App Academy

Going through App Academy's program has truly been a remarkable experience. No matter what your background is and if you're serious about starting a new career in Software Development, be prepared to be challenged 7 days a week during the main portion of the curriculum. At the end, it was all worth it! 

The instructional staff are very professional and are diligent about student success. They will teach you everything you need to know in short amount of time. Because of the amount of information you'll learn, it will actually FEEL like you've been in the program much longer than 3 months.

App Academy is just as difficult as they claim. You really will need to spend upward of 85 hours a week on your studies if you want to be successful, but if you have the time and the discipline then don't be scared away. I've had very, very little free-time over the past months, but in exchange I've gained an extremely valuable skill in less time than I could have imagined before beginning the program.

The instructors are top-notch. Everything in general is conducted extremely professionally, from the location and the building/amenities (I attended the NY branch), to the assessments and the projects. Before joining the program I was under the impression that I could have learned all of the same skills on my own, using free resources online. Looking back now, this miiiiight be possible, but it honestly would have taken me more than 10 times as long to do alone. Having the instructors on call, and the other students as pair-programmers was indispensable for me. Again, the program is totally worth it for those who are serious about becoming full-stack developers. I just recently accepted an offer as a frontend developer thanks to App Academy. But remember, there is no hand-holding. If you think you can give it anything less than 90% of your time and attention, you will likely fail out.

App academy requires you to study for a minimum of 90 hours per week excluding commute. That said, you learn a ton of stuff in 3 months. Coming from a non-technical background, it was astounding how much I could pick up in such a short time. The TAs are very helpful and go above and beyond to help you. The assessments can be stressful, as there is a threat of getting kicked out. But it motivated me to take the assessments seriously and study hard. 
We also do 3 projects (1 full stack, 1 pure javascript project and 1 game), that helps seal gaps in our learning. I have just started the job search curriculum, and will update my review once I find a job.

Throughout my entire life, I have gone through accelerated courses whether it be the military or my undergrad. App Academy was no joke and it definitely gave me the whooping I deserved to make me humble to the vast amount of knowledge I was about to face and understand that I'll be a lifelong student in the world of tech. The reason why I decided on App Academy were their tuition model and reputation for being one of the best.

Needless to stay, they delivered. The curriculum consistently got more difficult and ranged from technical to soft skills. Both of which I receive valuable training in but I believe the soft skills are where I improved the most. I have always been the type of person to work alone. It was fine up until the halfway mark in which I realized I couldn't be in the world of tech working alone as there will never be enough time to learn and keep up with the lastest trends in technologies.

tl;dr
App Academy taught me:
    1. Technical skills to get through the door
    2. Soft skills to land the job
    3. How to learn and do my own research
    4. To strive to become a mentor

I graduated my bachelors in CS but I felt that what was taught to me is not enough for the industry right now. App Academy taught me what I hadn't learnt in 4 years in 12 weeks. It was really really intense, no kidding. The pacing is ultra high speed. But at the start of the eighth week began doing our full stack project. The end result is what was the most satisfying. I was proud of what I made and my friends and family were amazed on how practical the teaching was, enough to make a full stack app. The course is super rewarding. I am currently on the 10th week and our job search curriculum is about to begin and am super excited to start working soon!

I went into App Academy hoping I would get a job as a software developer. I was skeptical I would actually be able to get a job. It took a ton of work in the job search but I landed a role as a Frontend Developer. In meetings at work it is quite apparent that App Academy's curriculum is solid because I often know more than some of my co-workers, especially about new technolgoies like React/Redux. It makes me feel pretty good.

If you have a liberal arts background like me I definitely recommend preparing for the course. Learn some programming language fundamentals beforehand. The curriculum is really stressful but very worth it.

The job search is the hardest part, you need to put in a lot of your own work but the resources are there. You just have to sometimes reach out to people that work at a/A and continue to show up and study and apply for jobs in the office. I found showing up even after it was no longer required very beneficial. It took me 6+ months after graduating to find a job. That is not everyone's situation as I am a bit of a slacker, but be prepared financially or just hit the ground running once the curriculum is over and find a job faster like a lot of my cohort mates.

