Fullstack Academy

Attending Fullstack Academy was one of the most important career decisions of my life.

Prior to the program, I was in a career funk. After five years working in IT infrastructure architecture and technical sales, I felt that my career had stalled out. When I left the Army, I went into technology expecting that my days would be filled with intellectual stimulation and challenging engineering problems to solve. Instead, I found that 90% of my days were spent sitting in Office Space style conference calls or ghost-writing planning documents, PowerPoint animations, and Visio architectures that would get handed up to management to get used in political fights over manpower or budgets and then discarded. How did I end up here? How can so many traditional Fortune 500 IT jobs be so soul-sucking?

These days, there is no excuse for someone with technical interests to stay in a job they dislike. However, when caught in the murky morass of a difficult job, it can be difficult to chart a path forward and pull yourself out. I was broadly unhappy for well over a year before I decided to stop being a small cog in a grinding corporate machine. At first, I started renewing side projects and used some free and low-cost resources for web development to try to revitalize my love for intellectual stimulation and challenging engineering problems. Over several months, I found that I would sit in my corporate cube and daydream about my side projects, the chance to build things, and the rapid visual feedback of building within the browser.

Confident that I knew the pivot I wanted to make in my career, I applied to Fullstack Academy. As a military veteran, I love the 'bootcamp' model. I know that several months of single-minded focus, a lot of intestinal fortitude, and a willingness to put all other aspects of one's life on hold can be transformative. Just like how soldiers can learn to operate and fire a main battle tank in a few months, a coding bootcamp can equips students with the skills they need to hit the ground running in their first job.

Traditionally, one would drop everything and relocate to NYC to attend the country's top-rated coding bootcamp. However, as a 30-something with a wife and a mortgage in anytown USA, this really wasn't a super feasible option for me. Thankfully, when I was considering Fullstack, they were piloting their first-ever fully-online fully-remote cohort. This new offering promised to bring the top-rated coding bootcamp to me in my home office. I wasn't sure how this model would work at first, but I went forward with it and applied. I went through a very-challenging coding interview, and when I was offered a spot, I accepted and began Fullstack.

Starting the Fullstack curriculum, it was clear to me that the remote program was no less intense than the on-campus version. I purchased a VESA monitor mount to use two side-by-side 27" monitors with a 1080p logitech webcam. This was super important for remote pair programming. On one monitor, I would have a live video stream of my class. On the other, I would have a screen share of the instructor's screen. We would break into pair programming, and I would have my editor on one monitor (which I share with my pair programming partner), and the other monitor would have my partner's face. This meant that I was essentially transmitting a video stream of my face for 12+ hours a day.

Following this model for months, I quickly learned modern isomorphic JavaScript, the lingua franca of the web. I picked up Node.js, Express, Passport, Sequelize, and Postgres on the backend. On the frontend, I learned the React-Redux ecosystem. By the end of junior phase, I felt comfortable with all of these pieces, and in senior phase, I applied these tools to some very challenging projects, including a full e-commerce site, an Electron desktop application, and a Virtual Reality app with real-time voice that allowed use of the Google Daydream headset. I'm currently in the interview process with a bunch of companies, and they are by-and-large blown away by the portfolio that Fullstack has helped me build.

Fullstack Academy offered me a path to pivot and course correct the trajectory of my career. Within a few months, I've been able to achieve sufficient velocity to break orbit. When I think of a cool project, I now have the skills to build out a prototype and release it on GitHub. I feel limited less my by technical abilities and more by my imagination. If I hadn't had this top-shelf instruction and amazing cohort, I suspect that I would have had a hard time maturing my technical skills as quickly as needed to keep my mortgage paid. The opportunity cost of not-working is super tough for folks 30+ with financial obligations, and the Fullstack Remote Immersive program is the absolute best way to compress the time between deciding to move into web development and being job ready.

My cap is off to the instructors and amazing staff at Fullstack. Thank you for democratizing access to your program. You've opened access to a wider pool of folks that are unable to move to NYC or Chicago, and I'm confident that you'll continue to empower and effect positive change in all sorts of lives.

I was in the first remote immersive course at Fullstack Academy. Between the students, the staff, and the curriculum, I'm a raving fan. And there were even perks beyond that! Like we got to use a Pixel phone and Daydream headset so we could figure out how to code in VR. And they had a Fullstack campus for us in MineCraft so we could feel like we were part of things on campus.

It started with Foundations. That was four weeks with video classes and 2-3 hour tests. We learned intermediate JavaScript fundamentals, and it felt so hard, but I loved being pushed to do even more than I thought I could do. 

