Juno College of Technology

I started my HackerYou experience in the summer of 2016 when I took the part-time Web Development course, from there I transitioned into the full-time immersive bootcamp. I was a relative newbie to the coding world and HY was essential in helping me to break through the barriers of getting started and really understanding the material. I am still learning everyday since finishing the bootcamp but that is part of what makes this a special experience. There is always new stuff to learn. I finished the bootcamp with a wealth of knowledge and a great portfolio that has already found me work and new contacts in the industry. The community is amazing, so supportive and passionate. I couldn't have done it without all the support. Currently I am freelancing and considering my options as it hasn't been too long since finishing. 

Attending HackerYou is one of the best decisions I've ever made. I was a bit nervous going into it - I didn't have any prior coding experience, but I started out taking part-time web dev in the evenings with Anne Thomas, who was great. I learned a lot even just in part-time, and quit my retail job in January 2016 to attend the full-time immersive program. I loved it. It's a great environment to learn in - the instructors are knowledgeable and enthusiastic, as are the alumni, and the students in my cohort were incredibly supportive throughout this admittedly intense experience and became good friends. The community surrounding HackerYou is truly impressive. I got a job just shy of three months out of bootcamp (coaching through the job search process lasts as long as it takes you to find a job, which is super valuable), and I'm now working as a front-end developer at Rogers with lots of other HackerYou grads. I really feel like I learned solid skills that I can continue improving long past the length of the course. 

My coding journey with HackerYou began when I enrolled in their Spring 2014 Part-Time Web Development courses. Before attending HackerYou, I had spent many hours assessing other courses and bootcamps in the city. Although they all seemed qualified in their own right, I decided HackerYou was the best fit for what I wanted out of my education and career.

After I took HackerYou's part-time web development course, I had such an amazing experience with the staff and instruction that I ended up taking their Fall 2014 Part-Time JavaScript & jQuery, Spring 2015 Part-time Design and Fall 2015 Full-time Web Development Immersive courses. I'm so grateful I made the decision to study with HackerYou and my return on investment was immediate.

Here's what helped me decide HackerYou was for me:

The Community:
I can't say enough good things about this phenomenal community! I know it sounds a little cheesy, but the genuine sincerity and friendliness of students here has had a direct impact on the betterment of my life. Graduates of the bootcamp immersive can still keep in touch with each other by messaging or slinging memes on Slack with previous alumni. Every Friday during a bootcamp cohort, there's "Show And Tell" which allows students the opportunity to practise their presentation and public speaking skills. They also invite alumni to attend which gives them the chance to learn something new and to stay connected to the community.

The Learning Space:
HackerYou's learning environment is bright, modern and spacious. The classrooms are set up with a projector at the front where the instructor lectures, and are always kept tidy and clean. There's a good amount of work space; meeting rooms, tables, couches for students to socialize or cozy up in a corner nook for some head-down coding time. They are also pet-friendly and in my opinion, their relaxed, casual, social learning environment is hard to beat. When a course's end is near, they hold a "Demo Night" event and invite the public, who get to see what projects students built during their time there.

The Instructors:
This is what sold it for me. I noticed a huge difference in teaching quality while sitting in at other bootcamps. HackerYou definitely has exceptional teaching staff. They have a knack for explaining things in simple terms, but keep the lessons engaging and fun. Their enthusiasm is contagious and a beginner's question is never stupid or ignored. You'll never get an instructor patronizing you or putting you down. All the instructors I've taken classes with, had a great sense of humour, and care deeply about their student's learning and well-being. I've even seen them explain a concept multiple times in different ways until a student gets an "ah-ha!" moment.

HackerYou was by far the best place to take my education to the next level, and I even made some awesome friends along the way!

Taking the HackerYou coding bootcamp this past fall was one of the best decisions I ever made for myself. I was immediately taken with the community surrounding the school. All of the staff and my instructors were really down to earth and seemed to genuinely enjoy each other. I really enjoyed that alumni are super invested in the community as well, so there is a large pool of people to draw support from. 

In addition to that, we got to make some really cool things and it was beneficial to have a lot of opportunities to be creative while learning... Making an art of it really helped bring the material to life. 

I'm now working at a super cool agency where I am continuing to learn and develop my skills and working on projects that I'm genuinely excited about. HackerYou was able to connect me with my new job and I couldn't be happier!

I took the HackerYou web development immersice course in the summer of 2015 and before the 9 week program was over I had 2 job offers.  I'm now a web developer working for an agency and couldn't be happier!

