New York Code + Design Academy

I am graduate of the Software Engineering Intensive June 2018 program. Because of this program, I was able to successfully pivot careers and get a Front End Engineer position a month after completion with zero past coding experience.

What I love most about NYCDA is the community, which is perhaps the most important asset you can have as someone new to tech. It's a very laid-back yet still incredibly ambitious and dedicated group of people at NYCDA. You will not only have a classroom of people going through the same thing as you, you will also have a staff of people dedicated to your success. 

My success coach, Sam Lubin, was very much invested in our learning and post-program success. Sam provided critical feedback on my resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and portfolios. Perhaps most importantly, he sat down with me to do mock interviews which really, really prepared me for real-life interviews (so much so that in real interviews, I was even being asked the same questions that he prepped me for). He was such an invaluable resource - even providing answers to questions  such as, "what should I wear to this interview," or, "how should I reply to this recruiter." I attribute a lot of my post-program success -- getting and nailing interviews -- because of his assistance. 

  My instructor, Michael Lawrence, was a fantastic teacher. He is a self-taught programmer, so he provided a number of helpful insights on processes to best learn. Moreover, he taught us many things off curriculum that you probably wouldn't be able to learn otherwise on your own. He made programming very accessible and his teaching style really helped me nail down the technical part of coding. 

The program itself was very regimented and project-focused, which was a really great way to for me to learn and develop my skills as a programmer. If you really dedicate your time and effort, you will walk away with a really great portfolio of projects which will help you land that next career.

I wish I would've done this sooner.  I was reluctant at first to make the foray into an intimidating and new industry, but NYCDA really made it possible. 

tldr; Recommend. 10/10. A++. Would do again. 

True passion and focus for the students was unmistakably genuine with the two professionals I interacted the most with.

First, my instructor Cam not only went above and beyond the baseline criteria  needed to get us through the course but also promoted immense support and critical thinking. He was always patient, professional and taking his own personal time (as much as he could) to help. He would even put together additional mini lessons if anyone was stuck on a concept or challenges to help us apply a newly learned topic. Would not have been the same without him.

Jumping from a career in veterinary medicine, I was slightly nervous regarding job placement in the tech world. Nicole was the perfect solution. I never had a success coach available to me until Nicole but if I were to imagine the perfect person for this title, she would fit the profile in every way. Nicole truly exhibits a love for her job and was always great at staying on top of the students in orider to ensure we were on the right track. Even after I graduated, she would be the one checking up to see how I was doing and if I needed help with anything; truly amazing at her job. 

NYCDA completely changed my life. I've spent over a decade working in bars and catering, barely scraping by, struggling to make rent. Today I signed an offer letter to start a new career as a developer!

The course was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life but also the most rewarding. I had Cam Crews as an instructor and he was amazing. He didn't just have us memorize code and spit it back out. He taught us how to learn. Going forward I know I'll never run into a challenge I can't solve because of the way Cam taught us how to attack problems and learn new skills.

I graduated in August and just got this offer in January. The five-month job hunt was longer than I had hoped, but the whole way through it I had my career advisor Nicole Arndt supporting me and helping me find new opportunities. She introduced me to my new employer! I can't imagine having to go through this process without having Nicole on my team. She is tireless and dedicated in a way that can't be over-expressed. I really owe this new life of mine to her.

Taking this course is a commitment to changing your future. It is grueling and exhausting and sometimes painful. I probably spent about 50-60 hours a week in the building for the three months I was in class. But if you commit and do the work, the staff at NYCDA will show up and work just as hard, if not harder, for you. If you are ready to work and dedicate yourself to your future, then I can't recommend this course enough.

I had a great time during my Web Developement Intensive course! My instructor David was amazing, as was our TA Ro. The cirriculum tought me the basics of what was needed to become a professional web developer. More importantly, I learned how to think like a programmer, and how to learn programming concepts. I'm currently a React Native engineer. React Native wasn't a part of the cirriculum, but I felt confident in my ability to learn because I had gotten so much support and learned the fundamentals which carry over into anything. 

After graduation NYCDA continued to support me. Nicole gave me great advice and was invaluable in reviewing my resume, portfolio, and all the things I needed to start my job search. She also helped preparing for interviews, which really helped, and when it came time to interview nothing really surprised me and I felt ready. 

tldr; Take this course

I took the New York Code + Design Academy intensive coarse this summer and it was the best experience I have ever had in a schooling environment. My instructor Casey was incredible, always willing to work through frustrations and difficulties until I fully understood why something was not working the way I had intended. I would recommend this coarse to anyone who is interested in learning code, here you will not only learn full stack web development, but even more importantly you will learn to learn code.

I am an alumn of the third cohort of the New York City Tech Talent Pipeline Residency @ Queens College. It is a four-month program that provides exposure to professional opportunities in tech for computer science majors. Upon completion of an initial four week web development and job readiness course, delivered on-campus by an instructor from the New York Code + Design Academy, participants begin a paid internship at leading NYC businesses in web and mobile development roles and connection to job opportunities post-graduation.
 

