App Academy

Being at App Academy has been one of the most intense and rewarding experiences I've ever had. At times, I was completely confused and wondered if I would make it through the program in one piece, but the TAs were always extremely helpful and willing to sit down and walk us through our mistakes and logic. Almost weekly assessments may be a constant source of stress, but are totally doable if you put in the time.  If you're willing to study hard and put programming as your first priority for a few months, App Academy is your best choice.

App Academy has been an incredible experience.  Just a handful of weeks ago, I had little to no knowledge of coding but now am proficient in Rails, CSS, HTML, and multiple JavaScript frameworks.  However, to succeed in this program, it is imperative that you commit yourself 100% to it.  That can mean giving up a lot, but as long as you are willing and able to put in the work, App Academy will give you the resources to learn more than you would think possible.  A lot of that is in part due to how they structure the course.  Most days, you will be pair programming with a partner, which creates a much more collaborative environment, in which people learn to help one another through problems.  I feel as though this was the best way possible for my own learning, as it teaches you both how to listen and interpret other's ideas and express your own clearly.  

The best advice I can give is stay on top of your work.  There is no time to catch up if you fall behind because the course moves so quickly.  The assessments are stressful, but as long as you keep up with the workload, they aren't impossible.  

App Academy is an incredibly rewarding experience — I've been attending the program in SF for 9 weeks, and just finished the first section of the course, and I can't even describe how much I've enjoyed it. We've learned Ruby, SQL, Javascript, React, Redux, Rails, and completed a full-stack clone of an existing application. There are people of all ages and backgrounds here. The youngest being 17 (by a pretty wide margin), and the oldest 40+. There are quite a few CS majors, but also people with engineering, accounting, sales, etc. backgrounds. However, the gender ratio for this cohort was pretty bad: about 1/12 are female. There are definitely people who are a lot better at coding from the start than others, which may change over the course of the program, so be prepared for that.

In my opinion, these are the two most incredible parts of a/A:

1. How much you learn, and how fast you learn it. The workload is intense (see below), but you'll amaze yourself with how capable you are of absorbing it!

2. The people. The TA's are very intelligent and genuinely want to help you succeed. The culture is not competitive at all. Everyone supports each other. We help one another with bugs, explain concepts to those who are struggling, get lunch together, and generally have a good time while coding. This community is actually very important, especially considering that we spend at least 45 hours together/week.

When you apply and pass the interviewing process, you must complete an Alpha Course — essentially a pretty packed curriculum on the basics of Ruby and Object Oriented Programming. a/A recommends that you spend 4 weeks on this, which is definitely a good idea. However, completely it in less than that time is doable if you can fully commit all your time to doing it. I finished in less than 2 weeks, although I had some prior programming experience in Java. I also spent nearly the entirety of every day working on it.

Each day during the first section of the actual course looked pretty much the same, save the material we learned that day: 9am start, lecture for around 2 hours, then pair program for the rest of the day to practice the material taught in lecture, with a break for lunch and a brief one in the afternoon. After the school day is over, we do 1-3 hours of homework. The homework consists of readings/videos and a small assignment that cover the material for the next day, which will be reviewed during the lecture. This is why a/A is definitely a full-time commitment — really try to keep up, and this is totally doable if you are sufficiently motivated and allocate your time wisely. At first, it was pretty difficult to adjust to this schedule: my eyes would be really sore by Thursday of each week for the first 3 weeks, and there are no windows so it's a little stifling. However, by the end of that, I was fully adapted.

There are a total of 6 assessments spread across the first 8 weeks, and if you fail twice, and then fail a retake, you are kicked out, no exceptions. This is a really strict policy, and it's definitely a lot of pressure. About 25% of the people in my cohort were kicked out, so please consider this carefully. I failed the third assessment, and was really stressed for the rest, but passed them without a problem. These assessments really are not designed to get you or anything like that. They provide practice assessments, and as long as you do those until you can finish it in about half the time you get for the real assessment, you will be totally fine. Just make sure you understand the material — don't simply memorize!

