SPICED Academy

I highly recommend SPICED academy!

For me personally SPICED was a life changing experience, I never expected to be a web developer, especially after only 12 weeks and now I found a job as a Software Engineer.

It could be stressful at times and students could get lost and even decide to drop out, but this is a part of the experience when at the end you see the outcome of your coding skills you forget all about that and it will be totally worth it.

so my advice would be that you keep going no matter how hard it gets! 

The teaching part was great and clear as the teachers are always around and would happily help regarding any questions. 

Not to forget mentioning the atmosphere, we were like a family there spending 8 to 10 hours together every day. I still miss being there! 

an advice that I would like to give new applicants is that you should focus on the pre-course and try to study the basics of Javascript before starting the course so you don't get overwhelmed, because the course moves very fast and the topics switch fast so when you know the basics then it will be easier to keep up with all the technologies switching.

Tbh, it's not easy to become a web developer, and to be even more honest, it's certainly not easy to learn it all within a few months.....three to be exact. SPICED does a great job of giving you all of the necessary resources and access to learn, but as with everything, it was up to my colleagues and myself to make it a priorities.

With that out of the way, it was an incredible, harrowing, difficult, worthwhile, trying, and enlightening experience. There were a thousand times, honestly, that I thought about dropping out because my background and life beforehand had absolutely no bearing in computer science, web development, or programming at all. But, staying in and pushing through was by and far one of the best decisions I ever made. My cohort was a diverse group of people, not only in backgrounds but also in interests and motivations, and they ultimately were the support group that I needed to make it through this 3 month course.

Of course, there are a thousand things that I would change in the last few months, like studying more, applying myself to the coursework, and probably having a social life outside of it....LOL.... but I would not change any of my decisions to attend SPICED or change my career path to that of a developer -- I mean, shit, I went from a bartender to now a full stack developer working on hella intense projects now.

So --- if you want to change your career path and want something more, and you have the drive / determination to stick with something difficult despite it being tough sometimes, apply and get to it. But, if you're not one for putting in the hard hours and diving deep into the coursework, don't. Just want to make that clear, because again, being a web developer is tough and doing it in 3 months is even more so. You've been warned...but if you like the challenge, then welcome to it!!

I graduated from SPICED Academy in Berlin and got a job in the US within 1 month of graduation. I have been working as a software developer for a company that makes math and science simulations for schools.

Before deciding to learn web development I was a high school science teacher.  A couple of years ago I knew I wanted to leave the classroom and saw web development as my next venture.  I started studying on my own and I made some progress, but it was slow. I knew that I needed a mentor and someone who could scaffold the learning for me so that it was easier to progress There’s a lot of information out there – some of it digestible and some of it not. With a bootcamp you get a curriculum, a solid path and person to whom you can ask questions. I knew that I was going to quit teaching at the end of the school year so it seemed like a great opportunity to go live abroad for some time. Both my husband and I have always want to live in Europe. I thought the best way to keep studying and get the European experience was to attend a bootcamp in Europe. So we looked for an English boot camp that had the right curriculum and the right timing. SPICED was it.

My experience at SPICED was amazing! The teachers are fantastic and the curriculum is very cleverly structured to get you the most gains in the least amount of time.  Other than HTML and CSS the whole program is focused on Javascript which allows you to develop strong Javascript skills. The head teacher, David, is extremely knowledgeable. The way he introduced the topics made the concepts easily digestible.   He modeled how he would write code so that we could see his process.  He talked about beginner pitfalls and helped us understand why our programs should be structured in a certain way, but at the same time left room for us to solve challenges on our own.  Most assignments could be tailored to different skill levels; there was always a required set of problems, but often there were extra challenges for those of us that wanted/needed them.  

Besides teaching the ins-and-outs of the Javascript language, SPICED instructors taught us the fundamentals of software development. After leaving I found it easy to pick up other languages and frameworks. Many of the projects that appeared to be for one purpose could actually be used for something else. I attended a Hackathon a few weeks after leaving SPICED and worked on a project hat hoped to hook up black, female entrepreneurs with others. The founder essentially needed a social media site and because I had just built one at SPICED, I knew just what to do.  Each new project I encounter I apply something I learned at SPICED whether that be something specific like how to write an AJAX call or, more broadly, how a piece of software is architected. Even though the curriculum focuses on certain platforms (my cohort learned React and Redux, for example) SPICED will give you a fantastic foundation to get started in software development.  

tl;dr SPICED is great, definitely go there, if you are really up for it!

