The Iron Yard

A crazy, rewarding experience. Before I officially enrolled in the program, the campus director and instructor were very open and willing to answer my questions. They were up front and honest about what to expect and what I should do to prepare and get the most out of it. For instance I really appreciated being given pre-work to work through ahead of time— it made things go more smoothly the first few weeks and got me in the right mindset (you wouldn’t run a marathon without stretching beforehand, right?).

Of course the course itself was difficult, but I did sign up for a challenge, and with that much to cover in a short amount of time it’d be unreasonable to expect lengthy explanations of every detail (again, we were forewarned). It’s a shift in learning style but it’s one that will serve us well in the future. The instructor made himself very available to help us out if we felt lost (he talked me down from the proverbial ledge on more than one occasion). Lectures sometimes wandered away from the main topics, but this was often due to a student’s line of questioning— while that could be frustrating, it speaks to the instructor’s desire to make sure we felt comfortable speaking up if we had a question.

At the end of the course I felt far more prepared for the job hunt than I ever have before. The campus director passed along a ton of job postings and gave us a lot of great examples for cover letters, resumes, and portfolios; she was quick to give us helpful feedback and advice on the aforementioned and on networking/reaching out to possible employers. We went through mock interviews and got feedback quickly, which made me feel more comfortable with what to expect in a real interview experience.

tl;dr: Yes, it’s a challenge, no, you won’t be spoon-fed. The fast pace may not be a good fit for everyone (and that’s okay) but if you prepare yourself and keep at it then it’ll work for you. I tried to self-teach before and there is absolutely no way I could have gotten myself to this level in the same amount of time. That's not to say I've mastered everything, but I do know I’m prepared to start a career as a developer and to keep learning as I go.

 

The nature of this profession, software engineering, is learning by doing. It is not enough to read books and go through free online courses. You have to use that knowledge to build things and keep coding.

Learning how to learn is the most important take away.

This is what The Iron Yard is good at. They prepare you for the working world, where the learning never stops anyway. I believe that one's success through this bootcamp, and through life for that matter, depends largely on the attitude you bring and how you handle challenging situations. The outcome is a direct result of your own ability (and willingness) to rise to the challenge and step out of your comfort zone.

Transformation. That's what attending a bootcamp is about.

If you go through military bootcamp, the staff sergeant expects you to be able to give him 50 pushups on day one. He won't teach you how to do it, you should already know how. Similarly, in a coding bootcamp, you should come prepared. If you come in expecting to be spoon-fed all the answers, this or any other bootcamp is not for you. There is a reason its called bootcamp and not classes or school.

The Iron Yard does a great job of setting you up to succeed in the program and in a professional environment. The required pre-work are only some of the basic things one should know coming in. Like doing 50 pushups. Its impossible to teach everyone the same thing and expect every single student to understand the material the way that the best student in class understood it. And in this ever changing industry, learning how to learn is your best bet and it will take you far. Perhaps even farther than that best student in class.

And when you come out of bootcamp, hopefully you're a better, wiser, more humble person than you were on day one and that you've made some lifelong friends along the way. After all, its not everyday that you're surrounded by like-minded smart people. Cherish it and own the experience.

 

Fantastic experience. The dedicated staff ensured a friendly and productive environment as they took us from beginers to junior developers. The coursework as strenuous and I honestly felt like quitting about once every two weeks, but my stubborness wouldn't let me. In the end they taught more than how to program. The more important skills they taught were how to learn on your own and how to work effectively in a group environment. Group projects were the greatest asset to this program. The instructors were knowledgable and willing to help other students that weren't in their personal class. As a backend student I had no problem getting assistance from the front end instructors and vice versa. Fantastic experience. Even though I've graduated, they still help me while I'm on the job hunt. You will get out of this course what you put into it.

