Makers Academy

Makers helped me go from having zero experience in coding to having a job as a Software Developer in 8 months. The course is intense and hard work but completely doable if you have the ambition to succeed in it. It is the type of course that you get out what you put into it. 
Even doing the course remotely I never felt isolated, or left to fend for myself. The coaches and your assigned cohort are all amazingly helpful and make the course 10 x more enjoyable. Couldn't recommend it enough if you're looking to change career paths. 

Pros: Pre-course material - helps get you up to speed. Support - teachers are always there if you need them. Cohort - you are a team, not individuals. You will meet people in the same situation as you. Pairing - you will always get asked about pair programming in interviews. Mediation - a nice way of relaxing even if you think it's not for you. Careers Team - you get help with anything, they will also check up on you to see how you are doing.


 Cons: Fast paced - you need to be dedicated or you will struggle

Makers Academy is a brilliant place to learn programming and change your career. I feel that attending Makers Academy has made a huge impact on my life and changed it for the better. 
Pros 
- Perfect place to develop if you learn by being hands on 
- Able to rapidly learn different languages, common practices,  pairing and other important software development skills
- Brilliant CV and Cover letter workshops
- Great support from Coaches
- Helpful and insightful workshops
- Great wellbeing workshops and information
Cons 
- Due to the time constraints of the course, you are only taught the surface level of some topics
- Feedback from career staff regarding job roles applied to through Makers can feel lacking and unspecific at times

I am extremely happy that I chose Makers to guide me in becoming a software developer. I think it was definitely worth the cost. The curriculum covers a range of useful topics to make us into well-rounded professionals, including a focus on important Emotional Intelligence areas such as teamwork, feedback and health. I learned about Agile, testing, CD/CI, clean code, and pair programming. I loved the daily pair programming and getting to meet a new person each day, especially during Covid.

The Makers experience is based around self-learning so that we get comfortable not knowing stuff, researching, and asking for help. It’s an intense course with a lot of material covered. Prospective students would do well to have studied basic HTML and CSS before starting, as well as the required Ruby. The curriculum isn’t perfect but Makers are updating it currently.

After graduating I am now forever part of the Makers Alumni professional network, which will be invaluable for job hunting and networking throughout my career. I was also pleased to discover that 1-1 support and workshops are available for job hunters.

If you’re like me then you will be considering a bootcamp as a time efficient way to switch careers into software development, and for me this was the only box the bootcamp really had to tick. Now looking back after my first few weeks at work,  I can say that Makers achieved this for me. Without Makers, I would certainly have been a lot slower getting that first job for the following reasons:
- knowing what to study - the course introduces you to a selection of technologies and practices that give you a good springboard for following your interests, and give you enough direction to study for the interview process. Without this direction I would have not really known where to begin, and it certainly would have been less efficient 
- practicing techniques that are difficult to self study - there was a strong focus on pairing and group work (including using relevant tools e.g. git) which would have been difficult to self-organise and taught you useful skills. Furthermore they ingrain best practices (eg TTD and OOP principles) into you. It would be hard to get your head around these, understand their benefit and get feedback on them without the framework of a course in my opinion. 
- navigating the job hunt and post course support - this was the real kicker for me. Completing the course is definitely not the hardest part of the journey - having the mental resilience to push through the job hunt definitely is! The post course support at Makers is pretty thorough, and without the advice and direction they gave me, plus the network of fellow students supporting each other, that job hunt would have seemed significantly longer and more hopeless. 

If you factor in the opportunity cost of the extra time spent job hunting and studying rather than working, then attending a bootcamp makes a lot of sense vs self study in my opinion. Also what nice leaving Makers you have access to the large alumni network, which I expect to be very helpful throughout my career (it has already been useful!). 

Final note on learning style - the course structure suits people who: 
- learn by doing rather than attending long lectures 
- are able to pursue the learning resources they want to, to give themselves the greatest benefit (rather than preferring to be spoon fed via a rigid timetable)
- enjoy working with others (or at least recognise that this is a useful skill to pick up during the course that would be difficult to get from self study - which can be done at any point in their lives) 

Overall I would recommend it for the above reasons. I also thoroughly enjoyed the whole process of the course and the material! 

