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Grand Circus is an online learning institute offering 14-week full-time and 28-week part-time Software Developer bootcamps and a 26-week part-time Data Engineering bootcamp. Students can choose between coding bootcamps covering Full Stack JavaScript or Full Stack C#/.Net. In addition to the coding bootcamps, Grand Circus connects employers with tech talent, and offers advanced workshops, and reskilling and upskilling solutions for companies of all sizes. Workshops include introductions to coding, front end, back end, and web development fundamentals. Grand Circus instructors are experienced professionals, and focus on training students with relevant, project-based instruction that delivers real-world experience.
The mission of Grand Circus is to make a tech career universally accessible. Since launching in 2013, Grand Circus has maintained partnerships with big tech and local government entities to ensure that students are receiving the latest, most advanced training. Grand Circus helps students develop interview skills and soft skills, and organizes networking events to introduce students to employers. To date, more than 2,500 bootcamp graduates now work at over 400 companies across the country. Grand Circus is one of ten Google for Startup North America tech hubs, and partners with Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Detroit at Work, TekSystems, the Grand Rapids SmartZone, and Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation to provide a mix of funding and programming.
Although no coding experience is required to attend Grand Circus coding bootcamps, students must be intelligent, tenacious, resourceful, hardworking, self-motivated, and committed. Students should know how to work with programs like Google Drive and Microsoft Office. To apply, candidates complete an online application form, followed by an interview with Grand Circus. Once admitted, students will need to complete a 2-week, online pre-course before the start of the bootcamp. Students will receive a certificate of completion upon graduation.
I attended the Java Bootcamp in Early 2016, and this review will be a summation of my experience with Grand Circus, this is in no way representative of everyone's experience in past and future Java Bootcamps at Grand Circus.
I'll be dissecting the program using the below rating criteria.
Instructors
Our Instructor was an amazing woman name Jayashree Ravi. you could tell that she had a lot of knowledge of the curricu...
I attended the Java Bootcamp in Early 2016, and this review will be a summation of my experience with Grand Circus, this is in no way representative of everyone's experience in past and future Java Bootcamps at Grand Circus.
I'll be dissecting the program using the below rating criteria.
Instructors
Our Instructor was an amazing woman name Jayashree Ravi. you could tell that she had a lot of knowledge of the curriculum, and knew the IDE (Eclipse) very well. if you had any problem, she could look at your code and immediately tell you what's wrong, and things to keep in mind while coding to prevent your problem from happening again.
A big problem was that there was only one instructor, and 16 students. So if multiple students had multiple different problems, a line would begin to form, and as our problems grew increasingly complex, the wait would be longer. Jayashree was good at handling the problem though, and as you went through the program, you learned ways to deal with the long wait time.
We had a TA, but they were Ineffective at best, and outright disastrous at the very worst. There would be times when peers would receive help from our TA, and their code would come back more broken and confused than when they asked. There was even a time where our TA spent an entire day working on one of our Labs with a group of some of the students who were falling behind in the class, and the next day, one of my peers said that they went home and cried for hours because they felt that they wasted a whole day (when your program is 8 weeks, and you're already behind, one day makes a difference)
I think many students complained about the TA in every survey, but not a whole lot was done (what could be done?) to make them more effective.
Overall, I found that the Instructors were good, and give it 4 stars. A more effective TA would bring this to a 5.
Curriculum
I personally found the curriculum lacking in many areas, that I felt left me somewhat unprepared for the real world, which incidentally doesn't matter much (i'll explain below).
The program is separated into two parts, there's a two week take home part that you do once you pay your deposit (so if you pay it months in advance, you have months to do the work).
I found that the pre-work wasn't adequate to prepare people for class, as well as there wasn't much help for people that needed it. to elucidate this point, 5 days before the program started, I was contacted by one of my peers, and they wanted assistance with the pre-work. When I met up with them, they didn't have Eciplse installed, and knew absolutely no Java. This student ended up struggling throughout the whole class and didn't do very well in the end. I feel like Grand Circus should have worked harder to be available for people who were having serious problems like that and followed up more to make sure our work was getting done.