Don't fall for the marketing ploy, they expect students to do a ton of pre-work before taking the class.  Although they advertise that they can take a complete beginner to a junior developer.  My class started with 8 students, only 4 of us will graduate, thankfully, we didn't have to pay the 12k because the campus didn't have their license yet.  The first cohort seems to have faired much better than my cohort, maybe they had some experience.  The instructor is a nice guy, but he doesn't know how to teach, his lectures are unorganized and he loses the class as he goes down rabbit holes.  Unless you have 12k to waste, I would recommend you take full advantage of all the free resources available online or enrolled in treehouse or code academy.  I met some really great people, I especially enjoyed Fridays were we would unwind.  

They will teach you to code, and you'll meet some great people. BUT, I don't think the program content is worth the $12,000 price. Here's why:

1. Many lessons involved learning from Google docs, or simply copied online FREE lessons (Code School or Code Academy, Treehouse, etc.). Many times after lecture, students spent hours going through these anyway to get more help, or a more thorough explanation. The strongest students in the class get treated like free TAs even though they also paid the same amount to be there. There was little to no 1:1 time with instructor to provide personalized guidance or advice. 

2. The amount that the staff's personal lives was allowed to interfere with curriculum was frustrating. People get sick, kids get sick, and bad weather happens. In all these cases we either didn't have class, or were redirected to a FREE online resource or not given additional material at all. There was no backup plan to cover these days to keep us moving forward. In a 12 week program I think we had about 6 missed class days for various reasons  ($1200 value in lost class/instructor time per student). 

3. Lack of resources. For $12k I expected more. More personalized guidance and advice, more post-grad resources and certainly more job assistance. As an alumnus, I continue getting emails to help out current students, be a mentor, etc. These are great ideas, but how can you charge so much for a program then expect alumni to provide the services and resources for free? The whole program felt a bit like "winging it". Students had to take out garbage and do dishes...in a program that cost them $200/day.

4. The job guarantee doesn't apply anymore. Their "job assistance" is not all that useful. Some students get mock interviews, but it wasn't tracked or scheduled in advance so some folks got to practice multiple times and others not at all. The post-graduation guidance is "apply for 10 jobs a week". Fine, but in a small city there aren't always 10 entry-level jobs posted in any given week. I expected them to be a little more proactive in notifying students of opportunities. Also, students who had all but stopped attending class were allowed to "graduate" and participate in demo day along side students who had been consistent all along.  

The one good thing about my experience was my instructor. He really knew his stuff and tried to help us as much as he could. In the same breath, even he had issues with The Iron Yard "Leadership"/Management. My 2 main issues with the program is that I received 0 job finding assistance and I cannot fathom a logical explanation for the cost of the class.

 

I busted my ass everyday in class, learned the material and did my entire job search on my own. I sat down and applied to about 60 places and got a job by myself. Do not believe their main selling point of "We even help you get a job." That's bullshit. 

On top of that the class costs $10,000. For 10K times a class of lets say 15, we sat at cheap IKEA tables, brought our own computers, and used a bunch of free software. And if you're lucky the campus directors will hand you one tshirt before the course is over. Nothing about my experience could have explained my class bringing The Iron Yard $150,000. Spending that amount of money for 12 weeks of school was more expensive than 12 weeks of Out of State college tuition. It just doesn't make sense.

 

I suggest learning what you can for free, then picking a program that gives you what you need for the best value. Avoid the scams.

I'd advise anyone thinking about enrolling in this bootcamp course to first look up free resources on the web.  I spent over 2 and a half thousand on a Ruby on Rails course with TIY and at the end my only positive from the experience was this realisation: "Now you've blown this money, do whatever is necessary to learn this stuff on your own or elsewhere".  So please, don't make the mistake I made (unless you have tons of dosh to blow.

No offence to the tutors, they know their stuff.  But TIY from my experience is a money making scam; those who've had a different experience have been luckier than I have.

I've since found these resources below to be much much more valuable than the time and money I spent with TIY 

http://7in7.crashlearner.com/  - free

https://www.udemy.com/draft/415482/learn  - free

https://www.udemy.com/pro-rubyonrails/learn - $8

http://www.littlewebhut.com/ - free

http://www.justinweiss.com/ - free

http://www.youtube.com - free

There's so many more free and cheap resources out there, but you get the drift.  Spend £2500.00 on some marketing hype or invest some time and less than £10.00 online?  You do the math!