I researched coding bootcamps for years before attending HackerYou and I regret waiting so long!  The classroom is beautiful and in the perfect location. The entire staff is incredibly funny, sweet and caring. The instructors are knowledge, fun and patient. And your classmates will be friends for life.

Best yet, CEO Heather Payne makes it her mission to get everyone a job upon ocmpletion of the course.  And let me tell you, her knowledge and advice is worth the tuition fees alone.  She helped me negotiate a salary $10,000/year over what I would have asked for.  Thanks Heather!

I met the HackerYou CEO Heather two years ago and listening to her describe her goals and plans for HY convinced me that I really needed to see this place for myself. I took the p/t Intro to Web Development course in Winter 14/15 and my instructor Drew was a dream. The content was equal parts interesting and challenging. There was always mentors available and it really encouraged me to start using my personal time to experiment and push to limits of what I had learned. I returned in Summer 2015 to take the f/t immersive Bootcamp. The team in the office do a phenominal job of listening to and getting to know each person there to help them maximize the gains from the coursework. I came away from it after 9 weeks with a portfolio I was really proud of and within 2 weeks of finishing I had landed my first job. The most valuable thing that you can get out of HackerYou is being part of the alumni community. Alumni volunteer to be mentors, bootcamp buddies, and to come back and give feedback and guidance to current students. The community is active, and incredibly supportive.

For most students of HackerYou, their journey of learning web and software development didn't begin on the first day of class and as anyone in the industry will tell you, it doesn't end there either. What HackYou does is empower you with the technical and problem solving skills that allow you to grow beyond the program. I started to learn to code in isolation, but was always wondering: how quickly was I really progressing, was I learning the most modern and in-demand frameworks, and was I filling my head up with outdated knowledge? The Full Time Front-End Immersive program, which I took in Fall 216, allows you to gauge your progress against 30 other highly motivated students. They adapt and change their curriculum to reflect the skills the industry is looking for right now. They'll teach you what you may encounter as legacy code in the wild and how new approaches are simplifying and modernizing older methods of doing things. The hands-on, project based program has given me a solid foundation for my future. I am in contact with a wide network of friends, colleagues and industry professionals that I met during my time at HackerYou. Heather and the instructors have been available for help and support during and after the completion of the program. I am confident in saying their help has been invaluable to my success. At my current job as a Front End Web Developer in Toronto, we view graduates of HackerYou's various programs as quick learners who'll seamlessly integrate into our working environment. I would happily recommend HackerYou to both prospective students and employers.

HackerYou is more than a coding school. It's an inclusive community that creates welcoming spaces for people to learn how to code and feel challenged in an encouraging and supportive environment. It's also a community of some of my best friends in the whole world. That's what HackerYou is to me. I started my HackerYou journey by taking a part-time Intro to HTML & CSS evening course that made me fall in love with front-end web development. Soon after that I dropped my career in marketing and jumped feet first into the first front-end development Bootcamp at HackerYou in January of 2014. Since that time I've also taken HackerYou's Design course and Full Stack Course. I've also mentored for 5 other part-time classes at HackerYou and have seen the HackerYou community flourish over the years into what it is today. At HackerYou I had excellent teachers, experts in their domain for each of the courses I took there. My bootcamp instructor Wes Bos is one of the leading coding instructors anywhere on the planet. He's still at HackerYou teaching JS and WordPress classes. I studied design with the amazing design team behind Studio Function and Learned React from an amazing app developer and teacher, Ryan Brunner. My learning experiences at HY were first and foremost shaped by these brilliant teachers. Then I went on to mentor for other wonderful HY instructors like Ryan Christiani who has knowledge and patience in equal and huge amounts, Ann Thomas and Drew Minns, both passionate and joyous about code and very skilled. 

The mentors at HackerYou are the other core part of the support team behind you when you take a class or a bootcamp. Mentors at HackerYou are always dedicated and compassionate, often past graduates who understand well what students are going through. 

Then there was the unparalleled support of Heather Payne who has been my mentor and greatest cheerleader since day one as I navigated the stormy waters of freelancing and building my own business over the past three years. Nobody fights as hard as Heather to ensure HackerYou grads' success in the industry upon graduation and I wouldn't have had the courage to get as far as I have as an entrepreneur without Heather's support. Three years since graduation, I still feel I can count on her for support. 

