Bitmaker General Assembly

Great team, got the sense that they genuinely wanted everyone to succeed. Good focus on real world skills and practical solutions. It wasn't perfect, but their intent was continuous improvement and it showed.

Taking the course at 42, I was at the top end of the age range in Cohort #4. I came in with some basic skills in HTML and CSS and some ancient BASIC experience. I came out with everthing I need to build an end-to-end web application. I have been working on that app for the last year, and the company around it.

I would highly recommend Bitmaker.

I was in the fourth cohort. Keep in mind the curriculum and instructors have probably changed significantly since then. Ask for their curriculum if you are considering it. When I was there there was a mix of Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and a dash of CSS. 

First you have to look at your own goals and experience. If you already have coding experience and have done things like Lynda or the Michael Hartl Rails tutorial you probably won't learn that much from the instructors / and are obviously able to learn things on your own. However you will still benefit from working full-time on coding and having a space to do so. You will also benefit from explaining stuff to your classmates. 

The job assistance thing has changed a lot since I was there so I don't think it's fair for me to comment on that. We did get some interview coaching and some information on what technical interviews are like. 

The instructors were a mix. Code skill and instructing skill are different and some were better at it than others. 

If you are wanting to launch your own app / business, you should consider that $9000+ is a fair chunk of change, and could buy you a month of developer time to work on your idea. 

For my own part I knew a little about coding (high school) but no Ruby or modern web development. I learned a lot and met some great friends and feel like I have a good foundation for learning on my own. 

Great team and a great experience. A number of students had the opportunity to gain full time employment at the end of the summer session. Dont think that this thing will naturally make you a programmer through osmosis though, the majority of my learning came post-enrolment when I dug into things on my own time.

Nice people but basic instruction and way too expensive. If you already have a design background you will be disappointed. Spend your money elsewhere. Take time off your current job, watch some youtube tutorials and pump out a new portfolio on your own. Travel and find a mentor. Pay a mentor in the city and hit the library. You can do it (ง •̀ω•́)ง✧

Seriously brutal lectures and a disappointing experience.  Lecturer was disengaged and brutally bad.  TA did not show twice for scheduled appointments to help at start. Unprofessional and poor quality.  Only good thing was finding out by accident about other online sources, like Treehouse, which is far cheaper and better.

Curriculum and online materials are okay but pretty dated. But don't waste your time or money with this newbie tech school charging people lots of money for poor quality.  

Bitmaker will accelerate you through the basics. If you don't do the prep work beforehand, you're pretty much screwed for the course, but if you do and work hard you'll get a basic understanding of web development and will have to work really hard for many years after to get better. That's fine. 

Here's the thing. The numbers are all BS. How do they calculate 90% of people graduate in 3 months? Thats a lie. Well over 10% of people in my cohort still doesn't have work. The career support  has now become almost nothing. No more scheduled interviews, no personal introductions to companies. Company reps that come out to a one-day presentation aren't hiring. If you think you're paying for career support... do your research. If you think that their numbers are accurate... ask for some recent data. Ask how many people were in the cohort versus how many people found work. 

Take this program if you're a self-starter and can financially support yourself until you find work, and ask for some hard numbers. 

I took the full-stack web development course in 2016 spring, and it was one of the most intense learning I had in my life. Bitmaker focus 70% back-end web development, which means you will be dealing with  lot of algorithm and database structure, and we spent relatively very small amount of time for front-end, such as HTML,CSS, and Javascript. so If those are your focus, it may not be your place. I don't regret my choice to go to bitmaker, because I have done some part time courses in other coding bootcamp, and certain I like coding enough to make it to my job. It is not a easy nor cheap commitment to make if you want to "just see if I like it". I suggest to go to some of the free front-end workshop Bitmaker offers first and try talk to current students. In reality, in any coding bootcamp, how they count the 90-something % rate of employment in 3 month is very particular, (such as "who is looking" and "who is employment-ready") and it doesn't mean literaly 90 % of people from one cohort get a job within 3 months. If you came in thinking " well I won't be the 2 or 3 people in class who are probably lazy", that is not quite the reality in any bootcamps nowadays. So give some time think about if you actually like and want to code for job, do some research, then make a commitment. It would be sad for you and even for instructors to spend that much of money, commitment, and effort, only to find out you don't like it that much And if you decided to do the course, it will be a great experience. 

For the most part you are paying for guidance and how to approach frameworks/languages. You aren't exactly learning what you need to land a job but the know how on how to pick new material up and how to look at certain things rather than just being uterly confused by new material. 

Also a great community building step when entering a completely new career space which helps land new gigs and solve programming problems.

They preach that 80% get hired within the first 3 months of completing the course and I didn't really trust that statement... But I found work within the last legs of the 3rd month after viewing my Bitmaker profile and profile.

What I got from the program was exactly what I was looking for. I started by taking the part-time front-end development coure and after liking it so much I chose to enroll into the web-dev program. If I had to do it on my own it would've taken me a year of self-learning to cover everything that was taught. One of the greatest parts of the bootcamp is that you get one on one help and can ask questions about anything in the industry, it'll help to steer you on the right path, as web development is such a big industry. The teachers and environment are awesome, open, and friendly. Would def recommed if your interested on starting a new career path in an major industry.

I am currently in my 4th week of a nine week program at Bitmaker. This is the most difficult and trying educational experience of my entire life! I find It frightening and fulfilling. Intense and supportive, but overall I this school as my new home and I could not be happier with my choice to enroll.