Juno College of Technology

The Web Development Course with Juno College was an excellent experience. In my previous job as an editorial graphic designer I had very little front end development to do. I had previously tried using Code Academy, Skillshare and several one-day coding courses to deepen my knowledge, but none of it took. From day one with Juno, I was hooked. The program, instructor and resources were such a great support structure that I am now comfortable coding HTML and CSS, to the point that I am continuing at Juno with the JavaScript and the Web Dev Bootcamp. I couldn't recommend this course highly enough if you are looking to get a solid grasp on Front End development foundations.

This was my first Juno experience. I was very eager to learn the fundamentals of data science and storytelling, right as the course was set to begin covid hit and we moved to online learning. I think I could have benefitted from learning in class however the professor was very good at answering questions and providing question and answer sessions before class. I thoroughly enjoyed this course, I do think I could have benefitted from taking a coding class or learning coding fundamentals before this course there was a bit of programming I had never experienced before. The data analysis and storytelling were for sure my favorite part as well as the presentations and learning and seeing other people's presentations. Would definitely recommend this course!

I would recommend Juno College for it's web development immersive bootcamp, and for the career support that you receive post-bootcamp. The instructors are knowledgeable, personable, and approachable, and I truly believe that anyone can go into the Web Dev 101 workshop not knowing a thing about coding, and come out of bootcamp with enough knowledge to land a job as an entry-level developer. 

Beyond bootcamp, the support of the Career Services team has meant the world. Job hunting is a daunting process, especially during a pandemic, and the Career Services team has really helped keep me on task and motivated throughout. Whether it's resume help, interview practice, or just being there for an ear to vent frustrations to....the team have been amazing. 

Long story short: Juno helped me make a career change and get hired as a front-end developer during the COVID-19 pandemic!

In university I studied anthropology and French. I planned to work in academia, but after completing a Master's degree in anthropology I realized that this was not a viable option due to the overly competitive job market and the increasing trend of hiring contract faculty instead of full-time positions. I worked briefly in a sales role at a tech company in Toronto, and then for over 3 years in a customer service role at a call centre. 

While working at the call centre, I enrolled in the part-time introduction to web development course at Juno College in October 2019. I had dabbled in building websites in the past, and I wanted to see if a career change into web development was the right move for me. I chose Juno because of the great reviews online, as well as for financial reasons: if I enrolled in the 9-week bootcamp, the cost of the web development course would be deducted from my bootcamp tuition. At the time, Juno was also the only bootcamp that offered the option of an Income Sharing Agreement, i.e. having the cost of the bootcamp deducted as a percentage of your pay when you are hired as a developer.

I really enjoyed the web development course, so after much deliberation I applied and was accepted for the bootcamp beginning in February 2020, as well as the 2 week full-time JavaScript course running just before it. I quit my job at the call centre, and my journey began! After having taken three courses at Juno so far (Web Development, JavaScript, and Bootcamp) I can say that I am absolutely thrilled with my experience. Here are some of the highlights:

-The course materials are cutting-edge, easy to understand, and constantly being updated. As a Juno graduate, you have access to the course materials for life, even as they continue to be updated!
-The instructors are all fantastic. Experienced, knowledgeable, patient, funny, understanding, friendly, engaging, and passionate are the main adjectives that come to mind. 
-The Career Services team really knows what they are doing. During and after bootcamp, they provide tips and guidance on how to get your first job as a developer. This process is very thorough, and I was really impressed by how they hold your hand through becoming part of the tech community, building a personal brand, and successfully marketing yourself to stand out to employers. Similar to the course materials, they are always looking for ways to improve and give their graduates an edge in the job market.
-The community of students, alumni, instructors, and Juno staff is super friendly, welcoming, inclusive, and all-around great. I made so many new friends! 

Three weeks into my bootcamp, COVID-19 struck and all Ontario schools closed. Initially Juno proposed that we immediately continue classes remotely, but there was backlash from many of my classmates who had concerns about the quality of a remote bootcamp and their ability to take part from home. Juno listened to this feedback and decided to pause bootcamp for three weeks, hoping that the crisis would blow over by then. Unfortunately the pandemic situation worsened, but over the three week break Juno prepared a seamless transition to remote learning, and have since made significant accommodations to do right by their students. The three weeks also gave us as students more time to prepare for the new reality. This is just one example of how accommodating Juno is, how they can nimbly make changes and improvements when necessary, and how they always put their students first!

My last day of bootcamp was May 15th 2020, and in July of 2020 I was hired as a Front-End Developer at Greenpeace Canada! It speaks volumes that Juno College was able to help me achieve this even during a pandemic, and I am forever grateful. I look forward to taking more courses at Juno as I continue to level up my skills :)

I just completed Juno's 2 week Accel Web development course and as challenging as it was for a code newbie, it has been extremely rewarding. The environment online was extremely inclusive and I felt welcomed from day 1 of the program. The instructors laid a great foundation and despite having zero knowledge of coding it did not hinder me. 

2 weeks ago I was learning about the internet and basic HTML and now I can somewhat successfully create a responsive web page! I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be able to do something so "techy". Every master was once a beginner and I had an amazing experience at Juno College. I look forward to taking another course with them. 

I took the Web Development Immersive bootcamp for cohort Fall 2019. I graduated end of December and landed a job as a front-end developer early February. But it wasn't easy and the job hunt was arguably the hardest and most demoralizing aspect of the experience. I worked my BUTT off during the bootcamp but the job search was still rough. The junior dev market is saturated and the competition is nuts. However, the instructors, faculty and alumni were so supportive and helped prepare and push me for that grueling job search. I don't think I would've gotten a job if it weren't for them. Special shoutouts to:

Chi-Chi who was so supportive in both helping me fix my terrible and very long cover letters, practice interviewing and gaining the confidence I needed, and was also there for me when I just needed to vent.