Here's the breakdown:

- You'll be working a lot. When they say 80-120 hours a week, they mean it. But it's really not as bad as you think. You get used to it *very* quickly and learn to love it.

- You learn what you need. Don't worry about the other academies that focus more on JavaScript. Trust me, you'll get more than enough of that, and you'll be using mostly JavaScript in all 3 of your projects.

- There's constant support. Your fellow cohort-mates are going to become your best friends during this, and the TAs and staff are always around to help.

- You have a robust portfolio by the end of this. You clone a website, make your own app in JavaScript, and make a larger-scale project on a team. It's a mix of everything and you do really feel like a software developer by the end of this.

Good luck!

App Academy is definitely a great opportunity to learn a great deal of material in a short amount of time. There's a reason it has a great reputation among bootcamps - the instructors are knowledgeable and helpful, the curriculum is definitely relevant to what is necessary for actual tech positions, and they have alumni placed in dozens of companys and start-ups. All of that being said, here are some questions I would ask yourself before applying:

1. Do you handle pressure well? The courseload itself is very intense (9-6 M-F with homework every night and near-weekly assessments) and the tests are very much point-blank "can you pound this out in 30-40 minutes or not". None of this is ever unexpected or unreasonable, but be prepared for a good deal of stress and make sure you have ways to cope with it and stay healthy.

2. How long can you go without having a job? While the course itself only takes 3 months, it is unlikely that you will find a job immediately after graduating. Many students take up to 3 months after AA to find a job, and some take as long as 6. You sign an agreement saying you won't take on any full-time employment during that time, so make sure you are financially stable enough to commit completely to finding an engineering position.

3. Do you actually like coding? If you already know that you're just looking for a quick path to a high-paying job, you'll probably get burnt out very quickly. Obviously you don't have to live and breathe code all the time, but make sure you're doing it at least in part because you find it genuinely interesting.

As long as you've thought through these possible difficulties, App Academy is ultimately a rewarding experience that will leave you impressed with the incredible progress you can make in such little time. It's a lot of work, but in the end it definitely pays off.

I applied to App Academy in December 2016 and attended the May 2017 cohort. I graduated in August 2017, worked at App Academy for a few months, and accepted a job offer in January 2018. Similar to you, I read lots of reviews beforehand and stressed about many details before deciding on taking the risk, moving to San Francisco, and spending 80-100 hours a week at this place.

I read these reviews and my basic impression was that it would be really, really hard. Like a year of college crammed into 3 months. While this is kind of true, I underestimated how much the family and community aspect of App Academy would help. There are weeks where you have to essentially code from morning until night with not much time for anything else. After you learn everything you need to build apps, you learn how to get a job. That entails applying to dozens of postings every week, and it could take months. Throughout this entire process, I felt like a freak, but had 70 friends right alongside doing it with me. They helped me when I was stuck, and more importantly, brought me up when I was down. I don't know if I could've ever pushed myself that hard to get a job on my own, but with my cohort, the process was streamlined and almost (dare I say it) fun.

App Academy teaches a really diverse range of topics so the constant work you're doing is never boring. It's hardly even repetitive, and in fact, you will likely not fully understand most topics until you get to practice them again after the curriculum is over. In the end, App Academy didn't just teach me how to use React and Ruby on Rails. They taught me how to program, how to binge-learn any framework or language, how to speak to others in the field, and how to value myself, find a job, and negotiate as a Software Engineer. It was an absolute life changer in the best way. After going through it, I'm convinced anyone can do it, not just those technically inclined, and have been pushing the idea on all of my old friends who are stuck in a post-college rut with debts to pay.

Summed up, if you're the type of person that looks at anything and wonders "How does that work?", then coding is for you. If the idea of coding makes you think "Where do I even start?", then App Academy is for you.

ok here's the TL;DR. App academy is one of the hardest things you're likely to do in your life, but if you get in, you can do it. I'm writing this review because I want a hoodie, but I want the hoodie because it says App Academy on it, and I'm proud of that so, you know, that's something.

