Makers Academy

Makers ethos is to teach people how to learn rather than teaching them everything there is to know about software development. They deliver this brilliantly. Having undertaken two different courses using both approaches, I can safely say that this approach to learning is preferable. This is because the self-learning element is central to becoming a good software engineer in an ever moving industry and will allow me to continue to develop long after the boot camp finished. The course itself featured 7 weeks of learning modules, each building upon the previous ones knowledge and skill. The final 5 weeks was split up into 3 self led team projects. I found all 12 weeks to be beneficial but with some previous programming knowledge, I particularly enjoyed the team projects as we were able to use all core development skills in a real working environment. I would recommend this course to anyone who is looking to kickstart their career in software development as it gives you all the core skills that you need to grow and flourish in the work place.

I joined Makers with no coding experience, and in 3 months I've learn an enormous amount. Not only I've gained a technical knowledge, but I was also introduced to agile processes and the ways teams operate. Makers have mental coaches, so there is always someone to help you if you find the course(or life) too challenging. Makers prepare you for your new career very well, the course is very well organised and the coaches are extremely professional. I recommend this course to anyone who wants to build a career as a software engineer. On the first day at my workplace I was able to use the skills I've gained during this bootcamp. Makers is the place to start :)

Pros: 
-Taught how to learn, not just given the answer but guided in the right direction and suggested things to try.
-Very supportive coaches that were always happy to help.
-Taught how to pair program, work in an agile team, and solo program.
-Learnt a wide variety of skills (command line, git, searching solutions online, databases, HTTP requests, programming concepts such as arrays, 
 methods, OOP, etc), which are proving very useful in the workplace.
-Extras such as meditation and yoga.

Cons:
-Spent too long on Ruby and not enough time on the more difficult languages used in the project weeks and then in the workplace.
-Not enough resources available from Makers during project weeks when you start working with languages other than ruby.
-Not always enough coaches for the amount of students which could lead to being stuck without support for a time.

Overall a great experience, went in with minimal coding experience and left having learnt loads and made many friends. Would recommend the course if you are looking to start a career in software development and have minimal coding experience.

Makers helped me realise my dream of becoming a developer.

I really my time at makers. I have met a lot of people who I know I will remain friends with. They have put a lot of effort into making the whole place a positive place to be. They are not purely focussed on coding and they offer things outside of code like yoga, meditation, pizza nights with games, kareoke and more. They have an aim to make you a more well-arounded emplyable developer rather than just a technical champion.

In terms of the coding, the process eases you into the process but each week you are more entrusted to work with less structure and build things as part of groups following the processes you have been taught throughout. Support was still there if needed. I really liked this way of working.

Although I can see the benefits to learning Ruby as a first language due to the way it reads plus the syntax is more forgiving. However it seems maybe Rails/Ruby aren't as relevent in the job world as they once were and the course spends alot of time focussing on them. However we did cover Javascript and some React. And final projects you can choose your own tech stack which meant you can go wild do things like use Python!

They have a big careers team and they have loads of partnerships with all sorts of companies from brand new starts ups to big American companies. Companies come into to give talks and they have careers fairs too.

You can learn the code and technical stuff yourself online. But they teach you things like coding as part of a team and using team processes to developing apps. Which is obviously beneficial for getting a job as real world dev. It is awesome, the fact they have all this careers support and will help you find a job.

The staff at Makers provide a wholistic approach to learning. The coaches are always available for support whether this is in terms of writing better code or personal well-being. There is a very friendly atmosphere with an reliance on self learning. The 16 weeks are well structured, learning the basics in Ruby and applying it to other languages such as Javascript (and another language of your choice for the final project). At the end of the 16 weeks I feel as though I can quickly pick up new languages and apply what I've learnt to produce a decent product.

The topics were well structured and I thought that the pace was good. Our cohort started with Ruby before moving on to using Javascript and Java, with Postgresql for databases. Building a solid understanding of Ruby before moving to other languages meant that we were able to learn new languages quickly, which is a skill that will definitely be useful in the future. Other very useful things we learnt included the ability to use TDD and to program in a team, which will really help in our roles. There was great support from the coaches and the rest of my cohort, and I learnt a lot in a very short amount of time all while having fun!

I was part of the apprenticeship side of the academy and have just completed the 3 month upfront boot camp. The course is mainly structured around ruby but in my opinion the course is about teaching you how to program in any language and transfer your knowledge to any programming language you may need to work on in the future. We also focused on different languages such as JavaScript and java, we also learnt TDD.

We would spend the week learning a new module with regular zoom calls (my cohort was remote) and there was lots of support on slack if we needed it. At the end of the week we would complete a Friday challenge which we had no guidance to see if we can put what we have learnt in to practise on our own.

On completion of each module we would fill in a feedback form so the coaches could see how we were feeling and if we needed any support and if we did they would come and talk to us to see what they could do to better support us.

Overall I would rate the boot camp 5 stars, the only thing I would say needs improving is pairing for remote cohorts as its more difficult pairing remotely.

This course was challenging, engaging and fun, it gave me the opportunity to build on/solidify my knowledge from my previous education during the first 4 weeks (procedural programming and OOD), in a whole new programming language. Then I got to learn a brand new skill, web development, where you get given set apps to make, then can make your own one at the end!

You don't just do front-end JavaScript, you get to learn a full stack with first Ruby backend and then my cohort did it with Java, both with a PostGres database using PostGres's sql for queries. So you get to learn a whole stack in two languages! I thought this was really beneficial as it's always good to be able to program in multiple languages. In addition, the techniques for learning a new language are transferable for every language.

I really liked the coaching style, you don't get spoon fed, you have time to work it out for yourself, but the support is there if you need it, not only from Stack Overflow, but also from the coaches and even the rest of your cohort!

The fact you collaborate on all tasks and projects gives you the opportunity to develop your teamwork and communication skills which are just as important as your technical ability. You communicate with Slack and Zoom. Slack for like a chat room and Zoom for video calls and screen sharing. I found both apps really easy to use and very helpful throughout the course.