I was part of SPICED's full stack cohort from July to October 2017 and I am very happy I decided to go with SPICED. Already one month after graduation, on November 1st, I started my new job as a Full Stack developer at a digital agency in Vienna, Austria.
So, I am writing this review with a bit of time having passed since graduating from SPICED and already having gone through the first couple of weeks as a professional developer.

Having had very little experience with coding prior to coming to SPICED (except for tinkering around with a few courses on codecademy), the curriculum was challenging from day 1. But after all, I was signing up for something called a 'boot camp', so I already had a feeling that it wasn't going to be a walk in the park.

The two teacher David and Matt were a great help throughout the entire journey and are one of the great assets of SPICED. They do not spoon feed you answers, but rather try to steer you in the right direction when you are stuck.
Personally, I absolutely loved this approach of them being there whenever you need help, but otherwise letting you figure out your stuff at your own pace and in your own way.
That being said, I would not recommend SPICED to you, if you are not fully committed because no one will spoon feed you answers and ultimately it is your responsibility to make sure you keep up. 

I have made the experience, that I learn the most, by actually writing code. Some of my fellow gingers (ginger was the name of our cohort ;)), took the approach of first wanting to read up on documentation and trying to understand the topic they were dealing with. This approach didn't really work for me. I tried to struggle my way through an exercise line by line. If I had no idea where to start, I tried to come up with the first line of code as a start and worry about the rest then. As you progress as a programmer, you start thinking out solutions prior to writing your actual code, but especially in the beginning, this approach proved very valuable to me. 

My favorite project I worked on at SPICED was the petition project, which started around week 6 or so. Prior to that, we had been working on small exercises that taught the basics. The petition project was the one project where it finally all came together, we built our first full stack web app and we got to apply pretty much everything we learned in the weeks prior to that. I still remember the moment, when I successfully deployed my petition to Heroku - that was when I realized how much I was learning and how fast I was progressing.

Even though SPICED is great and all, the first couple of days on the job were quite intimidating, but that quickly gets better. Of course, I am still the most junior developer on the team, but I never really feel like I am completely lost or less appreciated because of that.

One thing I did not yet mention but which makes my time at SPICED very memorable are the people there. The SPICED family is quite small and cohort sizes are not too large (I believe we were 8 people in our cohort at graduation), so you really get to know the people around you and the atmosphere in the office is always very warm and welcoming. 

The course at SPICED was beyond expectations. Although a lot of work had to put into learning complex and advanced coding in 3-months, the instructors David and Matt are great and teach and teaching you the logic behind things. Not only did SPICED teach you how to code but you also form friendships with the people in your cohort as well as other cohorts. You all become part of a big family that is helping each other out. The best part of the week is 17h00 on Fridays when you open your first beer and just enjoy the end of a hard working week.

 

Moreover, there is Paul who is open to showing and suggesting places to go to around the city and of course, Shilpa who is taking care of every concern that comes your way.

 

Overall, very satisfied and great experience that helped me land a job in 2 weeks.

 

Would recommend to anyone!

All the instructors are really good, and will constantly try to gain the most out of you.
The result is that you'll learn the most in-demand skills out there (React, NodeJS), as well as build up a great Github portfolio to be shown to the employers.

But I warn you: there's no magic in it, meaning that, first of all, you really need to master the prep course they assign you before starting the academy, and, second, you need to stay fully focused on your programming tasks during the entire period.

Big sacrifices, big achievements

I'd worked in digital marketing for over 10 years at companies large and small, often surrounded by developers, before learning to code myself. I looked at a lot of different bootcamps as well as exploring self-learning options but was drawn to Spiced because of their javascript-focussed curriculum. I'm so glad I signed up with them.