Specifically, understand that there isn't really time to play catch up. If you stay home sick with a fever, you still have to do the work. If you fall behind, you have to leave whatever you drop and keep moving, there's no time to look back. For me personally? There wasn't even time to do everything I had to do. My journey through app academy is a trail of unfinished assignments and near dismissals. But yo, I STILL loved my time there. 

If you want to get into coding and don't know where to stop, app academy will give you the start and take you much much further. I believe my review is now detailed enough to not violate any coursereport rules but still brief enough that I can get back to sending out resumes, secure in the knowledge that come monday, I will have my sweet sweet hoodie. 

Choosing App Academy was one of the best decisions of my career. After being a post graduate with a degree in film, I was not sure with what to do to progress my career in the direction I want to go - job security and financial stability. That is when I decided to join App Academy. This program is one of, if not the best, coding bootcamps. With that being said, the course is rigorous and extremely fast paced. But, if you are dedicated and have  the drive to pursue becoming a software developer, then you will definitely be able to do it. This is coming from a person with zero software developing experience prior to this program. I did not finish because I was the smartest, I was able to stay in the program because I had enough work ethic and will. You can do it!

Within 2 months I went from zero programming experience to being able to create an entire website from scratch. I think it's incredible what App Academy has taught me in such a short time span.

Of course, given such a short window, it's impossible for them to teach you everything there is to know. The real value of the program is they teach you how to think and to learn programatically. 

App Academy promises only one thing, to be able to make anyone into an entry level software developer. It will not be the end of your learning experience but it provides a hell of a start. 

I love the program, but it is not for everyone. These last 8 weeks have been the hardest of my life. You can't afford to fall behind because there is a very real possibility of failing out.

If you've read all of that and you still think App Academy is for you, then I could not recommend it more. It has been an excellent experience and I'm genuinely excited to change the course of y life.

App Academy is everything they say it is.  It is demanding, rigorous, rewarding, all-consuming, high-stress, hysterical, difficult, very fast, and transformative.  I’m in the last couple weeks of the program, and it’s just now sinking in how wild a ride this has been.

Like most things worth doing, it takes all day. I worked on code from 9a until midnight most nights during the program.  This level of commitment is really non-optional for most people-- maybe really fast folks can turn in around 10:00.  There is no coasting.  You will be confronted with high-pressure, timed assessments at 9am on Mondays.  You will pair almost every day for months, which means you will be communicating constantly about things you don’t understand yet. You will switch languages every two weeks, and App Academy will often introduce new material before old has had a chance to sink in. A majority of the class has literally had dreams about code. I had one just last night about launching an ICO to finish a non-existent interactive blue screen of death app.  They know how to get you fully committed here, and they do it very well.

Many reviews fixate on the assessment structure.  The people who failed the high-pressure, closed-book, timed assessments generally had severe test anxiety or attempted to party a lot or tend too much to other responsibilities during the cohort.  It was much more rare for them to not be smart enough, the admissions process is selective enough to filter out those who lack the raw talent to succeed.  It is up to you to do enough self-care, including healthy food, sleep, and exercise, to keep from psyching yourself out of the program, and it’s largely a matter of personal style about whether engaging with deliberately induced stress motivates you to try harder vs makes you unproductive.  

The curriculum is always changing as tech evolves, and the staff works very hard to try and keep everything as current as possible.  Most students leave more knowledgeable in Javascript and related frameworks than the Ruby you start in, and they’re teaching the latest versions of React, ES6 syntax, etc.  Having a path rough hewn ahead of the class through the endless dark jungles of code knowledge has been extremely helpful in helping me stay focussed and to avoid wasting time-- they really do know how to point you directly towards engagement with concepts that will get you producing good work, learning more fundamental concepts, and collaborating well with others.  I really do believe that learning this material would have taken me at least another year, probably with several unproductive detours on the way.

While being demanding and highly structured, App Academy also asks for a lot of independence and initiative.  Much of the curriculum is written in a relatively terse style that demands the reader both be able to read closely through dense instructions and to be comfortable doing more and more independent research as the curriculum goes on, just like a real dev.  The teachers are available to get you unstuck, but you’re encouraged to learn more about solving your own problems every day, and when coding in pairs, you will do tons of mutual troubleshooting, basically proving to each other that you can both teach and learn-- it is very normal to just engage with whoever’s closest to you about whatever bug you’re in the middle of, and people uniformly treat that as an opportunity to practice teaching and cement knowledge than as an interruption.  The job search requires you to have a lot of discipline and follow-through, with strict requirements for volume of applications and development of portfolio materials without a ton of hand-holding.  Ultimately, it becomes very clear that you are ultimately responsible for your own education, relationships with others, and destiny, which is both empowering and scary.  