I loved being at The Iron Yard. I learn best when I get up and sit in a classroom, so TIY was exactly what I was looking for. I live in an area that doesn't have a lot of tech opportunities, so TIY ended up being the cheapest option. A big part of TIY (and many other programs/jobs) is that you get out what you put in. I worked hard and was able to snag a good job a few weeks after the program. My teacher was amazing and always there to answer questions or give help. I also loved my Campus Director - they ended up getting me the job I have now.

I was lucky enough to be apart of a cohort that was small, so we all worked together pretty well. However, since we were a small group, there were a few people who were accepted into the program that seemed to be less dedicated than others. However, I'm sure there are people like that at every cohort.

I loved my experience at TIY and I would recommend it to people who want a classroom approach when it comes to learning how to code. It's important to note that each Iron Yard campus is different, so if anyone is looking to apply I would check out the campus first. Regardless, I loved my campus and the people there - my life has changed for the better, and I can't thank them enough.

My Background -  I was just a regular guy with a wide background. I knew a lot of things, but one thing i didn't know is what i wanted to do with my life in regards to a career. Then my fiance heard about these guys. I looked them up and called them up and came in for a tour/interview. The at the time school director was a little high on the expected salary for graduates, said something about $75,000/yr starting out. I didn't believe him but i already made that much as a machinist and it wasn't worth it for me to stay in that field. DON'T DO SOMETHING YOU DON'T LOVE OR ENJOY!! So i missed the semester/class that was coming up since i needed to save up to get by the 12 weeks of no job. Yes, you read that right, no job for 12 weeks. So i waited for the Jan. 2015 class, and i did the "required" pre-work beforehand. NOTE: You don't have to finish all of this pre-work, because it is what you will be learning in the first few weeks. But let me tell you that even if you do the pre-work, you will not actually learn it. The pre-work serves as an introduction but the codecademy classes and tutorials out there don't actually teach you how it works, it just shows you how to do it, in the same sense that i can tell you "how to paint", which is by dipping a brush into paint and then dragging it across the paper in this direction. That is codecademy, walking you through to show you how to code. But an instructor will go in and tell you about the brush strokes and how a different shade of pink will bring out the darkness of that purple. I'm not an artist but you get what im trying to explain. 

Enter The Iron Yard - I did my pre-work for HTML & CSS and then started the javascript but only got to 25%. So my first two weeks were pretty laid back. I had an introduction to HTML & CSS and was able to better learn the "brush strokes" of HTML & CSS. Then we got into Javascript. And the first part is more of a handheld walk on an unsteady, yet stable bridge. You run into a problem and ask Matt, "Oh, just do this instead." Got it! Go sit back down and keep working. Then you start doing these assignments and you ask for help and even though you got your answer, and go back to your desk and keep working, it feels like you're still lost on what the assignment even is. That's when you start questioning if that crappy job you had before was better than these long hours you're spending every day just to figure out how to get that soundcloud or Etsy app to work. Then you get to the end of the learning part of school, and you hit the last three weeks. Final project. This is the moment of truth, the moment that shows who stayed up until/past midnight every night learning how to make those ajax requests. You demo, science fair style, so you will be speaking a lot. Make sure you drink plenty of water. 

Life After - I wasn't the best developer out of my co-hort, but not the worst and it took me 5 weeks to get hired. I'm a designer/developer, i build websites and i wouldn't be where i'm at if it wasn't for Matt and Brian. So just as you have read it in a few other reviews, if you put the time in and work through those hard nights, you too can say the same thing. Don't expect to pay $12,000 to be handed a job. There are a ton of developer jobs out there, but you have to know what you're doing. Already as it is, a lot of companies are looking for Computer Science degrees, and you will have to prove you can at least keep up with them. So if you're ready to really learn and move into that better job, this is the place that can help you.