The course was brutally hard at times but ultimately the experience was rewarding beyond anything I'd imagined. Learning to code in a bootcamp environment is tough and you need to draw deep on your resilience at times, but Spiced offers excellent teaching standards in an incredibly supportive environment. Fellow students and the Spiced staff give you all the support you need to take a leap into the great unknown (!) and if you show up and put the work in you'll come away armed with a wealth of new skills.

It's true that as a newer arrival on the scene than some other bootcamps, their network is smaller, but this is changing as more of their cohorts graduate and maintain links with the college. Because cohorts are reasonably small and they have a couple running at once, you have an opportunity to really build bonds with your fellow students which I feel is a real benefit vs choosing to learn with a more established provider eg General Assembly.

The career workshops, while of benefit primarily to those earlier in their career, still offer some themes of interest for 'older' students and are a great added extra to the course. 

Finally, they offer great help if you're relocating to Berlin for the course and are full of advice for finding places to live and getting established. 

Thanks Spiced - I look back on my time there very fondly! 

Why SPICED?

At first I was skeptical about taking a coding bootcamp but then I talked to Shilpha in an interview to hear each other out including potential concerns I had. After talking to her I was sold on SPICED despite being accepted into others as she was honest about expectations on me and what the school could deliver.

They sure did deliver. If you want to go to a school where you are spoon fed all the answers and have lectures all day instead of writing code yourself then apply elsewhere. If you want to go to a bootcamp where you learn-by-doing then apply for SPICED. From the learning facilities and environment to the top-notch staff who really know their stuff and always want to help and see you improve.

I went from knowing very little HTML and CSS to being able to program in JavaScript and creating web applications that communicate with databases to being able to publish them live with the latest tools used.

Be prepared it won't be a "holiday" in Berlin but a learning experience you'll have for life helped kicked off by the awesome people at SPICED.

Be careful with this school: it can turn sour. The CEO convinced me to join their programme unprepared. Subsequently they did not help me catch up. One of the teachers advised me to consider ‘joining the next cohort’, instead of helping me figure out exactly what I was having difficulties with.

After attending the first few days of this bootcamp, I felt defeated and have now decided to spend my energy elsewhere. Spiced uses an external tool, Codecademy, as a prep course for their full stack program. When I worked through the Codecademy track, Codecademy had updated and shortened some of the tracks, which led me to being un-prepared for the Spiced assessment, which they want you to complete. I had therefore done a stripped down version of the track, which was missing some critical concepts that I needed to know, and so instead of completing the assessment in 4-5 hours, I ended up horribly stuck for a few days and feeling incredibly incapable. This mishap, in combination with the frustration during the first weeks’ classes has led me to the decision that the quality of the bootcamp is lower than expected and promised.

Dear Spiced, if you use outside resources like Codecademy, it is important to make sure to know about any changes to the material being taught. I feel it would be wrong to expect the student to know that they're missing something. Codecademy clearly posted about these changes to this specific track on their blog over a month ago.

Furthermore, from the words ‘from beginner to ready-to-hire’ on their website and the reviews available online, it seemed like we would get a lot more explanations of the concepts and hands-on support early on. I felt I needed this, but I did not get it. The work is independent and I did not feel a good enough connection with the teachers; I also felt that they were not going to be able to provide me with the pedagogical teaching methods it seemed Spiced offered. I might as well be sitting at home, working through freeCodeCamp. Their communications staff member and I discussed that some people do need more thorough explanations, or maybe some simpler challenges to fully grasp certain concepts. I did not have the right foundation from the prep course and we were already moving onto newer subjects which were building on this. Sitting there feeling completely overwhelmed during the second and third day was emotionally exhausting and I was doubting my capabilities, and felt incompetent. Due to the aforementioned circumstances I hoped they would consider refunding me the full seven thousand and eight hundred euros, but no. I’m now left feeling ripped off.