As a student tranisitioning from academia to the workforce, the process was grueling, arduous, and daunting.  However, NYCDA made the experience just a little less painful. It was comforting knowing I always had someone to turn to (whether it be Amanda, Nicole, Maddy, Krystal, or any of their various instructors) throughout the various setbacks and rejections I inevitably encountered. They motivated and inspired me when I lacked the confidence to do it myself. The individualized, one-on-one attention that their career coaches provided allowed us to know where my strengths/weaknesses where.  Too often, people in the industry turn a blind eye/ear to the people looking to enter the workforce. NYCDA took the time to listen to me no matter how busy they might have been.

I personally had a great expierience with Nick he was very knowledgable and was very good at explaining how to develop websites and explain how different applications of code work with web development.

Josh was also very goo dat connecting us (as students) with the community and potencial employers.  It made me personally feel very good that I actually found work in coding before I even graduated and he helped me look up potencial questions that they may want to ask me.

Thank you for all of your help guys!

I attended the Web Developement Intensive course and had a great experience. The curriculum was fast paced, but our instructor was good enough that he was able to challenge those who were catching on the most quickly, while spending more time with those who were not. 

I only wish that there was a little more emphasis on pushing our websites to production. We only spent a short time on that, and after the class was over, I struggled remembering/solving problems that I encountered trying to push my own projects to production. 

I would like to share my personal experience after taking course. Before that, I had no programming skills and my field of activity was not related to technologies. Nevertheless, I decided to change my life and take an intensive course in web development, which I do not regret, and moreover, I am very grateful to NYCDA. I liked very much how everything is organized in the academy, from filling out an application to graduation and job search. I am especially grateful for the help of my instructor, who was conducting this course, Cam Crews. I advise to everyone who is thinking about taking this course try to get into his group. Big thanks for the help of Krystal Kaplan, who takes the position of Outcomes Coordinator. Her advices on writing a resume and personal website were very helpful. I would like to  recommend to everyone not to miss her classes and follow her advices which definetly will help in job search, because I was able to find a job as a web developer right after taking this course. During my studies I not only gained knowledge and a specialty, but I also found new friends. So once again I want to express my great gratitude for such a friendly atmosphere and professional approach!

I took this class with a career change in mind - I wanted to become a full-stack web developer - and I was actually hired by a startup before the class was even over (initially as a freelancer, brought on as a salaried employee a few months later). It's important to put this in context - I had been working as a self-taught web developer for about 2.5 years before starting this class - I had a pretty solid grasp of the basics and could build simple apps in a LAMP stack and hack my way through a Ruby on Rails app, but I was really lacking a sense of best practices, and found frontend frameworks (ReactJS, Angular) to be hard to grasp. I decided to take this class because I was getting a lot of job interviews (I had a good-looking portfolio with a few production apps) but was flopping during the interviews themselves.  Even though this class effectively started from square one and I was already a more moderately-experienced dev, I wanted to break myself down and start from scratch.

After the first few weeks, I felt that the class was moving at a good pace for me - perhaps a little too fast for some of my classmates who were not as experienced and didn't quite have the contextual understanding that I had, but the teacher and the TAs made a point to provide a lot of opportunities for extra help.  I have two main criticisms of the class itself -

1. There were not a lot of assignments. Mainly, we focused on three large projects. Personally, I was ok with this - I was working a full-time job while taking this class, and honestly wouldn't have had time for much more than this, but I feel like a class like this would benefit from little things like a daily coding challenge or something along those lines, especially for people who are just starting out.

2. Code testing is a very important skill and, although we did investigate a few testing tools, we didn't really address how to effectively build them into a development process. But, for what it's worth, this may reflect trends in the 'real' world as well - testing gets a lot of lip service, but I'm not sure how many people actually do it (so far, at my new job, I have not seen anyone implement any sort of test... oh well).

Those critiques out of the way, I'd have to say that everything about my experience at NYCDA was positive. This class emphasizes developement in a Node/React environment, which is really what you want to be studying right now. Other bootcamps are still focusing on Ruby on Rails, which seems to be rapidly fading from popularity (as all techs eventually do... but why study something that's already on the way out?). The staff at NYCDA is genuinely invested in your success - Krystal Kaplan (of the Career Services department) makes an active effort to get involved with the students early on in the program and stays involved all the way through (and after) the class.  She really got to know all of the students from the class, and was constantly involved with us - helping with resumés, talking about interview skills, passing along oppurtunities and news.

Overall, this class significantly boosted my professionalism - now I feel like I actually know what I'm doing!  I found the listing for my new job on the NYCDA job posting board, and I aced the interview process because of the skills I built here.  Is it possible to give a better endorsement than that?  Well, maybe - most of the other students in my class had little to no development experience, but six months later, I can honestly say that I was completely floored by the amazing final projects that they had all built - every single person in my class produced amazing work.  Great job students, faculty, and administration!

