Altcademy

I compared different online bootcamp options before selecting Altcademy, and they were mostly in the 10-20k USD range. I spent time going through Altcademy's curriculum, and their reviews, to make my decision. Altcademy's curriculum is almost exactly the same as all the other bootcamp's curriculum. I won't go into details about the curriculum as it is not something everyone needs to know. But the highlights are, part tutorials, part projects, and part exercises. Lots of exercises. Altcademy provides less live support than the more expensive bootcamps, but slack chat and 7 hours of office hours should be enough to get anyone through the whole program. There really isn't a need to shell out 10 to 20k unless you need that "job guarantee".

Altcademy is a bootcamp that allows its students work remotely and, on their time, and pace. The material is quite comprehensive and challenging at the same time, but it is worth learning. There are a lot of assignments and projects that you can use to improve your skills as a programmer and as an overall thinker. I think this bootcamp is best for people that want a career change without having to make any significant changes to their life. Whether they are a beginner or an intermediate, this bootcamp is for everyone.

- Self-paced learning allows a flexible schedule,
- Part-time friendly & Full-time friendly
- Beginner-friendly
- More affordable than other bootcamps
- Being 100% online and remote

I took the Front-end program because I wanted to add features and manage my family business's website. My experiences with learning to code were all from other online video based courses. It took some adjustment, following the text based curriculum on Altcademy. Once I got used to it, progress is much faster than learning from videos. It took me six months to finish the program, since life got in the way a few times. My mentor was very knowledgeable and assisted me through each step. I highly recommend this to complete beginners.

The program is professionally delivered and I am very thankful they are offering it at such an affordable price. I learned the skills needed to build standard CRUD full-stack websites, using react for frontend, and ruby on rails for the backend. There is a slack channel where I can meet other students and get help from mentors. I chose the personalized plan and was able to have live 1 on 1 sessions with my mentor. Towards the end of the program, I worked on a decently in-depth project with an idea of my own. There are dozens of other smaller projects that I built along the way. I use those projects as part of my portfolio and resume for job applications. I also learned some algorithms and data structure concepts at the end of the program, plus practiced on interview questions. They also helped me polish my resume and linkedin profile. There is a lot of content to get through, don't plan on starting unless you can dedicate at least 10-20 hours a week studying.

The Fullstack course is a great way to get started with web development. It has a very comprehensive curriculum, along with a series of exercises that will help you understand and learn how to apply the concepts. You start by learning html, css, js, react, then ruby and rails, and finally they will teach you how to combine everything to build full stack applications. The course is designed for beginners, but it is also suitable for people with prior knowledge. I had taken a few online courses before and I found this course to be more in depth. If you are learning full-time, you can finish the whole course in 4-5 months, then you will be able to start working on your own projects, or apply to jobs.

Overall the program is very good, well worth the price. It is divided into 5 portions, frontend, backend, fullstack, portfolio building, and computer science fundamentals. There is also a career course to help you prepare for job applications and interviews. The transition from one course to another is very smooth. Concepts are well explained with examples and analogies. If you need help, you can contact a mentor. They are very good at finding out where you are stuck, and are very patient. To succeed, you are expected to put in a lot of work, somewhere between 40-50 hours a week if you can study full time. I would recommend this program to anyone who wants to learn web development. It is a great way to get into the field of web development and get a job. I am currently working as a junior frontend developer after completing the program.

Initially the exceptionally low price compared to other online schools made me hesitant as I thought it's too good to be true. But after reading many reviews, going through their website thoroughly and completing their free coding 101 course gave me enough confidence to sign up. The coding 101 course lets you see their learning platform and their content style, you should do it if you are considering. For the program, you will be studying on your own, but your homework is marked by an instructor and there is a slack channel where you can ask questions. The mentors respond fairly quickly and professionaly. The content is almost all text and images. Occasionally there are videos for harder topics, which is a nice change. The strength of this program lies in the exercises and projects. I learned the most from completing projects. They start with cloning just the frontend of famous sites. Then move on to building various frontend apps with JavaScript, jquery, and react. Then api backends with rails, and finally fullstack projects including an airbnb clone. Projects are very hard and I had to refer back to the curriculum often. But I learned a lot. I am now working on my portfolio project and after this I will go through their career course and start looking for a job. This journey has been nearly 8 months and I woudn't have believed that I could have learned so much if someone told me then. I am very grateful for my mentors who are so kind and helpful, they kept me going. This is a hidden gem, people who took it will certainly agree.

My experience with Altcademy has been nothing but exceptional. The program will give you a head to toe anatomy of web development. You will learn enough to fend for yourself in the future. The content is written with beginners in mind. Concepts are explained in clean, concise manners. Exercises and projects are there to reinforce your learning. You can contact a mentor when you get stuck, they are seasoned engineers and will resolve your issues very quickly. By graduation, you would have completed a dozen projects, and a custom capstone portfolio project. They will review your resume, linkedin profile, and give you tips on job search, but no career services is provided. Take this course, you won't regret it.

A word of advice for beginners. Programming is hard, really hard, and anyone who tells you that you can go from zero to hero in three months is not being completely honest. The truth is learning web development up to a decent junior level competency from no prior knowledge is going to take at least eight to ten months, and you are just scratching the surface. This is not discouragement though, hard things can be very rewarding, both financially and mentally. Learning how to code definitely helped me become a clearer thinker. You know that feeling of brain fog? After a month of coding, I never had that feeling again. Everything is crisp, sharp, suddenly I see the world in ultra high def. It's a wonderful sensation.