Their ‘registration’ fee is a massive €800 euros, which you do not get back if you are forced to ‘drop out’. Before the course started I trusted the CEO as he reassured me that others before me had not completed the assessment and had gone on to do okay. I was told the teachers would sit with me and once the bootcamp started and during the first few days, to make sure I felt okay. Unfortunately this has not been the case for me and I feel as if these were false promises made. Spiced runs two cohorts at the same time, so with only two teachers for two cohorts, this means the teachers are not dedicated only to supporting your cohort. After not feeling listened to and asking for the full money back, and writing that I would be writing a negative review, the team at Spiced responded to me by saying that they felt I was blackmailing them. Thanks Spiced.

These are the reasons I am disappointed and feeling ripped off. Be careful too, the CEO is unreasonable and after explaining my frustrations over a Skype call as he was not on campus, he did not seem interested to want to take in my feedback at all. Thank you for reading, you’ve been warned.

I'm an American from Los Angeles and I decided to move to Berlin specifically to attend this program. I was excepted into most bootcamps in the States but I chose this on. Reason being is it had the same Javascript curriculum as many bootcamps in the States but at half the price. After doing the math, I found out that after the flight, rent, and coast of living, I would be saving money by doing this program in Berlin. The staff is wonderful, and the environment is very friendly. My fellow peers became friends that will be friends for life. My advice is if you are considering it, just go for it. It is very challenging but rewarding.

Spiced was a great jumping off point for learning how to code. The curriculum is rigorous and challenging, and the staff and teachers are extremely supportive and are always available to help, when necessary. Looking back, I feel that the knowledge I gained from this course is invaluable, as I have been able to get many interviews just within the first few weeks of finishing my studies.

I would recommend this school to anyone who is ready for a career change, or wants to dive deeper into their coding skills.

Spiced was an important step for me, both as a person in a new city and as student in a new profession. They really helped me get into the swing of things quick and craft an atmosphere that fosters co-operation among students to help them crack down on what they do not know. They even let me have a payment plan so the fee wasn't that steep.
I really felt welcome there and the unavoidable feeling of being dumb when learning something new was easily absobed thanks to Julia, David and Matt - my teachers who will always have a soft fuzzy spot in my heart.

Big Thumbs up!
10 outta 10 would code again!

I always wanted to learn how to code, made several attempts with online coding schools but never got very far. Therefore after long considerations, I finally decided to enrol in a coding bootcamp. I can only say I have not regretted my decision for even one moment. 

I joined SPICED in the second cohort and was impressed by how quickly I was able to program pretty complex things. Their curriculum focuses plainly on JavaScript, which makes a lot of sense in my opinion. That leaves enough room to really learn the language and not just a few frameworks. We were taught JavaScript the hard way, by first doing challenges in vanilla JavaScript before later learning how much easier it can be done with a library or framework. That way I feel comfortable to program almost anything I want in JavaScript or pick up any new framework by myself, which I have already done quite a few times. 

I still remember the first time I met Shilpa, the Director of Programms and Community at SPICED, for the first time after she gave me an appointment to check out SPICED HQ.

She was so friendly, so was Frederik, SPICED CEO and Founder, and David, CTO and Head Coach.

From day 1, David, the most godly-skilled head coach I've ever met, started the course with full enthusiasm. He's just so good in delivering the information and let'em sink in! As of every single day of the course, he kept teaching us in a way that feel that he is giving his 100%. Besides his JavaScript-every-couple-days-fifteen-minutes-theoritical portion, he always have practical challenges for us; what is called white board challenges. Prepare yourself also for the most common interview questions for developers he will train you for.

Day in day out, we programmed and built awesome apps using the lastes frameworks, libraries and technologies. All what I can say about that is you have to be prepared for an instensive 9 hours of programming every day that you wish you had before (if you are really willing to learn). In my experience, I would spend three months in an intensive bootcamp rather spending, at least, tripple the amount of time watching free online courses, even paid ones! I did that before I went to SPICED and I wouldn't say that it was a waste of time, but It was so easy to forget! At the bootcamp, they wouldn't let me leave the class before I understand what they were trying to teach me. That was for me a BIG PLUS becuase it showed me how much they care.

Ok wait a minute.. did I say "they"? Who are they?

Well, I already mentioned David but there are also 2 teachers/assistants.

First is Julia, SPICED Teaching Assistant & Developer. One of the most experienced array-fan developer that you will ever meet! 