It’s overwhelming and lovely.  There is just so much to know.  By the end of it, you will have several days like mine today, where I white-boarded for interview prep for two hours and wrote this and also built a full Redux cycle for a new feature in a full-stack app I’m finishing up which involved creating a postgreSQL table through a Rails generator, with AJAX calls to the API sent by React actions routed to the DB through Thunk middleware feeding the Rails MVC which ultimately produce JSON parsed through jBuilder in to a Redux store which is rendered by React Components with Vulpix routing and styled with Sass written in a modified BEM pattern with Javascript click handlers and animations facilitated by a library called Anime-- all so I could render a nice gradient fade-in effect for state changes in a 20x20 pixel bookmark button rendered for logged in users on a site I built from scratch in nine days.  Only one of those languages and frameworks mentioned above is actually a Pokemon-- the rest of them are actual pieces of tech taught in the course that I wrote today in an independent project, and I can’t believe I’ve come this far from being barely able to write basic Ruby programs three short months ago.

App Academy isn’t for everybody.  But if it’s for you, it is one of the best things you can do for yourself.  :)

Overall Experience

I personally thought App Academy was incredibly fun precisely because of how challenging it was and it really was challenging. You are surrounded with incredibly bright people, with very interesting backgrounds, and you will push each other to get better everyday. 

Curriculum

The curriculum is easily the strongest part of App Academy. It is truly incredible how much knowledge you will walk away with if you are able to pace yourself and be consistent in doing all of the readings and preparing for the lectures everyday. They offer a lot, but they also require a lot out of you and it is difficult to keep up unless you are able to motivate yourself everyday.

Luckily they provide intrinsic motivation due to pair programming and assessments. Knowing that you have to work with a different person everyday helps you make sure to try to get a good understanding of the subject matter so that you don't slow your partner down. Most importantly knowing that you could be kicked out by failing too many assessments will also motivate you to keep up. This was a main motivator for me attending, because I knew it would always keep me on my toes.

At the end of the main curriculum you will be able to build a fullstack web application that is dynamic, complex, and impressive. That ten day project will be one of the most tiring experiences of your life, but you will be quite proud when you are done. Be sure to celebrate with your cohort mates when it's over.

Diversity

I added this category because I think it's important to note that App Academy is below average when it comes to racial/gender diversity. My cohort was about 5% women and 10-15% non white/asian. This did not affect my experience at all, as someone from an under-represented group, but I cannot speak for everyone and thought it should be noted for others considering App Academy.

Instructors

The instructors are usually App Academy grads. There is a question button during pair programming, which calls over a TA to assist you when you and your partner are stuck. They are all very cool, helpful, and the lectures are incredibly informative. The lectures will usually go over the reading and assignments for the night before and introduce some new material for the day ahead, so make sure you come prepared. 

Job Assistance

The Job Search Curriculum in the last three weeks can feel a bit anticlimactic. You've just spent 9 weeks going 100mph and then all of the sudden things slow down quite a bit. It can be a good thing because everyone is a bit burnt out from the fullstack project, but I wish there was a way to keep a similar pace going. Here you will work on your portfolio, build a nice online presence, learn how to approach networking, applying, negotiating etc. 

Don't come in thinking App Academy is going to provide you with all kinds of contacts and connections. I don't think they have any more ability to get you a job than any other bootcamp. However, they have a great reputation with companies in NYC and SF and a huge alumni network in those respective cities. I attended App Academy in NYC and I can tell you there are companies that only hire App Academy grads because the curriculum is more in depth and the projects are more impressive. 

Outcome

Personally, I applied to 305 jobs, had 6 phone screens, 3 on-sites, 2 offers, and landed an awesome job at a startup in NYC 3 months after graduating and I couldn't be happier. 

