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To all the skeptics... I spent a year teaching the web development immersive program at General Assembly. I felt skeptical about the program too, but I always

To all the skeptics... I spent a year teaching the web development immersive program at General Assembly. I felt skeptical about the program too, but I always wanted to try teaching so I thought it was worth a go. by the way, I'd recommend it to anyone. It's a great way to take a break from dev work and teach the next generation of developers. It is extremely rewarding to watch people go from next to zero knowledge to being able to build functional apps, and they are always looking for new instructors. So, does it work? Admissions - We did have a fairly high admissions bar (as to not waste anyones time or money), but the bar was really about motivation and ability to learn the basics (they have to do some basic html / css). The program is VERY fast and demanding and people need to be able to do nothing but code for 3 months. Their personal life gets put on hold and they live, breath, and eat code. Completion - Every class I taught had exactly one student drop toward the beginning, but outside of that everyone that started the program made it through (thanks in part to the admissions process). Outcome - Every student that finished the program and actively tried to find work got a job. Each class (of 20+ people) had a couple people that decided to do something else with their lives, but everyone that decided they wanted a job in development got one. I can't speak for all "boot camp" programs, but I can say that the program that I taught was very effective and IMO people got a great return on their investment. These views are my own and don't reflect the views of General Assembly or Google, blah, blah, etc.. (edits to fix typos and some re-organization)

cfreeman 11y ago
Which GA did you work at? I have a friend that went to the one in Santa Monica and had a bad experience. Of course, he did eventually get a job as a developer afterwards so I guess it could've been worse. I went to a bootcamp recently and when I was picking my school I remember the reviews for GA varying a lot from location to location.
- itslennysfault 11y ago
  I taught in Seattle. I actually read a bunch of reviews before applying and noticed the same trend. I think the quality of the actual instructors plays a huge role which reflects on each markets ability to hire top talent with adequate industry experience. I've met Instructors from all over and from what I can tell it seems like GA generally does a great job at hiring, but being in 14 different cities there is bound to be some variance. My advice to anyone considering any immersive program would be to meet/vet the actual instructor(s) teaching your particular cohort.
lloyd-christmas 11y ago
From the student side, I'd say the admissions were crap. I was wait-listed simply because they lost my application. Our class ended up with 15 people who lived and breathed code for 3 months, along with a few nine-to-fivers who treated it as a work vacation. Shockingly, they were the ones who were allowed to control the pace. I ended up with one of them as a partner on one of the projects. His only contribution was a single line of "code"... his name on the README. Admission gripes and crappy students aside, the rest of the learning environment was great. The teachers were always willing to give more outside work if we wanted more. It was invaluable having classes overlapping and students at different learning stages sitting next to each other in the community workspace. Most people were happy to provide help. I even had the dumb luck of sitting next to Ryan Dahl while I was learning node (I had no idea who he was at the time); now I use node all day every day.

cfreeman 11y ago

Which GA did you work at? I have a friend that went to the one in Santa Monica and had a bad experience. Of course, he did eventually get a job as a developer afterwards so I guess it could've been worse. I went to a bootcamp recently and when I was picking my school I remember the reviews for GA varying a lot from location to location.

itslennysfault 11y ago
I taught in Seattle. I actually read a bunch of reviews before applying and noticed the same trend. I think the quality of the actual instructors plays a huge role which reflects on each markets ability to hire top talent with adequate industry experience. I've met Instructors from all over and from what I can tell it seems like GA generally does a great job at hiring, but being in 14 different cities there is bound to be some variance. My advice to anyone considering any immersive program would be to meet/vet the actual instructor(s) teaching your particular cohort.

lloyd-christmas 11y ago

From the student side, I'd say the admissions were crap. I was wait-listed simply because they lost my application. Our class ended up with 15 people who lived and breathed code for 3 months, along with a few nine-to-fivers who treated it as a work vacation. Shockingly, they were the ones who were allowed to control the pace. I ended up with one of them as a partner on one of the projects. His only contribution was a single line of "code"... his name on the README. Admission gripes and crappy students aside, the rest of the learning environment was great. The teachers were always willing to give more outside work if we wanted more. It was invaluable having classes overlapping and students at different learning stages sitting next to each other in the community workspace. Most people were happy to provide help. I even had the dumb luck of sitting next to Ryan Dahl while I was learning node (I had no idea who he was at the time); now I use node all day every day.