You'll know her more once you meet her.

Oh, and make sure to be on time or she would like to have a lil chat with you over a cup of coffee. Ask me about that. Well, let's face it > you are being serious and you want to learn? you be on time. Period. That proved me, again, how much they care about their students.

Second is Matt, SPICED Teaching Assistant & Developer. Matt is more of a friend than a teacher to me. His skills are just beyond mind and I am proud to say that he taught me once! He, David and Julia make just a great team. I have been taught by masters!

Shilpa did an awesome job in workshops she led at SPICED. She taught us lots of useful tips of how to create our CV as developers (should be unique), make our cover letters (because you have to) and along with Matt, how to organize our LinkedIn profile. Basically, everything you need to be job ready.

I would really recommend paying them a visit and check the school out. You'll know what I am talking about once you are there!

As of Jan 16, I am in my 6 weeks period of programming a 

Moaaz.

This bootcamp was an excellent upgrade to my professional skills. By graduating online I learnt the potential of working efficiently on a remote environment. The curriculum was inspiring from the first day and I got a balance between being able to work at my own path on the topics of my preference while having continuous assistance from the Spiced staff as well as from the rest of the students. The content taught is relevant to my actual professional tasks and it´s structured in a way that allows to support student at very different levels of knowledge and familiarity with the topics of data analysis, science and engineering, as there are enough references and challenges to pick up and develop from even after the course. But I specially enjoyed the friendly and supportive atmosphere created between staff and students. 

I did the fully remote Data Science bootcamp. The small class size of approx. 15 students as well as the full-time teaching staff made it a very focused and productive experience. Teachers were able to dedicate a lot of time to answering questions in one-on-one breakout rooms and I appreciated the remote learning structure. 

We would do a lesson all together and then work independently on our weekly project in smaller batches in breakout rooms that changed daily, allowing us to connect with our classmates and ask each other questions. We would complete the week with short presentations from each person about one aspect of their project. Week on week, we developed a portfolio of 10 projects plus our final project, which we worked on individually. 

The curriculum is Python-focused, spending only about a week on SQL, which is prominent in the job search. It covered many topics including machine learning (classification, regression, natural language processing, time series), data processing (NumPy, Pandas), data visualization (Matplotlib, Seaborn, Metabase dashboard), deep learning (recommender systems, image recognition), data pipelines (AWS S3, web scraping, APIs, MongoDB) and more. In a 12-week program, these topics are covered quickly so the course's documentation portal was a great online resource for reviewing topics, even after graduating. 

Career resources were good, covering basics like types of jobs, salary negotiation, CV writing etc. You have to take the initiative to set up one-on-one meetings with an assigned career advisor, which is a useful resource with specific input on your profile. Ultimately, relying on career services is not enough to result in a job. Applying a lot, networking, speaking with in-industry mentors via free external resources also needs to be part of the effort.

Overall, an excellent foundation, but like every bootcamp it requires independent study afterwards (especially in SQL) to gain proficiency. Career services offer a good boost to get started, but you have to keep going and networking on your own. 

I had a mostly disappointing experience at SPICED academy (spring 2022). 
What was disappointing:  
1. The quality of teaching and the level of experience of the teachers. Many classes were taught by bootcamp graduates who had themselves graduated the bootcamp and then started immediately teaching (—> no knowledge of industry or even the mathematical or statistical background of different methods). In these cases, you’d be better off watching youtube videos than going to classes since teachers could not answer questions and often gave incorrect answers (errors only caught by students who had a more rigorous background in the topic). Definitely not worth the price (which is higher than other bootcamps). Teachers as well as the staff were unresponsive to complaints.

2. Background of other students: the bootcamp is not selective in their intake of students and in reality has no requirements for students to prepare for the bootcamp. This makes the overall level of graduates lower than should be and a lot of the time in classes is spent on explaining very basic things that were in theory pre-required knowledge. 
What was good: 
1. The material is well put together and you have access to it after the bootcamp as well
2. Topics covered relevant for the job market.
3. Weekly projects push you to learn at a fast pace and give you good start to continue learning afterwards