The rest of the 8 weeks weren't too bad, but one of my main complaints was that there was a huge discrepancy of skill in the class, which, amplified by the ineffective TA, hindered a lot of students in the class. I felt like this should have been addressed by requiring some sort of previous experience with programming. It's very difficult to take people with absolutely no experience in programming and make them junior developers in 8 weeks. A lot of the students with no experience in programming thought that the pace of the class was way too fast, and on multiple occasions, I would stay in the building until 10pm teaching people very simple Java syntax. Had they would have had some experience beforehand, it wouldn't have been so difficult for them to learn. At the end, they struggled, and didn't do as well as they could have.
Job Assistance
The program does really well with Job Assistance, there are many parts of the curriculum that deal with soft skills and job assistane, and they even put a lot of effort into helping you after you graduate. My only complaint here was that they didn't always have a lot of time to help you with practice interviews, which wasn't too bad in my opinion. They really did well on this part of the program.
Conclusion
I think that Grand Circus markets themselves very well, but falls short of expectations. Nonetheless they are a great school to go to, but my main advice is that if you choose to go to this school, take some time to really understand basic computer science concepts and if you can, just teach yourself some basic front-end/back-end skills.
The way I see it, Grand Circus shouldn't be a place for you to go in with no experience, and expect to come out as a junior developer, it should be a place where you go in with all/most of the skills to become a Junior Developer, and you pay to solidify that experience, and get access to some Kick-ass Job assistance tools that will land you a job anywhere.
I graduated Grand Circus last year, full time for 2 months. I was also apart of one of grand circus's free bootcamps. We were promised if we worked hard, we would get interveiws. When it came time after graduation, we were given an excuse and told they would keep up updated. We did not hear from our program organizer until she found HER new job. 3 months later, there's a new cohort of fools like us who had interveiws afterwards. Our cohort not getting interveiws was a "flu...
I graduated Grand Circus last year, full time for 2 months. I was also apart of one of grand circus's free bootcamps. We were promised if we worked hard, we would get interveiws. When it came time after graduation, we were given an excuse and told they would keep up updated. We did not hear from our program organizer until she found HER new job. 3 months later, there's a new cohort of fools like us who had interveiws afterwards. Our cohort not getting interveiws was a "fluke" according to the staff when I revisted, but other cohorts would. I ran dry my savings after going here, for nothing but very basic knowledge and disrespectful, condescending attitudes from people who aren't very diverse. The only reason I HAVE a tech job because I had to enter another program with a better cirriculum and onsite job training. I hear their paid bootcamps are better since they treat them like people instead of the way they treated us, so go here at your ow risk.
I graduated from the August 2015, Front End - JavaScript bootcamp as I was looking to make a career change. Grand Circus was the spring board I needed to increase my technology skills and created opportunities for me to network with employers looking to hire.
I can't say enough about the support provided by the entire Grand Circus staff during the bootcamp. From resume support, mock interviews (both technical and traditional), networking pitches, tough love and pep talks, they ar...
I graduated from the August 2015, Front End - JavaScript bootcamp as I was looking to make a career change. Grand Circus was the spring board I needed to increase my technology skills and created opportunities for me to network with employers looking to hire.
I can't say enough about the support provided by the entire Grand Circus staff during the bootcamp. From resume support, mock interviews (both technical and traditional), networking pitches, tough love and pep talks, they are there to help you succeed.
If you're seriously considering a career change into technology the Grand Circus bootcamps can help you do that. The curriculum is tough, but if you're willing to work extremely hard and don't give up before you've found the answer, you'll be ready for a new job as a developer. It worked for me, I was hired full time by a local Detroit start up 4 weeks after I completed the program.