Overall, an amazing experience, and I would definitely do it again given the choice.

Attending App Academy has been one of the most rewarding experiences I've had. There were many times where I felt completely lost, but the TA staff at App Academy was always super accommodating and willing to patiently teach any of us that needed the help. I can't thank them enough for the help they gave me every time I felt ready to give up. If you are willing to drop everything and commit 9 weeks to see if coding is for you, there isn't a program out there I'd recommend more so than App Academy.

My experience at App Academy is absolutely the most hard working time in my life. The average work time of 80 - 100 hours per week is no joke. There is new material taught to you on a daily basis and the last thing you would want is falling behind. Use your weekend to not just study for weekly assessments but also revisit materials from weekdays The purpose of the program is really for you to understand everything instead of passing the assessments. 
All the instructors are knowledgable enough to take any question you throw at them and they give awesome lectures. Take advantage of what you are paying for and ask questions if you get stuck with a problem more than 30 minutes. I personally make sure that I ask at least 5 questions a day. 
Taking the prep work seriously is crucial to your success in the program. Going over the alpha course as many times as you can will help you substantially on your understanding of 'object-oriented programming', which is a huge part of the program. This is a really intensive and demanding program so take good care of yourself!

App Academy is a great place to further your knowledge in programming and the curriculum is very rich with information that if you master them, I can say that you'll do very well as a web developer. However, this doesn't mean that you'll become proficient from just attending the course. The course will only prepare you for what a work environment will be like and the rest is up to you. Self-studying and personal projects on the side is what will help you grow after graduating. 
Here are things for people intending to attend App Academy or are already accepted: 
1. The 90+ hours of studying per week is real. You really have to study every night and do the hw to be prepared for next day's work.
2. I can't stress this enough, master the alpha course that they give you when you are accepted. A lot of people fail out because they didn't take it seriously.
3. If you really are a true beginner when it comes to coding as in you know nothing, really ask yourself: "Do I learn really quickly and if not am I really going to put in the work to make up for that? " 
I started the program after learning Ruby for 3 weeks, and I can tell you that not having a background in coding really harmed my learning experience at App Academy. I was able to survive the course, but wasn't able to absorb as much of the curriculum as I originally intended to. 
4. They are not kidding about failing 2 assessments and kicking you out. The assessments are a great way to gauge if you on track but for those who have testing-anxiety a single bug on the examine can mean life  or death. I want to say that if you studied enough, then you'll do fine but there days when you might not be able to find that bug because it's as simple as a spelling typo. 
Final advice it to just stay on top of your game, assessments are important but don't prioritize it over studying for the week's material. 

Lastly, The most important question of all: Is this really what you want to do with your whole life? Are you willing to throw everything away for a minimum of three months to get it? 

App Academy has definitely been the most rigorous academic program I ever attended. The pros for this program is the ability to learn so much information in such a short span. Most of the time you will feel like you are overwhelmed with knowledge to the point where you feel like you'll forget the material when it comes to applying it later. To my (and many other students') surprise, applying your knowledge will feel like second nature.

The biggest drawback is the assessments and the consequences of failing these assessments. People spent large sums of money, left their jobs and invested their time for App Academy. To know that you can be let go if you're at risk creates a high level of anxiety. I personally left my job and was on the brink of failing from the program. Knowing how much I sacrificed to only be let go and not have a job to go back to is a serious problem. It's great that I passed through, but my situation would have been completely different if I was kicked out for academic reasons.

App Academy is great if you are serious about learning the skills to be a software developer in the shortest humanly possible time. You will be surrounded by other motivated and smart individuals (filtered by a rigorous selection process), and if you are also motivated, you will succeed. It is quite amazing to see people come in with minimal programming experience, and come out able to make really good looking web applications using several different tech stacks. Looking back, this is definitely something that I, and probably most people wouldn’t have been able to achieve themselves within 3 months.

Pros:

The program does what it says it does, and graduates do find jobs

cons:

very stressful, intense, and will test your endurance