Lastly, and most importantly, HackerYou is made up of the great people who have taken the classes and bootcamps. HackerYou alumni and the HackerYou space are like a home away from home for me. I am in contact with HY students via slack every day. They are my life line when it comes to any coding or business challenge I encounter. I also see them often when I visit HackerYou for events and workshops, or when I hang out at the Alumni Lounge. Nothing beats sitting down with a fellow grad and chatting about anything and everything. This community is HY's greatest asset and worth almost as much as the knowledge you gain from the bootcamp and classes.

HackerYou gave me the skills to start my own business as a developer. I have made my living independently based on my skills acquired at the bootcamp and part-time classes for the past three years. The HY bootcamp was the best education investment of my life. 

A year ago I was looking for a career change and, having always had an interest in coding, I decided to take the Spring 2016 HackerYou Immersive Front-end bootcamp. The experience was very positive for me during and after the bootcamp. I am now employed as a full time Front-end developer and most importantly - I love my job.

Here are some of the key reasons why I would recommend HackerYou:

(1) The organization puts a great deal of effort in making sure you get out of their program with the required skills (HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc.) and profile in order to be successful in the web development sector. As long as you follow the process, you will find a (great) job once you get out.
(2) The bootcamp is very well structured in terms of learning and instructors/mentors availability, which enables you to learn fast without feeling overwhelmed.
(3) During bootcamp, you will create a portfolio of websites (responsive design, JQuery projects, API project, etc), which is a great asset once you begin job hunting.
(4) The HackerYou community is a very strong one. Alumni will help you with technical questions, will help you keep a perspective on things and will share their experience post-bootcamp with you.
(5) Most importantly: I had a blast doing the bootcamp, had a blast working on the assignments and discovering my new passion for web development, had a blast making new friends  & would absolutely do it again.

...And a year later, I am now back for more, as I am currently taking the Full Stack web Development part-time class. Just do it, you won't regret it.

Last year, I was enrolled in HackerYou's part-time web development course, and I still reminisce about how great that experience was -- and I don't just mean the course curriculum itself! I learned a lot during the 12-week course, even though I came with a solid understanding of HTML and CSS. The pace of learning was great, and I think that most (if not all) of the students would agree. Regardless of our skill level / knowledge base, no one was left behind and everyone was engaged and interested in what was happening. 

Anne Thomas was our lead instructor -- I can't say enough good things about her! She was a huge source of motivation, corny jokes (wholly appreciated by all of us) and someone that we could look up at as aspiring developers. I learned a lot from Anne and found her to be very approachable and responsive in person, as well as over e-mail.

Finally, I think what I appreciated the most about the course was the supportive community. Students were very positive and it was an unintimidating learning environment where making mistakes was definitely OK! 

If I hadn't moved to the West Coast and enrolled in a bootcamp here, there is no question that I would have applied to HackerYou's bootcamp! The part-time course showed me that this is something that I wish to explore further!! Thanks HY and congrats on becoming accredited :)

I came to HackerYou after  working in retail sales and taking a web development course at Conestoga College. I needed more knowledge to fill in the gaps from my education at Conestoga if I wanted to get a job as a dev and the front-end bootcamp did that and then some. The cirriculum was able to get me skills to a beginner level where I could actually find woek! Not only that, but the HY community is full of amazing people, I made some life-long friends and wonder resources. I can't praise them enough, they changed my life ❤️ 

I took both the part-time web development in early 2015, and liked it so much that I decided to enroll in the immersive web development bootcamp later that year. I was lucky to have Ryan Christiani as my instructor for both courses. He was a great person to learn from - he's an engaging speaker and extremely knowledgable. I received a ton of support from the mentors in class, and from the HackerYou community in general. I was really nervous to quit my job, and take a chance switching my career, but I was given all of the tools and support necessary to find an entry-level position in the field. Within a month of finishing the course, I was employed full-time as a front-end developer at a digital agency. HackerYou equipped me with the skills I need to get my career started. I am now working as a software developer -- something I would never be doing without the support of HackerYou.

The part-time courses at Hacker You offer a FANTASTIC education at a more relaxed pace than the bootcamp. The quality of learning is the same - which is really encouraging. I took the Web Dev and WordPress courses part-time and loved the learning. The course work had us preparing real portoflio pieces that we could use later on. From PSD to HTML conversions to creating custom WordPress themes - we did it. I still use those skills today. I went to Hacker You to learn about the web and tech and I came out with a real sense of joy for what I do. I was working in the non-profit sector and took the leap into tech. Without the positive environment and excellent teachers, I don't think I would be where I am today. I am working in a fantastic organization that is equalizing tech and I work as an independent WordPress developer. To go from very little knowledge to working for myself in under a year was pretty phenomenal.