GREAT INSTRUCTION. MR. USEFUL INFORMATION. HE ADDRESSED THE QUESTIONS OF THE CLASSMATES. WOULD RECOMMEND THE COURSE TO OTHERS
I loved every aspect of my Bootcamp experience, and would recommend Grand Circus to anyone who has interest in software development. Everyone on the Grand Circus staff team is amazing at their job. They are incredibly passionate, knowledgeable, and supportive. They are always looking out for their students best interest, and they treat you like family.
The instructors and teaching assistants are extremely knowledgeable and willing to help all students to reach their goals.
<...I loved every aspect of my Bootcamp experience, and would recommend Grand Circus to anyone who has interest in software development. Everyone on the Grand Circus staff team is amazing at their job. They are incredibly passionate, knowledgeable, and supportive. They are always looking out for their students best interest, and they treat you like family.
The instructors and teaching assistants are extremely knowledgeable and willing to help all students to reach their goals.
In addition to the technical training, we had soft skills training helped us to create a better resume, LinkedIn and improve our interview skills.
I liked the weekly surveies they gave us, and how they take actions on the feedback they recieve. They always enhance the program for the best results for the students.
The Bootcamp was a wonderful experience, and I am so glad I did it. I'll start my new job on Monday!
I attended the October 2017 Java Bootcamp. I have a computer science degree, but I had been working IT and wanted to switch to software dev.
My teachers were great: friendly, patient and knowledgeable. GC creates a culture where you feel like you can suceed, which honestly in tech, is 75% of it. If you show up and do everything they are asking, give 105%, you will get a job. If you don't have a math or computer science or technical background, you will study outside of school, ...
I attended the October 2017 Java Bootcamp. I have a computer science degree, but I had been working IT and wanted to switch to software dev.
My teachers were great: friendly, patient and knowledgeable. GC creates a culture where you feel like you can suceed, which honestly in tech, is 75% of it. If you show up and do everything they are asking, give 105%, you will get a job. If you don't have a math or computer science or technical background, you will study outside of school, or stay late. They have plenty of resources to help you. You absolutely can do it, you have a work a little.
I am also amazed at the community I have become apart of beyond Grand Circus through meetups and networking. This was a wonderful experience and I am glad I did it. I have a job and I start on Monday!
Hey, my name is James Jackson, I graduated the q1 full-time asp.net boot camp and I just wanted to share my experience. first of all, I came into this boot camp with plenty of programming knowledge, I taught myself front-end technologies for the past 6 months before joining this boot camp. that being said I still felt like on the education front, my teacher did a good job keeping me challenged. we would start the day 9 am, do some class code review then learn a new topic then we were pr...
Hey, my name is James Jackson, I graduated the q1 full-time asp.net boot camp and I just wanted to share my experience. first of all, I came into this boot camp with plenty of programming knowledge, I taught myself front-end technologies for the past 6 months before joining this boot camp. that being said I still felt like on the education front, my teacher did a good job keeping me challenged. we would start the day 9 am, do some class code review then learn a new topic then we were pretty much left to code and talk about our code the next day.
Personally, the most challenging part of the boot camp for was the soft skills, so on one side we had technical, where we would learn to code and improve our skills, and on the other, soft skills. So soft skills are just the idea of being able to communicate effectively with your teammates/co-workers and well anyone really. We also learned how to market ourselves as professional developers and mingle at meet up events. This was difficult because coming into this boot camp I was pretty new to this whole shmoozing world. Overall this part was challenging, but they gave me the skills I needed to land a job after the boot camp. I start my first job as a jr intern developer at Quicken Loans April 23rd, 2018 and honestly, I owe to the opportunity offered by Grand Circus.
Grand Circus provided me with the best educational experience of all time and changed my life in ways that i did not think were possible. Since completeting my bootcamp, i have the best job of my life and my career is exceeding my grandest expectation.
Overall:
My experience at grand circus was second to none. Starting with my first "fact finding" phone call with the GC admin staff, I knew that I was dealing with passionate and knowledge individuals who cared about me and ...
Grand Circus provided me with the best educational experience of all time and changed my life in ways that i did not think were possible. Since completeting my bootcamp, i have the best job of my life and my career is exceeding my grandest expectation.