Just like everyone else looking for a new career, I was sucked in by their promise of turning anyone into a highly sought after, well paid developer. I read some bad reviews but decided to try it anyways because of the few good reviews stating that the person's success was dependent solely on the amount they were willing to dedicate to learning. The Iron Yard says that anyone can attend even if they have zero experience with coding. So because of this I was expecting to be taught everything from A to Z but that was no where near the truth. Before the course begins you must complete some prework which consists of learning everything you can about html/css/javascript/jquery on your own, so pretty much more than half of what you are paying $12,000 for THEM to teach you. Then once the course begins, their teachings consists of mostly skimming through what you should have learned on your own on codeacademy, lectures, and only a few examples here and there. The schedule was a complete joke, only 4-5 hours a day were dedicated to actual teaching and the rest was what they call "lab time" which is their fancy way of saying you can stay in the classroom and work on your assignments. For the $12,000 you pay them, the only things of value you are getting are: a blue-print of what you must learn to be a front end developer, access to a room with wifi, people to answer any questions you may have, and somewhat of a community of other developers. Their "job assistance" is pretty much spamming every employer until one of them bites. None of this is worth even half of what they charge to attend, the only reason they get away with it is because there are not many other options.

 

If you are thinking about attending the houston location I will save you $12,000 of your hard earned money. All you have to do is go to the codeacademy website and complete the FREE courses. Then google node.js, backbone.js, react.js, heroku, and REST. No joke this makes up their entire course. The only things you need now are wifi and someone to answer any questions you may have (this is where google comes in). Even better, all of this can be learned for free by watching YouTube videos, you just need to know what to search for (like i said, simply google what a front end developer must know).

 

The only positive thing I can say about the Houston location is that the people are really nice, but that's it.

If you can afford to take 12wks off from work, which you'd have to do to attend, then do that and use online resources to teach yourself. Don't be pulled into this scheme. This place will promise you the moon and doesn't even deliver a rock. They will blatantly lie about job opportunities when you start and by the end of the course they are scrambling to get anyone to take a second look at students. Employers aren't fooled or interested in hiring people from here unless you want to work for free or little pay as an intern. They will pass anyone that pays their ridiculous fees. Parking isn't included so you spend a ton of money on that. If some people in the class are behind you'll end up staying in the same curriculum. They make up the curriculum and it's usually unorganized. They don't even check your work after you do it. They depend on students to teach each other more than teachers. If you're one of the people that understands how to do something you'll be expected to teach and pull up the stragglers on your free time. 

The people I attended with barely can find work - the heads of the class mostly did internships, and the other ones that did find some work started off at closer to 25,000 a year, not the promised 75,000 to 100,000. The only people that really benefit from this already have a good base in coding and they don't benefit $12,000+ from it. It's a lie that they can take you from not understanding coding to being a developer but either way you'll get a passing certificate. You'll regret going here if you're unlucky enough to join. 

 

 

 

Prior to attending The Iron Yard: I had worked in software and hardware customer support for a total of 6 years. I have a bachelor's degree in journalism and had never used it vocationally (and still haven't).

While attending The Iron Yard: I attended the Front End Developer course in Greenville, SC. It was grueling, but always pleasant. I averaged about 14 hours a day, including weekends. Some less inspired students spent less than that. My instructor was brilliant, and pushed us hard, all while simultaneously entertaining us and giving constant encouragement. About 2 weeks were spent on HTML and CSS, 1 week on Sass and front end tooling (npm, Grunt, Yeoman) and then the rest of the course (7 weeks) was all JavaScript. I was the 2nd class to ever graduate from The Iron Yard, and they only had 1 location (Greenville, SC) at the time. They've since exploded with growth, and their curriculum has likely been updated, so this is probably not a reflection of their current allocation.