I've taken two courses at HackerYou - the part-time web development program (Intro and Advanced Web Development - Spring and Summer 2015) and the full-time 9-week immersive bootcamp (Fall 2015). I can honestly say it was life changing. 

First, was the part-time course. It was twice a week after work from 6:30pm to 9:30pm. This is a great course for people who are interested in web development and looking for a starting point. The instructors take you from the basics of web development to more advanced concepts all while having fun. This isn't a typical 150 person universtiy lecture-style learning environment. These are small classes where the people know you and your work. This is a place where you learn by doing. After doing most of the part-time course I was so excited about where it could lead that I jumped over to the full-time bootcamp.

The best way to learn a language is to fully immersive yourself into it. Doing this forces you to practice again and again, and again - this is the HackerYou bootcamp. The instructors are brilliant, smart, kind and they care about you succeeding. You go in and you learn how to be a front-end developer. You learn how to learn. Each week we made a website. These websites became our portfolios and these portfolios got us work. It's intense. You go from zero to life-changing with blazing speed. 

I recommend HackerYou to anyone who's thinking about going into web development.

HackerYou in an excellent coding school with a supportive community and amazing instructors. I took part time Intro to Web Development course in fall 2015 and absolutely loved it. Ryan Christiani taught with exceptional knowledge and enthusiasm and all projects were hands-on and explained step by step. I returned to HackerYou this summer for the Immersive Bootcamp program. HackerYou helped me to make a transition into a new career, I now work as a WordPress developer and really enjoy it. The curriculum changes to keep up with new technologies and standards and provides students essential skills for current jobs in tech, you are never stuck learning something that you will not need. With many new part-time courses added, new students and past grads alike are returning to learn more.

I completed the Intro & Advanced Web Development part-time course (with Wes) in 2014 and loved it. 

The course was up to date with industry best practices and extremely hands on. I walked away with a number of projects to start a portfolio. 

The community is very friendly, inclusive and supportive. The team behind HackerYou is eager to see each person succeed and willing to help much beyond the completion of a given course. 

The cleanly designed HackerYou space is conveniently located at Queen and Spadina.

I was part of HackerYou's Front-End Bootcamp Immersive in Winter of 2016, and also took the JavaScript course that Spring. 

The Bootcamp was the second vocational training course I had taken, and while the structure was similar to the other course (focus on hands-on, project-based learning, which I love), the atmosphere at HackerYou made my experience there far more valuable and enjoyable. HackerYou places a huge emphasis on having students work WITH classmates to solve problems and acquire skills.The focus on teamwork, collaboration, and positive reinforcement among peers was instrumental in ensuring that everyone in the class was successful, and left the course excited about the career on which they were about to embark.  There is an amazing network of instructors, alumni, and school admin at your disposal, ready to help you with any challenges you face, be they while you are on your course, or after you finish. The skills I learned at HackerYou, and the support I received from the school community and adminstration, helped me to land a job at AKQA San Francisco, where I currently work as an Associate Front-End Developer.

I am so grateful to Heather and the entire HY team and community for preparing me so well for my new career! I would 100% recommend the courses at HackerYou to anyone who is hoping to build skills in the field of internet and technology.

I've been lucky enough to attend multiple courses at HackerYou in the past year. I took part-time Web Dev, jumped into Bootcamp, and am now leveling up my skills with part-time Full Stack. I took the Part Time web dev with no more expectation than to learn something new and improve my technical literacy, but I soon realized I had stumbled into something really special, and had found a community and career path that completely changed my life. Bootcamp is an intense but also intensely rewarding experience. In my experience, most people finish feeling proud and a bit surprised at exactly how much you can accomplish in 9 weeks with hard work and a lot of support. I feel that the robust alumni community really sets HackerYou apart--it's a welcoming and inclusive community, where people are so generous with their time and their experience (and the networking opportunities are endless!). Development is a career that requires continuous learning, but the HY curriculum more than prepared me for my first dev job. The classes revolve around best practices and most current technologies, and are taught by approachable, experienced and talented developers who have real-world experience and can teach you the practical skills required to become a great dev. The learning and support didn't end when I graduated, and HY staff were with me every step of the way as I hunted for my first job and started my career as a developer. Starting this journey with HackerYou was one of the best decisions I ever made! I would strongly recommend this school for anyone looking to improve their skills or switch careers.