Overall:
My experience at grand circus was second to none. Starting with my first "fact finding" phone call with the GC admin staff, I knew that I was dealing with passionate and knowledge individuals who cared about me and helping me achieve my goals. This initial feeling was confirmed and reestablished over and over again throughout my experience with GC. I loved every aspect of my bootcamp experience and would recommend GC to anyone who has any interest in software development.
Administrative: Deciding to participate in a 10 week bootcamp was a significant decision for me - not least of all because of the financial aspect. However, as soon as i began discussing the financial piece of the bootcamp i felt immediately at ease. the GC staff were able to answer ALL of my questions and provide my with numerous options specific to my situation. This was a relief and allowed me to focus on coding and getting as much out of the bootcamp as possible.
Staff: The GC staff, down to the person, are seriously amazing. They are incredibly passionate, knowledgeable, and supportive. They are always looking out for their students best interest and, again, i felt immediately at ease once I met them on site at Grand Circus in downtown Detroit. I developed lasting friendships with multiple GC team members.
The bootcamp: The bootcamp itself was awesome! i loved my instructor, the curriculum, the unique approach to learning to code, the team work, and all of our deliverables. I felt like i was family with my fellow bootcamp teammembers and have remained in close contact with many of them. The pace of the bootcamp was malleable - our instructor and TA adjusted it weekly to match the students' grasp of the material. this was a HUGE value add as it ensued that eveyrone was able to remain engaged in spite of challenging material.
Netoworking/job placement: UH-MAZING! Grand Circus is DIRECTLY responsible for helping me find the best job of my life and launch my career in a completely new and exciting direction. The GC staff used their networking contacts to secure me numerous interviews. Since finishing my bootcamp i have started a new job with an industry leading organization that i was put in contact with through grand circus. My role is closely related to what i studied at grand circus.
Grand Circus was an incredible experience where I picked up innumerable technical and life skills. The crew at Grand Circus go over and beyond to make sure that you feel comfortable with the material you're learning and provide every thing you may need to be successful in finding your future job.
In addition to the technical training, we also had Soft Skills seminars where we took the time to learn how to present ourselves as practicing professionals covering topics such as linked...
Grand Circus was an incredible experience where I picked up innumerable technical and life skills. The crew at Grand Circus go over and beyond to make sure that you feel comfortable with the material you're learning and provide every thing you may need to be successful in finding your future job.
In addition to the technical training, we also had Soft Skills seminars where we took the time to learn how to present ourselves as practicing professionals covering topics such as linkedin, interviews, resumes, and writing the perfect email.
The most benefical part about Grand Circus was the amount of resources available to us. While we had incredible teachers, great peers to work with, and access to coding meetups in the building, the people at Grand Circus were more than helpful, post-bootcamp and during, to check-in on our job search and forge any connections with potential employers.
I would most definitely reccommend Grand Circus to anyone considering a change.
I took a boot camp with Grand Circus in 2016. It was a terrible experience! The boot camp was geared toward "Detroiters" who were new to programming. It was very telling that the class geared towards "Detroiters" was almost entirely non-white, but the other boot camps were overwhelmingly white. I love Detroit and I love my people, but Grand Circus does not. There was a clear difference between the way the staff treated out class as opposed to the others. From being told that we were not al...
