so if you read this I'm shocked. 

My experience at TIY has been exhausting, as expected. We learn new concepts every day and constantly apply our knowledge to homework assignments and projects. A lot of outside-the-box thinking is required [insert CSS joke here] which is preparing us for the wild world of web development. After a few weeks, you'll start to think of everyday situations like grocery shopping or yard work as a human compiler. Just hang on and focus on learning and applying what you've learned. Try not to waste time worrying about what you don't know-- there's really not enough energy for that. It will all make sense in time.

Our instructor is excellent. He teaches us, but doesn't like to give us the answers right away. In a way, he is teaching us how to learn as well as how to code. If you want someone to hand you all the answers, don't pursue this course. It won't happen.

Going through this bootcamp is a great experience. I'm making friends with my fellow classmates, I'm learning how to be a web developer, and there are networking oppurtunites everywhere. If you're up for the challenge, go for it!

I was part of The Iron Yard Atlanta's November 2016 Java Back-End Class. I had an excellent experience at the Iron Yard. The instructors are passionate and engaged in the field of technology. They are very much NOT just 9-5 instructors; they are generally available on Slack (communication/messaging tool) over the weekends and in the evenings. On one occasion my instructor and I stayed on campus until 9pm working on getting a JQuery plugin up and running. Even instructors teaching other classes are willing to help you out (though they are of course focused on their own students first). 

Job assistance is a large part of what people expect out of code schools and TIY takes that very seriously. I graduated less than a month ago and I've already been contacted by several companies through TIY. They are always available to answer questions about companies ("What do you know about this company? Is it a good place to work?") and we had several "mock interview" opportunities to get us started.

Paradoxically I do wish I had done more research about The Iron Yard even though I am 100% satisfied. I didn't really "shop around" and compare other code schools as much as I should have, but I think I lucked out. The Iron Yard (Atlanta at least) is an excellent place to be.

Best of luck!

P.S.: This comment is more about intensive code schools in general and TIY certainly fits that bill: it is hard work for 12 weeks and you need to make sure before you start that you will have the time and energy to devote to it.

My first week of the front-end coding at The Iron Yard campus in Salt Lake City has been exciting and fast paced. The week was full of discussions, laughs, new challenges and getting to know some of my fellow cohorts better.

The lessons presented thus far by Sean Duncan, our course instructor, have been enlightening and well focused. I must commend him on his ability to switch gears between presenting his lecture, answering all our questions and making the concepts interesting, especially since I am a begging developer.

My first week has been meaningful in a few ways. First, I feel like I finished my first week with many more questions then what I came in with. And second, I feel as though I got several gears turning inside my head that were not turning before the start of the camp. I suppose both of these are fairly common when someone is learning so many new and amazing things for the first time. Finally, I think the cohort I have the pleasure of being a part of has good chemistry. I have been blown away with everyone’s willingness to help each other and have fun while doing it. This was just the camaraderie I was hoping for in this coding bootcamp at The Iron Yard. I am excited to see where my new career path will take me.