After graduating: I took a break and casually searched for jobs that I actually wanted to take, not just the first place that would take me. As I lived in MN, I voluntarily opted out of their job placement assistance as I was comfortable on my own, so I can't speak to the quality of their job placement efforts. Eventually, I took a contract job working for an ad agency in South Carolina as a front end developer building sites in WordPress for medium-sized clients. I worked remotely. After getting the amount of hands-on experience that I wanted for myself (about 6 months), I pursued a full-time position and got one almost immediately. Obviously, the skills acquired at The Iron Yard allowed me to attain both of these positions and change my career path entirely.

I spent 4 years of my life and ~$100,000 getting a bachelor's degree. If this had existed in 2005, I'd have been far better off skipping the bachelors, investing the money, and simply attending The Iron Yard.

I chose TIY because the advertising and the people I talked to said that I could go from having no coding experience to getting a job as a developer in 12 weeks. I did the prework that was assigned, but struggled a lot in the class. Although the instructor was very, very good, he had to go so quickly in order to cover everything that I felt behind by the second week. I complained about this several times, and now they offer more prework and a small weekend pre-course to help people start off better, but this didn't benefit me. I looked for a job for three months despite feeling like I was not competent to work as a dev and was finally thrilled when I was accepted into an apprenticeship program that was an additional 12 weeks of learning on the job. Additionally, TIY provided basically no help in the job hunt; I received no personalized leads, no help on my resume, cover letters or thank you letters, and once the new cohort started I did not hear from the admin people at all. 

If code school wasn't difficult, it wouldn't be worthwhile. I was looking for a challenging track from the start, but I did not anticipate the degree of competitiveness I actually saw. The curriculum was ambitious, but the teacher and other students were unbelievable.

You can go into this code school (and even the Python track) without prior experience. But the idea that this describes the majority of the students is a fantasy. Out of my class, I would rank about half of the students as heavily seasoned. Lots of people have some background, but want an "in" to data science or web-development. I suspect that Python, in particular, attracts more experienced people. Because of this, the assignments were brutal. Since we don't use a grading system, it's natural to compare yourself to other students. This is what results in escalating standards which leaves the entire class feeling overwhelmed. This model of education works well, and it results in people getting a lot out of the course. It's stressful, but it worked. This class had complete job placement for the last class, and almost all of my class was interviewing heavily within 2 weeks of graduation.

The role of code school has evolved over time. To be honest, the Iron Yard is the largest in most of the regions that it operates and I expect the smaller schools to go bust soon. The organization, networking, and resources TIY offer dwarfs the other options that I considered early on. Sure, you can save a few thousand dollars with another school, but you're more likely to waste your entire investment. I should also add that the Iron Yard is slowly watered down its original statements about a job guarantee, and then a job placement program. I can't say I ever saw such a formal thing as a "job placement program".

In fact, if I were to give any constructive criticism, I would ask to make the job-related activities more targeted. For instance, they give general advice about improving resumes. It doesn't matter. I've looked at the other student's resumes, and the people who draft bad resumes still draft a bad resume. Almost all of TIY students are college educated, and if they haven't taken resume advice so-far, they're not going to start with you. The only thing that helped was the portfolio-building workshop. If you want to be useful, you have to be nosy. There was no systematic data collection that went on, just good-willed staff at the office, and this counts for zilch in the big picture. They give prospective students numbers like "28 out of 30 students in cohort #1 found a job", but this completely ignores the fact that many of them already had a job lined up before they started. You can't make heads or tails out of these statements. If they would approach the problem more systematically, I think they would be taking advantage of a big opportunity while at the same time, cutting out a lot of the BS. Otherwise, they do a lot of things right, particularly with managing their network in the tech community.

Personally, TIY directly led to me obtaining the position I wanted. The job responsibilities overlap perfectly with what the class taught. I had prior experience, but the offer reflected that background as well. Many people have been frustrated with conventional University options and failing to translate that education into a career (even for skills in demand). TIY is much more effective. It fills a need that very clearly exists.