When I decided to do a career change and learn web development, choosing from the various bootcamps and programs in NYC was a bit daunting. Choosing NYCDA was the best choice I've ever made. The school is small and warm, and it truly does feel like family. David was my instructor, and I can say that he was really supportive and was always available to help and provide resources whenever I asked. Krystal is a fantastic success coach and really took the time during and after the program to make sure I was well prepared for interviews and provided me with the resources I needed.

One of the many things I love about the school is the support you receive from all the alumni, staff, instructors and teaching assistants. Everyone is always available for advice, help or just to chat. You never ever feel like just one more student or just a number. 

Remember, a bootcamp is just a place to gain the foundations you need to become a developer. Whatever YOU put into it is what you'll get out. If you choose NYCDA you are doing more than just learning "how to learn", you are receiving a lot of support from everyone at the school and you will be part of a caring community. 

TLDR:  Don’t enroll in UX programs at NYCDA,  they are great sales people but awful teachers.  

 

I recently withdrew early from the UX immersive program.  I have never been more disappointed with an experience at a school, which is why I felt compelled to write this, even after receiving a full refund.  Keep in mind that I left a good high paying job for this program, and I can’t immediately find another high paying job.  So I have lost income and greatly disrupted my life to go to a sham of a school for five weeks. 

 

I feel like the school actually lied to me about the nature of the program, such as material that would be covered, and the way in which it would be conducted.  I was told this program was a very competitive program, that would have me ready for a UX career in three months.  I currently work as a designer in fashion, so I felt like an intense program for a few months would be a good investment.  I was told that I would be in class with other professionals looking to transition their careers, and candidates were rigorously screened due to the intense nature of the program.  I considered this important as I knew these programs entail a large amount of group work. I was also told that there would be a foundations program to get everyone up to speed.  However most students weren’t “up to speed” and the class began on a very very basic introductory level.  It seems that my foundations program wasn’t even reviewed by anyone at the school, and my teacher, Jimmy Chandler wasn’t even sure what was covered in this program we all had to complete before day 1.

 

I was assured that the course would start to speed up, but it actually slowed down after my teacher gave his very basic introduction slides to UX.  He progressively lectured less and less.  His two hour slide presentation, became a 45 minute slide presentation, and one day he had some allergies and just put on a video for an hour.   The rest of the day we were meant to work in groups, but we didn’t have much work to do at all, so after finishing our work we would try to learn on our own or just socialize.  Although there often wasn’t much to do, Jimmy required us to stay the whole day for a fifteen minute wrap up at the end of the day.  This entailed everyone to go around the room and say what they learned that day, it only took fifteen minutes because we struggled to think of anything.  At $15,000 for a three month program, I was effectively paying $250 a day.  When I signed up for this program Jason Poole, an advisor from the school, told me this full time program was a great deal because I was effectively paying less per hour for the instructor’s time.  They also had an evening program that was less expensive, but also less hours.  I have an email from him where he breaks down the price per hour of instruction in each program.  However my teacher didn’t actively teach most of the day.  He regularly took meetings during the day, left with saying nothing, ate his lunch during class time, or just blankly stared at his computer.  

 

Furthermore Jason Poole advised me that html and css would be integrated into our program. However, on receiving my syllabus I saw it was only a few days in week 9.  Upon arriving to class Jimmy Chandler advised us that he actually moved it to the last week of class because he had a conference he would be missing class for, and would be having someone else teach a workshop.  The average job in UX requires knowledge of html and css, so I was extremely disappointed that this would only be a small part of the program at the very end.  My success coach advised me to learn on my own through tutorials, which I immediately began.  I don’t expect a school to teach you everything, but when something is promised in a sales pitch….. is this allowed?  Who is policing NYCDA and other bootcamps to follow through on the promises that they make students. 

 

While nothing is a guarantee and I was clear that NYCDA wasn’t a staffing agency, they also didn’t seem to have much in terms of career/job resources.  My success coach was a former student, who worked in theater and as a tutor, but didn’t seem to have any professional experience at all.  Every week we had to do a lengthy assignment where we filled out paperwork regarding our personality, career goals, and did research on the industry.  All were templates he gave us were things pulled from the internet.  I didn’t receive any feedback on these assignments.  Their slack job channel seemed full of internships.  I had no idea how I was going to take the little that we were learning, and materialize it into skills that would elevate my career.  

 

I filled out a formal complaint, and spoke with several advisors at the school.  Everyone seemed sympathetic to me, but no one knew how to make the situation better.  They didn’t have resources to get another more competent teacher in quickly, and it didn’t seem that Jimmy Chandler was going to suddenly become more knowledgeable.  Finally someone from a remote office in Florida emailed me and asked me to call them.  She said if I left that very day I could have all of my money back, but if I stayed I would be obligated to pay the full $15,000 as I was past the drop date.  They wanted me out and fast.  So I took my money and I left.