The job search is an absolute grind, but don't get discouraged. Just stick with it, apply everywhere, and don't say no to yourself! You never know who will get a job, even if everyone applies to the same one. There is a lot of luck involved and each person is unique even though you all graduated from the same course.

Be financially responsible, make sure you have enough of a safety net so that you can focus, and it'll all come together in the end.

App Academy was definitely the hardest 3 months of my life. At times it was a bit brutal, with 10% of our cohort getting kicked out before the end of the program. The program is certainly not for everyone, but if you are a fast learner AND can dedicate pretty much your entire life to the program, you can get a job as a Software Engineer after this program. You certainly are expected to work as much as you everyday. Everyone is incredibly smart and motivated; I went to a top school in the United States, but found my peers here to be heads and tails above my university peers.

That being said, they do deliberately pace the course so that you can keep up -- pushing you to the brink and then giving you a few days for the material to sink in. I was also able to take a small handful of days off, but some are unable to do so. 

I had absolutely NO computer science background before attending, and ended up getting a job within the first month following the program, so this program DEFINITELY fulfills its promises. 

I recently completed the 12-week software engineering track at App Academy’s San Francisco campus. Before attending App Academy I had some experience in coding but I have never studied computer science or attended any coding course. What I think is great about App Academy:

1. The course is very well structured. Course materials increase in complexity and difficulty as the course progresses and by the end of the course, a student should have a very good understanding of both the frontend and backend mechanics of a web application, all in a matter of 12 weeks.

2. Each day I work with a different member of the same cohort to resolve some coding challenges. I enjoy working as a team and I also have the opportunity to learn how to work with and adapt to people with vastly different working styles.

3. There are weekly assessments which I think is a good way to test what I have learned in the preceding week.

4. The campus is located in downtown San Francisco which is very convenient.

Other things that you should know about App Academy: The course is intensive and the learning curve is steep for most students (unless you have a very solid background in coding, but even for some members of my cohort who had fairly solid prior experience in coding they still found it challenging). Completion devotion to the program is expected from every student

On the whole I am very satisfied with my experience at App Academy although I would hope the program to be a bit longer (say a few weeks more) and to add a reading week in the middle of the course so that students can review or study an area in particular.

Honestly the one feeling I walked away from my months long studies at App Academy was enjoyment. I surprisingly enjoyed every day of the App Academy curriculum. I was worried that I would not be able to sit through a full day spending 1-2 hrs in lecture and then simply coding away at a desk and yet the curriculum and the way it was laid out + pair programming made every day a joy. I benefitted immensly and thank G-d I begin a new job next month after being on the job search after the course for a little over a month.

Everything you've read about App Academy is probably true. The hours are long, the course is intense, and for some people it's probably the most difficult thing they've every had to do. But more importantly, most people who have gone through it will agree that it was the best decision they've ever made and I can definitely agree. 

One of the greatest things about App Academy is the fact that they have the same goals as you: to land you a job. This is especially true when students (most usually do) take the deferred tuition model, which means not paying full tuition until accepting a full-time job offer. You can really tell that everything they do is to try to set you up for success. The work space is available 24/7 and there's always a TA available to help, whether it be in person or on Slack. 

It is important to note that while everything is laid out for your success in the course, how far you'll go is 100% dependent on the work that you put in. Due to there being no grades (aside from weekly assessments), it is sometimes easy for students to overlook some homework assignments and projects. If you're someone who likes to barely scrape by and do the bare minimum, then you're going to be in for a bad time. I had a few pairs I worked with that did not complete any readings and seemed very behind and those people ended up being the ones asked to leave after failing two assignments. On the contrast, those who study JUST for the assessments and put other parts of the curriculum on the backburner may pass all of them, will sometimes end up hurting themselves during final projects and end up having to relearn a lot of concepts that were not covered in the assessments. You really do get what you put into the program and knowing/balancing what concepts to focus on becomes a really important thing to learn over the course of the 12 weeks. 

Overall, App Academy was definitely worth it for me. If you're looking for a change in your life and you think that web development may be for you, I would urge you to apply. If you get through the application process and get accepted, the only thing that you will need to get all the way through the course is having the right mindset.