The way that TIY teaches isn't concducive to learning code for me and I suspect for most people. I learned very little from the instructor. Most of what I learned was on my own or from another student. If you're going to be learning on your own anyway, it makes little sense to pay someone exhorbitant amounts of money to "teach" you.

The style of instruction is that they go over material that's new in a very slap-dash fashion and then you're assigned homework. If you have little or no coding experience the homework will be problems that you're not familiar with and rather difficult. You're expected to figure out how to do these projects on your own. So the basic teaching methodology is to overwelm you with a problem that you don't understand but you "learn" through trial on error mostly on your own or with other students. It's hopped that understanding the problems and solving them comes with doing things through trial and error (and hair pulling?). But often you don't really know how to begin to solve a problem because you lack the experience and instructions to even understand what the problem is.

If you look at the literature in cognitive science about learning, you'll see that this method is the oppsoite of good pedagogy. There really are best and worst ways to learn. The best ways to learn is through breaking things down into smaller steps and to emphasize understanding at each level. It's not to overwelm with problems that's way beyond your ability and to "learn as you go". That's a recipe for burnout.

Now TIY might respond that since they have so little time (just over two months of instruction) they must cover things in ways that emphasize understanding at every step. However, most of the things you need to learn to be a fluent or expert coder will be learned outside of TIY anyway on the job.

It takes years to be a good coder. There's no short cut for that. So if most of the things you will learn is going to be outside of class, class might as well set you up with solid foundations steeped in understanding of core concepts. But TIY doesn't do that.

It's not only me who had this view, I've heard it from other students in my class as well. I dropped out after 5 weeks and others have told me that they thought of the option too. It just wasn't right for them and they weren't progessing in the ways they expected.

Again, this didn't surrprise me because as I mentioned, the learning envrionment isn't conducive to the type of learning that coders need. The style of teaching might be good for learning natural languages such as Spanish or Japanese but learning to code is far closer to learning math than natural languages (no surprise since the people who developed computer technologies were mathematicians and computer scientists) See the current research into learning math which suggests that the best methodology is essentially exactly the opposite of TIY's methodology.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/a-better-way-to-teach-math/?_r=0

I think a lot of students would have taken the path I did but they wished to get a recommendation for a job after completing the course. That's their main reason for staying the course, imho. But honestly I doubt that the recomendation will help in securing a good junior developer job. What will help is very good project portfolio and your abillity to demonstrate your understanding of coding in interviews. But these things take time and a solid grasp of the basics which TIY does not provide. It's much cheaper, less frustrating and effective to learn on your own.There are now very good online and free resoruces to help you if you're serious.

I also wish TIY made it mandatory and very explicitly clear in assigning prework. The prework they do assign won't help much. But books like Head Start Javascrip are good resources that would have helped a lot. They claim that there's only about 40 hours of prework that they assign but it's actually about 80 hours and that isn't sufficient to prepare you. Also since I had already done some of the prework they never made it clear to me that I needed to do the rest, just that it was optional. You really need about four months of doing significant amount of work on your own to prepare for the kind of work your going to be expected to learn.

Ruby on Rails Austin Inaugural Cohort. Jan 2015 

   Much like any school its what you make of it. But that holds true to several things in life.  If you need your hand held in majority of what you do then understand TIY will not walk you into a career. Its ultimately up to you and how hard you hustle.  Yes you will have to hustle! Did I say hustle again? Yes there it is.   

    Also be realistic.  Sure Hired.com  advertises developer salaries 100+ plus but that is no where near what you will make coming out of a bootcamp. Expect market rate in your city and maybe little less given your 3 months of coding experience.  In Austin you can expect 45-55k wit a big pay increase there after. Also DO NOT go to networking events and talk about your bootcamp.  Chat about what you can build or how awesome you are. Opening up with 'Hi I attend a bootcamp for 3 month and now I am qualified to be your developer' is naive.  