Asaf and Simon were amazing instructors and made every class engaging and full of laughter. Suzette is the sweetest and the way she teaches is so easy to follow. There was never I time I felt too scared to ask a question. I felt like every instructor that taught me genuinely loved teaching and that made those long days (hello React) so much easier. I could go on about the rest of the faculty but I truly think the community Heather is fostering at Juno is amazing and so genuine. 

My one small complaint is I wish we spent more time during the bootcamp on vanilla JavaScript or had a project incorporate vanilla js as oppose to the 2 weeks of HTML&CSS review. Beyond bootcamp helped bridge that knowledge gap and I learned so much from Simon but the attendance of beyond bootcamp started to dwindle - maybe because of the hours or the fact that it's occuring during the job hunt, I'm not sure. :( Incorporating what we learned in beyond into the main bootcamp might be something to explore! Also renovations at the end of our cohort was a bit inconvenient because we didn't have a common space to job hunt together, but I think renovations are about to be over. 

My experience at HackerYou has been very positive. I've taken two of their part time courses (Web Development and JavaScript) and am currently enrolled in their Web Immersive bootcamp.

I've found the instructors and mentors to be very helpful and informative, and the course material presented in a very fun and engaging manner. The HY community itself is very inclusive and supportive. They have a great alumni network and it's exciting to see that alumni want to come back to support students by mentoring and volunteering their time.

A few things I love about bootcamp so far: it's not only about coding. They truly care about your well-being and want to see you succeed. Each bootcamp student is paired with a bootcamp buddy (a previous bootcamp graduate volunteering their time) to provide you with any support you may need. Each week there's Salad Club so at least we're eating some vegetables during these intense 9 weeks. JavaScript weeks are taught in smaller groups to ensure the material is being understood. Real world experiences and tips are constantly being shared.

I cannot recommend HackerYou enough!

Fresh out of university with a physics degree, I went back to work at Home Depot for over two years. Without a Masters or a PhD, it would've been tough finding a job that interested me. I hated the thought of going back to school for years, needing to take electives I didn't want to take, worrying about my average, and buying more textbooks.

HackerYou was the solution I needed. I took the part-time web development fundamentals course, which fit my retail store schedule, and then quit my job when I got into the bootcamp. Just a month and a half out of bootcamp I got a fantastic job as a web developer.

At HackerYou we learned industry-relevant languages, best practices, and tools that I use at my job every day. Even since my cohort ended in January, HackerYou has updated its curriculum with the most popular Javascript topics and latest tools for accessibility.

I loved that there was no massive lecture hall, no old professor teaching an outdated curriculum, and no competitive atmosphere. This school is welcoming and fun, something I didn't think could help me learn as much as I did. The instructors and mentors are top notch: they are as committed to every student's learning are they are their well-being. They will push you to do your best, but make sure you're taking care of yourself.

I also made amazing friends and invaluable connections all over the tech scene in Toronto from HackerYou's extensive network of alumni (who remain heavily involved in the HackerYou community - that says something).

My team at work is 100% HackerYou graduates and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I literally owe my career to this school, and highly recommend even trying out a free workshop just to see what it's like!!

I started with a promising career; working as a Multidisciplinary Web & Graphic Designer in Australia and England for solid companies. But the travel bug got the better of me and I then spent 6 years in Japan teaching English. When I moved to Canada and tried to jump back into design, the fact that I was brand new in the city and had been out of the industry for so long, made getting work a Herculean task. After some soul searching, I knew I needed to skill up. I spent no small amount of time looking into further education options.

Although I’d initially wanted to move into UX design, the positive reviews on community and support at HackerYou won me over. I wanted a course that got you a job and after attending info nights and free workshops all over the city, I found HackerYou extremely welcoming and personable. The large number of women made it very inclusive and I also appreciated that they had a process in place that didn’t just accept EVERYONE. I believe environment plays a huge part in success and in that respect, anyone I studied with would be passionate and committed. The common thread after speaking to numerous alumni was, “Do it. You won’t regret it.”

It wasn’t an easy decision… huge financial commitment! But when I finally bit the bullet for the Part-Time Web Dev course, my instructor, (former HY grad & instructor, now Shopify superstar, Sylvia Nguyen) made it so much fun that I fell in love with something I once saw as a necessary evil part of the job. I’m not completely new to coding as my work in web saw me designing & building websites for clients, but I have absolutely no regrets taking Web Dev Fundamentals as well as Advanced. I upgraded my outdated knowledge and learnt current industry best practices that made me excited about the future of code.

I applied for the Immersive course, not really thinking I’d get in because it was sooo competitive. Then I got the call that I was accepted! Honestly, I wouldn’t have passed the tech challenge had I not taken Part-Time before. Doing part-time also gave me confidence in the teaching style, curriculum and quality of instructors.

Bootcamp was no walk in the park; sleepless nights were the norm and JavaScript was an exercise in picking yourself up again and again. But the support was there: The bootcamp team were beyond encouraging and there were games, extra-curricular help, stand ups and weekly salad clubs to look forward to. Not to mention, my cohort was the absolute best, kindest, most wonderful group of humans EVER.

My review ends happily as two weeks after graduating, I got an offer from an agency and started work the week after. At the time of review, I’m still at Beyond Bootcamp and learning advanced JavaScript from yet ANOTHER amazing instructor. The curriculum and school work hard to get you employed. But you have to be proactive as well.

Attending this school was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. HackerYou gave me more than just my first job in tech as a developer. I also gained a family, a community and a future that I’m really excited about!