LEARN Academy

I'm also glad that they got rid of the instructor because he wasn't the right person to be teaching coding to total beginners. He was impatient and demeaning to those that needed support that most. Isn't the point of attending bootcamp in person is to have hands-on experience and get support when needed?

Overall, I had a good experience at LEARN and learnt some but it would be a mistake to assume to you'll come out prepared to be a developer from day one. Once you start your first job as a developer, you'll realize there's a huge of gap between what you need to know and what you learnt in short 12 (actually 8 weeks because of "1 week of professional development and 3 weeks of final project").

I attended this bootcamp on a scholarship in which the entire tuition was waived. So first I wanted to express my gratitude for the people at LEARN for providing me that amazing opportunity. I probably would have not attended had it not been for this scholarship. I just wanted to preface my review with that so you understand the context of it since it might not contain the same kind of cost/benefit complaints that many other reviews contain.

I think the great thing about this bootcamp is that it's run by a husband/wife team and that the wife is actually the CEO. I think that is quite inspiring for many women coming into this industry filled with sexism. She advocates for inclusion and has given talks on such topics in the community which I think is something different than other bootcamps. This place feels like a safe environment.

My cohort was small and we all managed to bond very well with each other. This bootcamp was very adamant about not studying any new material once we left after 5pm. Though I definitely think that reviewing some material for a while when you go home by yourself is great to solidify the concepts. 

This bootcamp labels itself as a Javascript/Rails focused bootcamp but that may be misleading. Of course when building web apps Javascript is going to be dabbled in much of the time so it never really goes away. But we don't necessarily focus on it too much. We spend about 2 weeks doing Javascript and we actually learn programming concepts through this language. I think this the time period during the course that I actually felt my mind being stretched. After this period, we move into Ruby but I felt like we should have spent more time in it. The curriculum didn't feel as challenging during the Ruby portion which was about a week.  When we moved into Rails I lost that 'stretchy' feeling and I didn't really feel like I was doing any 'programming' but merely managing this vast library that is Rails which is fine, but I felt like concepts were beginning to slip away from my mind.

Now this kind of segues into why I titled my title the way I did. During the course we pair program everyday. We would have a standup sessoin in the morning where we talk about what we 'Mad, Sad, Glad, or scared' about and check-in. then we would have a presentation on a topic, and after that we would pair up and practice what we just learned. 

In certain respects, pair programming is great because if you get stuck, your partner is there to provide an alternate perspective and you are able to keep moving fairly quickly. The thing in my mind that I felt like could have been improved and this is might be a  more a personal issue, is that you inevitably come to a point where your stuck and your partner may find a way to get unstuck for you but you might not understand how they came up with the solution they did. Asking questions and requesting them over and over to explain something to you sometimes isn't effective and isn't in the best interest of time. Some people work very fast, and some things click for them more readily whereas others learn differently. People going into bootcamps come from VASTLY different backgrounds, some may have had exposure to programming, some have math degrees, some have no exposure whatsoever. I found myself taking a backseat a lot and letting the other person drive because I just didn't think I was grasping things as quickly as they were. In this short time period, your going to have vastly different outcomes depending on the student. 

This is where the time-based nature of the course comes to the forefront and I think is the biggest obstacle to truly learning concepts for some people. Keep in your mind that this is a BOOTCAMP, with all the implicatoins that that entails. You will be exposed to concepts and then PUSHED through the curriculum whether or not you understand them fully. There were times where I felt like I was just going through the motions and was completely lost but didn't feel like reaching out realy helped me out either. The TA's couldn't really provide the personal attention needed to truly help, they always seemed to be pre-occupied with other things, or perhaps they are just introverted. This is the problem with time-based education, or the factory model which bootcamps emulate from the traditional school system. You need to realy dig into these concepts that your learning and your going to need repetition, and when your only their for a few months, your inevitably going to feel pressure.

What I wish was that they had more instructors who had experience in the industry. We had one head instructor who was very knowledgable but I don't think he knew how to relate to people too well despite having a degree in counseling. I perceived him as being impatient, elitist and authoritarian. He would frequently 'hush' or interrupt what they were saying to people when they would try to explain their disagreements, or get quite short with them when they weren't getting something as quickly as he wanted. This kind of behaviour doesn't encourage students to want to ask questions if they feel they are going to be attacked subtly by doing so. I'm not the only one who felt this. The TA's were helpful at times and not so much at other times, as they were also grads of the same bootcamp.   

This bootcamp is also unique in that they provide a one month internship with a local company. These companies rotate every cohort. Some were looking to hire someone, some weren't. Some are paid, some are not. Some companies came and gave presentations and we would rank them. After the rankings the LEARN team then setup interviews based on wht we ranked, though not everyone gets what they want. Then after the interviews we would rank them again, and the companies would rank the the interviewees, and again LEARN would try to find the best fit.

The companies are vastly different in size, ranging from startups without office space with 5 employees, to established companies. But I think on the whole the internship is valuable to providing real world experience that you can use on a resume'. There is also a group project during the last two weeks where we built out a complete web app from scratch utilizing the Agile process with daily scrum sessions. At the end of the two weeks we had a demo night to the local community. This experience was very valuable as well, as now we have an app that we can use in our portfolio.

 The bootcamp industry needs a lot of work and I don't know how much longer it's going to be around, but despite my criticisms, I am grateful for the exposure I received to a new field. I feel the large part of the value of being in a bootcamp is being dropped into the middle of a pre-existing network of people who are in the industry and who can help you navigate the waters of moving into a new industry. You can go to meetups with people from your cohort, find out about jobs through your network of peers, and for that the experience is valuable.

Thanks to a presentation that the CEO Chelsea gave about finding your motivations. I was able to really clarify what motivated me to be in the tech industry. This clarification was something that definitely boosted my confidence and helped me figure out a way to present myself to people that I felt was true to what I am passionate about. I think that was one of the most helpful things during the course because there were times where I was questioning myself asking 'What am I doing here? '. I discovered and connected my passion for open source, with sustainable agriculture, social justice and worker co-ops. Now I have a clearer picture of where I want to go in the future. 

Overall I am very grateful for my experience and I feel confident in the direction I need to go now in my learning.