• This segways into job assistance.  Its pretty lacking but then again this isn't Career Point with ton of admin staff. Its a startup.  The Campus Director will help you all she can but you have month before next cohorts starts so prepare to be left to your own resources thereafter.  Also it doesn't help that she moved to Austin 1 month before school she has no network or real bearing on the scence.  But kudos for her hustle. She will get there.  So again. Be agressive. Build a portfolio after school and freelance a bit to build your 'chops' up.   
• So Instructors .  The Rails instructor and JS haves TONS of experience.  They have been coding for years and both self taught. They can definitely save you time by helping you on what not to worry about, do this not that, and real life work experience.  As for the Design instructor whats the saying 'Those that can't do teach'.  I mean she is fine designer. Its evident on how particular she can be.  I would feel more comfortable with an Design instructor that actually worked for Design shop.  Do you homework and check their linked in profiles.  
• Curriculum:  real world examples for RoR and JS course. Design has lots of theory but I guess that what designers need to know. I don't know  I thought these bootcamps were about getting you HARD skills not soft skills about design theory.  Every student will have nearly the same 'porfolio' upon graduation so you need to immediately breakout and make your own. You need to understand you will be competing with your fellow graduates so dont expect the resume you built at TIY to be anything impressive...even if you styled it with Bourbon instead of Bootstrap.    The meek will not inherit empty developer jobs. 
• Demo day :  Imagine Americas Top model but less drama.  Expect any agenda an instructor has had on you to pop up.  I mean instructors are humans too so don't piss them off.  At this point you are sleep deprived and have to demo what you built.  If you are smart you won't shoot for the moon and make something granola that works so they approve it.  Also they do science fair style to cater to the one or two introverts (usually design students). So expect to give same pitch over and over as oppose to pitch it on stage then answer questions later.  Next is the location . Great chill spot but it is not in the tech scene of Austin . That would be downtown.  So recruiter attendance is low.  They hold demo day at mid day too which is additional deterrrent for team leaders of anyone who could actually hire you. So expect alot of family but free BEER

In all great people and you will learn alot but you are in charge of your destiny. Does it require a 12k ticket. Thats up to you

 

ps I did not proof read this...I gives it raw. 

So I read a lot of coding school reviews before choosing a bootcamp, and I tended not to trust the ones that raved unconditionally that their coding bootcamp was the best thing ever. 

With that said, I give my experience at the Iron Yard 5 stars. The program met and, in many ways, exceeded my expectations. Some of the reasons I chose this one; 

First of all, it has small classes and a lot of personal attention. We all could ask questions of instructors and TA's, we didn't have to wait in line. I never felt like just another number. They constantly asked for feedback on how they were doing, and were open to ideas. As the course progressed, we were also able to choose topics that we wanted to focus on. All of the staff knew their stuff, and genuinely seemed to enjoy working there and teaching/coaching us (everyone is full-time,too).

 Second, this was not a "full-stack" program. There was a front-end and a back-end class. The approach was to teach one aspect of development in-depth, and teach the process of development.  

Third, the company has a reputation for quality. When I asked around before the program, I got positive reactions, which told me that the people who had graduated from the Iron Yard had left positive impressions on employers. (Some other bootcamps had a reputation for quantity over quality, having expanded too quickly).

I have graduated, but I am brand new to the job market. The nice thing about the Iron Yard is that they tell you to stay in touch for 6 months after graduation. We have online "portfolios" that are due after the course ends, and we get feedback on cover letters and resumes. I have just started this part, but I am thankful for the help. Still having support for this part is incredibly helpful. 

I am very happy with my decision to choose the Iron Yard. It was, of course, intense, and now I feel prepared to enter the job market. Highly recommended!

 

I was a part of the Iron Yard's 2015 inaugural Ruby on Rails course and have to say that it was not worth the 12k. Most in part due to the class instructor and lack of support. 