I took a boot camp with Grand Circus in 2016. It was a terrible experience! The boot camp was geared toward "Detroiters" who were new to programming. It was very telling that the class geared towards "Detroiters" was almost entirely non-white, but the other boot camps were overwhelmingly white. I love Detroit and I love my people, but Grand Circus does not. There was a clear difference between the way the staff treated out class as opposed to the others. From being told that we were not allowed to be seated while the other students did project presentations to being told that we had to wait until everyone else before we could enjoy "scraps" (that's what they called it) at a Grand Circus event (that was not invite-only, btw. It was open to the public). I could go on and on with other examples. The vibe at Grand Circus is non-inclusive. Detroit is over 75% African-American but Grand Circus student body is overwhelmingly white. Why? It's not because African-Americans aren't interested in learning technology, false. It's not that the classes are too expensive, because they offer free classes regularly. And if you check their website or social media, the few non-white faces you see are heavily recycled to give the appearance of diversity. Diversity shouldn't be an issue in a city that's majority African-American and have very strong communities of other non-white groups. Not 1 person in my class received a job via Grand Circus. NOT 1. Except, the program manager got a promotion with the Mayor's Office jobs program, go figure. We were intelligent, fast-learners, many students had previous tech experience and hustled to make connections. Grand Circus didn't do more for me than a W3schools tutorial could've done for me. If you're not a self-learner, it's a way to get free or cheap training, but don't expect anything else besides condescending attitudes and discrimination.
I had an absolutely fantastic experience with Grand Circus. They not only taught us the skills that we needed to get a job in the industry, but also introduced us to potential employers and helped us prepare for interviews.
I have recommended this boot camp to many of my friends, who have also had great experiences so far.
I was a part of the January 2017, Front End cohort at Grand Circus (Detroit). Speaking for myself, I had one of the best experiences of my adult life! I took a plunge and it paid off. I made some great friends and connections in Detroit's tech community and that may not have been possible if not for Grand Circus.
There are a lot of reviews here about Grand Circus being 'deceitful' and I everyone is entitled to an opinion but let's be honest, the program works if you work it. Most...
I was a part of the January 2017, Front End cohort at Grand Circus (Detroit). Speaking for myself, I had one of the best experiences of my adult life! I took a plunge and it paid off. I made some great friends and connections in Detroit's tech community and that may not have been possible if not for Grand Circus.
There are a lot of reviews here about Grand Circus being 'deceitful' and I everyone is entitled to an opinion but let's be honest, the program works if you work it. Most of us go in knowing that we are not guarenteed a job upon completion, which is why you should realllyyyy way the pros and cons before dropping $8k. If you're a go-getter, you will inevitably land on your feet whether it be 30 days after graduating or closer to the 90 day mark. You absolutely have to go outside of the job boards and actually network and talk to people!!!! A job is not just going to fall in your lap because of Grand Circus.
When it comes to comes to the curriculum, I strongly suggest practicing online as much as possible before you even apply for a bootcamp. Things will come at you super fast and if you do not have a basic foundation, you will feel (and probably be) left behind -- especially if you're in one of the bootcamps that's six weeks instead of eight.
Grand Circus has a vast network, make use of it. Reach out to alumni, ask GC staff for soft introductions, etc. THE PROGRAM WORKS IF YOU WORK IT!
Course Report readers can receive an Exclusive Scholarship to Grand Circus!
How much does Grand Circus cost?
Grand Circus costs around $14,750.
What courses does Grand Circus teach?
Grand Circus offers courses like Data Analytics & Engineering with Python (After Hours), Full-Stack C# .NET Bootcamp (After Hours), Full Stack C# .NET Bootcamp (Daytime), Full-Stack Java Bootcamp (After Hours) and 3 more.
Where does Grand Circus have campuses?
Grand Circus teaches students Online in a remote classroom.
Is Grand Circus worth it?
Grand Circus hasn't shared alumni outcomes yet, but one way to determine if a bootcamp is worth it is by reading alumni reviews. 50 Grand Circus alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Grand Circus on Course Report - you should start there!
Is Grand Circus legit?
We let alumni answer that question. 50 Grand Circus alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Grand Circus and rate their overall experience a 4.36 out of 5.
Does Grand Circus offer scholarships or accept the GI Bill?
Yes, Course Report is excited to offer an exclusive Grand Circus scholarship for $500 off tuition!
Can I read Grand Circus reviews?
You can read 50 reviews of Grand Circus on Course Report! Grand Circus alumni, students, and applicants have reviewed Grand Circus and rate their overall experience a 4.36 out of 5.
Is Grand Circus accredited?
Licensed, proprietary school.
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