When deciding on which coding bootcamp there are several key factors one needs to consider, and in this review, I will explain those key factors and how LEARN Academy proved to be the best professional educational decision for my goals.
In-person vs. online: I started my LEARN Academy cohort in February 2020 and for better or worse was able to experience both the in-class and online (Zoom - remote) version of LEARN Academy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In an ideal world, one should attend the in-person experience in order to further solidify friendships within your cohort, the teamwork aspect of being able to discuss code in-person with a whiteboard, and just the general fun of being able to walk around the classroom with a Kombucha in your hand and see what your peers are code. Nonetheless halfway through my bootcamp, we pivoted to remote and we didn't skip a beat. I feel that all aspects of the curriculum were maintained and we were even able to quickly start utilizing important digital tools more heavily (Git, Slack, VS Code Liveshare) that are fundamental for remote dev work in the future anyway. Overall "in-person" I feel is ideal for learning, but LEARN was super successful in replicating the "in-person" experience online.
Internship: The internship is a TREMENDOUS value add for choosing LEARN Academy. I had the opportunity to join a company and work alongside 5 developers at a fast-growing startup in San Diego (keep in mind I started to learn to code just 15 weeks prior). My internship was extended and I continued to work for 10 months at the same company gaining practical coding experience every day. I was hired as a contract worker with no benefits, but nonetheless, it was an invaluable experience to work on actual production code. The internship is guaranteed for 4 weeks but I would say of my cohort was asked to extend for 1 or more months and they were also paid for their extensions and were able to put actual development work on their resumes.
Quality of teaching instruction: During my course, I had three daily instructors committed to my cohort ~6 to 1 student to teacher ratio (they pivot the number of instructors based on class size). All in all the teachers I had were able to meet me at my learning level and explain complex concepts into more easily digestible content. They were ALWAYS available to answer questions and held office hours. Like most things in life you get what you put in, so make sure you ask questions all the time and ASK for help when you need it. We also had an excellent Professional Development week, led by the Career Services Manager, and in addition, had access to other developers at several of the dev agencies that were in the same building. If my instructors didn't immediately know the answer to my question or debug my problem they were able to get back to me with my answer in a timely manner. In addition, we had various guest speakers and panels (from the SD tech scene) which made class each week super interesting.
Overall, there are plenty more points to speak about when speaking about LEARN but at the end of the day after three months of classroom instruction, I was successfully contributing to an agile development team at a tech company in San Diego. The process to prepare for the bootcamp, take the bootcamp, and perform at your internship is INTENSE. The skills to learn to code is like learning a foreign language you constantly need to have a growth mindset and practice, practice, practice. 10 months after my bootcamp I am still growing and learning each day and that never changes. You must have it within yourself to persevere, be a self-starter, and make many many many personal, financial, and family sacrifices to have a chance at getting a junior developer position in 2021. With that being said LEARN is the most well rounded and experienced resource available in the San Diego area to place your faith in to prepare you for a successful life-changing career pivot. read more