The instructor for the Ruby class was great for about the first 3-4 weeks and then totally lost the class from week five on. Most of the time there wasn't any preparation and we spent hours of lecture time "yak shaving" as he would say. Trying to figure out why something did not work, something he should have tested out or checked prior to presenting it to us. Many times that process would leave the class very confused, silent and disengaged. He was a smart "programmer", but not a good teacher and did not know how to communicate with his class. We were left feeling like the problem was us, not his teaching ability and it was our fault that we were not progressing. Unfortunately, despite the complaints we made to our campus director, he is still teaching the class.    The class started with eight students and by the end of the cohort had six. The situation got so bad towards the end that two students dropped out week ten. Two other students were clearly further behind the rest of the class but received no support or extra assistance during the cohort so they were unable to present on demo day. The other four students had a very basic understanding, but no one felt as if they learned nearly enough to get a job even as a junior developer.    There is no "Job Placement". You get a few talks about how to write a resume, cover letter and create a portfolio, but that's about it. They say there's a ton of interested companies telling them to send grads their way, but since we graduated there has been nothing. Not one job recommendation for any of us. Most of the time we cannot even get a response from the campus director when were are asking for support or job recommendations.    This is clearly a startup and ran very much like one. The people are nice, but they do not deliver on any of their promises. You will very rarely see negative comments because speaking out against a boot camp will pretty much shun you from the Tech community that you are trying to be a part of. I cannot speak for other campus's, but would stay far away from the Orlando Ruby class.    Do not be fooled by "there's still room to get in, but spots are filling fast" cause they actually had to push the start date back for the Ruby class due to not having enough students sign up. Proving that making money comes over the students. The original start date was May 1st, but changed to May 18th one week before May 1st due to lack of student sign ups. Now the students who already made a sacrifice of 3 months to attend the class have to wait three more weeks before they can start, so the Iron yard can try and make more money.

I would NOT recommend TIY - particularly the Durham campus. Save your money and your sanity and look elsewhere if you are truly looking to learn to code.

Just a few of the major problems:

1. TIY hires teachers with ZERO TEACHING EXPERIENCE even though they promise you are paying for in-person classes with someone who knows how to teach. Teaching is a complex skill in its own right and to assume that someone with industry experience won't crash and burn when struggling to explain abstract concepts is ludicrous. This "teacher" will take all of their students along for the ride and if they lack empathy and self awareness (not in abundance for software developers in general) they will not be too concerned about the implications for students who are forking over tons of cash for the experience.

2. TIY's main concern is about raking in the money (seriously how can the quality be anywhere near decent when they've opened 10 schools in one year?). Need more evidence of the corporate greed factor? Their top dog worked as a broker on Wall Street with Jordan Belfort (aka the Wolf of Wall Street) and brags that "Through that relationship, guys convinced me I could make a whole lot more money on Wall Street than if I finished school." Google Peter Barth and Jordan Belfort. This is who you'll be giving your money to. Beware.

3. They do not have your best interests in mind nor do they care about you - this is all a marketing ploy (see above).

4. Your opinions and particular needs as a student will be ignored and you will be demonized if you don't follow the campus agenda set by the particularities of the campus admin -- not your instructor. The admins wield all the power even though they are not developers and they absue that power quite freely.

5. The Durham space is WAY TOO SMALL for 45+ students - you will want to leave as soon as lecture is over if you require any peace of mind to focus. Can't they at least afford to upgrade the campus location with all the $$$ they rake in from students? Oh they don't care about student well-being?! Right. Enough said.

6. The Durham CAMPUS INTERNET IS OUT OR EXTREMELY SLOW AT LEAST 50% OF THE TIME. Guess I gotta repeat myself : Can't they at least afford to upgrade the campus infrastructure with all the $$$ they rake in from students? Oh they don't care about student well-being?! Right. Enough said.

7. It's a CATCH-22 for students - those who may be critical of the program are not able to speak out, for fear that it will impact their future abilities to land a job through TIY connections.

Even with all the above, I learned how to code -- but due to my own efforts and working with fellow students. I hope that in the future pseudo-schools like this will be held accountable for their actions and not allowed to behave in such unethical ways. Supporting students and their success is the point of a school and sadly TIY doesn't recognize that at all. Instead prepare for "group think" and persistent bullying if you give them your money.