My experience at Makers was overwhelmingly positive. There is a strong focus on Test-Driven Development and core Object-Oriented Programming principles that are not language-specific, and form an excellent grounding in the fundamentals of software engineering. The mornings are spent attending workshops or making use of the wealth of resources placed at the students' disposal. Students are encouraged to set their own goals (with some guidance) and to use their time as they see fit to a large extent. It is stressful at first, because there isn't an awful lot of handholding, but ultimately it builds resilience and confidence and a belief that you can learn anything you need to overcome a problem. There is an emphasis on collaboration, with pair-programming sessions in the afternoons and several group projects designed to mirror the way a real software engineering team would function in the workplace. Coaches are available to help if you get stuck, but will often try to nudge you towards the right solution rather than telling you outright. When I graduated I felt  confident enough in my ability to learn that I was able to throw myself into new projects using unfamiliar technologies with no sense of trepidation. I should also mention that the careers support is first rate. There are regular CV, application, and interview workshops, and coaches are available to give feedback on any application you write. You are assigned a designated career coach, who will check in with you regularly, and the interview alert system ensures that you are given tailored preparation for every stage of the interview process.  

I completed the 16 week Makers course 6 weeks ago and have just received an offer for my first role in software engineering. It's impossible to explain how much I have learned in the last 5 months. From not knowing anything about software development before the course, I am now a confident, technically able engineer, with practical and theoretical technical knowledge, sufficient to be hired into a tech driven company. The course material focuses on industry best practices, such as TDD, OOP and agile, meaning you come out with skills and knowledge even some seasoned pros don't have. The careers support after graduation is incredible, with unlimited coaching and resources for anything you need to work on. Choosing Makers was the best decision I have made to date and I highly recommend them to anyone looking to move into tech. 

I don't regret going to Makers. It was definitely worth the investment, the time and the commitment. I was in your position last year, reading multiple reviews on multiple bootcamps just so I could have the chance of getting the best experience and not regretting my career transition, and I am guessing you may probably looking for something similar. I went to Makers knowing a bit of HTML, CSS, bootstrap and just a bit of ruby(from the self learning everyone has to complete on codeacademy before entering into Makers) and leaving with knowledge of full stack dev, pair programming, agile methodologies, how to deploy your work on heroku, testing,collaborate with github and much more. Makers' focus is very much about you the student, your ability to take initiative and learn, develop, and your mental health. As a developer, your mental health is extremely important and Makers never failed to remind you of that. The curriculum is very well structured and built for a beginner with a passion to learn. Makers focus on understanding few languages well and not just any language(just for the sake of it) which I was happy with because learning one very well helps you understand the others. The coaches are very friendly and have patience for the whole of Europe. They recognise that you are human and encourages you. Regarding the job hunting stage, Makers do have some partners who come to hire Makers students frequently. There are alumni who post job advertisements within their work places frequently. This is really helpful for job hunting and networking with others within the industry. Although some do a good job, I think some of career partners can learn how to deliver their opinions a bit better. If you are looking for a bootcamp where you can learn, get hands on experience as a developer, have down to earth, intelligent coaches Makers, and a place where they advocate for your health and mental health, I would say, definitely look at Makers. You won't regret it.

Pros
- Precourse and entrance interview makes sure you have a decent level before you start
- Coaches are very helpful, but the curriculum is designed in such a way that you will need to be proactive and ask for help. It won't be handed to you
- Curriculum seemed well designed to cover the fundamentals, but also giving you autonomy to work with technology that you like.
- Really supportive environment, all staff and students are very supportive and all seem to share a similar mindset.
- Makers have hiring partners that assist you get jobs afterwards, this is a big draw compared with similar bootcamps.

Cons
- A little on the expensive side, but given the good hiring rates I personally think it is worth the cost
- If you're somebody who isn't very proactive and likes for people to supply you with everything you need without doing much work, this may not be the course for you.

Overall I had a very positive experience with Makers and would definitely recommend it to others thinking of changing careers and learning to code.

Bootcamps don't suit everybody but I would recommend Makers Academy based on their EI curriculum which separates them from the rest. I found the emotional support on the programme to be excellent, and believe the emphasise on this area is vital when embarking on a career change and learning a new field. With regards to the software development curriculum, I found the majority to be self-taught and due to my large cohort, I felt that we didn't get as much attention from the available coaches as I'd hoped. However, I found the group work and projects in the final weeks invaluable. During the course we did daily pair programming which meant I worked with a different person almost every day. This gave me surplus experience working with a variety of different people and appreciating how others might like to work and program which has proved an invaluable skill in my day to day work as a developer.