Then it was time for Junior Phase, which was six days a week, and 7am-4pm since I'm on the West Coast, with a 1.5 hour lunch. It was intense, with new concepts and technologies being learned every day (data structures, SQL, Express, Sequelize, jQuery, CSS, React, Redux, etc.). It went at a breakneck pace, and I felt like I was always behind. But I hung in there and by the time we hit Christmas break, I had learned a ton. I loved pair programming with my classmates, and my teachers were extraordinary human beings: deeply kind, endlessly patient, and skilled at teaching. They effortlessly combined humor and staying on topic. 

Senior Phase was projects, whiteboard interview prep, career prep, and CTO lectures. We met five days a week, and did four coding projects: an e-commerce site, an individual hackathon, a tech talk, and a capstone project. Fullstack was super supportive about making sure we had strong portfolios when we graduated. 

One thing that surprised me about the remote program was how intimate it was. We were always communicating through web cams, and they get close up on your face. And we had a lot of one-on-one time with our instructors. I was amazed at all the personal attention. I feel close with my entire cohort, and like I made a bunch of new friends, and we can go forward and work on projects together (I'm actually already doing this with two classmates). 

TL;DR: I can't say enough good things about this program. It changed my life. I've leveled up. 

I withdrew from Fullstack Academy’s online program after paying two installments of $1,462.75 each ($2,925.50 total). At the time of withdrawal, my advisor confirmed in writing (Slack DMs) that my last two payments would be canceled and not charged. Weeks later I received an email saying Fullstack still intended to charge me.I then discovered my student account was deleted and I was removed from their Slack, which prevented me from accessing the very DMs that confirm the cancellation. My written request for a copy of those DMs went ignored. I immediately revoked any payment authorization in writing, placed a stop payment with my bank, and ultimately closed the account to prevent an unauthorized ACH that would have overdrawn me by more than $1,000.Fullstack’s billing team later replied that, based on “attendance and the signed agreement, full tuition is owed", but they did not provide the specific contract clause, ledger, or calculation to justify charging me after a written cancellation of the final installments. They also cited a “no refunds after 6 weeks” policy, which in my case is being used to demand money despite a prior written cancellation.I have filed complaints with the CFPB, NY Attorney General, and BBB. This review focuses on administration and billing, not the classroom experience. My advice to prospective students: if you consider this program, get every promise in writing, screenshot everything, avoid autopay, and confirm in writing that billing has been canceled if/when you withdraw. Based on what happened to me, I cannot recommend this school.

I took the Full Stack Developer online course. I would like to express my gratitude to the school as a whole and each employee individually. The course has a well-thought-out teaching methodology. I liked the structure of the material provided: lectures, webinars, mentors, and notes. Plus a lot of assignments to consolidate with deadlines that keep you on your toes) I can recommend the course. This is not only about interested teachers and ambiance but also about structured and up-to-date knowledge in the field of development.

I had no real coding experience before enrolling in Fullstack academy. By the completion of the course I felt very confident in my coding skills being on par for an entry level position. 

The career success resources offered by FSA were invaluable. Since I was making a career switch, having the confidence to sell myself in interviews was a bit of a challenge. I don’t know if I would have been able to get that first job without all the guidance and advice from the career success team, and Maggie specifically. 

I can recommend these courses to everyone who sees themselves as a developer in the future, because I myself received a full-stack developer certificate and already have a job. Here you will receive a very structured, cool and pleasant synopsis, which you will be happy to tear off in the future, so as not to rummage through the Internet. Then there are video materials on more with practice, it's like a series every evening, sometimes you don't even want to go to sleep, but you turn on the next series. The video and synopsis are already enough to gain knowledge for passing interviews. But there are still lectures and practice with teachers who answer all your questions, so it will be very, very difficult not to succeed with these courses.

I had a BS degree in Cybersecurity before Fullstack and I earned SEC+ while in the Bootcamp.  However, I was no expert in how to use my knowledge as neither of those taught me the practical, real life applicable, and hands on aspects to cyber like Fullstack Cybersecurity Bootcamp did. We were taught how to use so many new tools both in Red team and Blue team. The assessments during the course are fun and challenging but they always prepare you for them so you are ready. The class taught me so much, and gave me confidence I did not have in my skills before.  They also give you incredible job search resources and a career coach that helps you find a role after graduation. I sincerely believe even with my degree and certificate I would still be looking for work if I didn't have the experience Fullstack gave me. I found a role after networking for only month when so many in tech are being laid off currently, I am so grateful. Plus, the experience Fullstack gave me allowed me to be onboarded at a higher pay than I would have otherwise. Joining this Bootcamp was the decision that launched the final step of my career pivot and allowed me to start my new life in Cybersecurity. 

First off, the course is challenging and absolutely requires a lot of time. (There's a reason why it's "full-time".) For most of the course, I was spending 60+ hours a week on classwork. If you enjoy learning and can put in the time, you will love it.

I had the benefit of going into the cybersecurity course with a prior educational background in Computer Science and Network/Security. (Trained, but not certified in Network+, Security+, and CCNA.) While this prior knowledge helped a lot, the school makes a good effort to make the course accessible to people who don't have a background in IT. The catch is, those students will have to work that much harder to keep up.

The first half of the course was focused more on building foundational IT skills like utilizing the command line, basic networking principles, and coding. The 2nd half was more security-specific. The course did not teach to any specific certification exam; however, they did provide a copy of CompTIA's CertMaster training material for Security+ and reimbursed the cost of the exam when I passed it. (The process for registering for the exam and getting the refund was a hassle, but everything worked out.)

The exams were "Can you find the right answer?" using available resources rather than than "Did you memorize everything?". They also provided a balance of multiple choice knowledge-based questions and Practical Exercises like guided labs.

The instructors were former industry professionals, so they were able to relate personal work-experience to many topics discussed in class. They also tied in current events and provided good resources for following up on topics or just staying informed.

The career services were, overall, very good. They took time throughout the course to provide workshops on things like job hunting, resume building, mock interviews, etc. The career coaches were fantastic. They were friendly, enthusiastic and went above and beyond to offer help. Their services are also retained after graduation so you can (and will) continue to use them as you actively seek employment. The biggest problem I had was that they did not yet have a good talent pipeline for hiring students right after graduation. (I have seen other schools brag about that kind of thing.) They looked like they were working on establishing formal affiliates, so things might be different in the coming years. Regardless, the career staff sill worked very hard and helped a lot.

The cost of the school was fairly comparable to other institutions. For the veterans out there, this school works well with the VA and a lot of alumni are former military.

I have to say the program is amazing!! Prof, Stanley, and Jonathan are super supportive and experienced tutors. They gave us practical and real-world coding examples and pairing coding simulations. I was so lucky to have them in my engineering journey. Finishing the program is the first part of difficulties. However, I have to confess one thing - finding a job is 100 times harder than completing the program, especially for an international student like me. I went to the career center at NEU over 30 times, but none of them could help me get a job. People always told me that I need to do networking. But how!! No one really guided me through the networking process. I even did not know how to ask for help or where to find a resource. Until Dezzi came into my life, she is my interview saver, life changer, game changer, and so on. Seriously, I had never passed the official interviews before meeting Dezzi. After speaking with her and working with her, I got two official offers in 110 days!!!! Dezzi guided me step by step, phrase by phrase to find a job. Thus, when I hear someone complains about she/he could not find a job and does not know how to do networking. I just want to tell them why do not book an appointment with Dezzi. She is full of skills and strategies to help you go through those difficulties. YEAH, I do have skills on dealing with coding problems, but without Dezzi, I am just a person who knows how to code. That's it. That's why we need a professional career coach like Dezzi. Because of Dezzi, I do not need to take a long way and burn myself out to land a job. She made my life 1000 times easier. I need Dezzi. Future students need Dezzi. 

The Full Stack Cyber Bootcamp (part-time) is 26 weeks of learning the industry's most in-demand IT and cybersecurity tools/concepts along with receiving outstanding customer service from the career services team. I enjoyed learning IT fundamentals, networking, blue team, and red team concepts. Not only was the material beneficial to learn throughout the bootcamp, but the teachers did a good job of presenting the material in a way that I could grasp and apply what I've learned. This bootcamp will not only prepare you for future success in IT and cybersecurity roles, but it will also help you network with people who are currently in the industry.

While I can't speak for every cohort I can say that mine had to deal with a lot of change and chaos unnecessarily. From week two up until the last week of class, we had staff members and mentors (who acted in a TA-type role) quitting and sometimes being replaced. The replacements were never as good, and if staff members weren't replaced we were added to other people's already busy work loads. Our new mentors were so unreliable that our lead instructors (Alec and Bobby, who were incredible) had to stretch themselves thinner to help groups that they weren't in charge of. It added a lot of extra stress to an already intense learning environment, and I think it took away from my learning experience. 

As for the curriculum, most of the skills I learned were very relevant to my job search, but they don't always teach the most modern version of some technologies, especially React. I think it would make more sense to modernize the curriculum more to allow for students to focus on learning algorithms and other relevant tech after the course is over, since there's not much time to focus on those during the bootcamp.

Overall, I think this course prepared me well to join a brand new field, but I am unsure if I feel comfortable recommending the program to others because of all the staff issues.