Fullstack Academy of Code

I attended Fullstack Academy as part of the January 2015 cohort. Before attending Fullstack, I studied computer science in graduate school which was a good experience but I felt like I was not learning the newest and most relevant technologies. Programs like Fullstack offered both the curriculum I wanted as well as my ideal learning culture. I think immersive programs are great because there is no better way to learn than to dive in and learn by doing.
The good: As I mentioned above, I enjoyed Fullstack’s emphasis on learning by building. The first six weeks of the program has more formal lectures but they are generally only an hour or so long. After each lecture, you spend one to two days completing a workshop where you actually build something. These workshops are done in pairs, practicing pair programming. I really enjoyed pair programming and found that it resulted in me learning a lot from my partners and by collaborating with them. I also think Fullstack offers a more unique curriculum in teaching the MEAN stack (MongoDB, Express, Angular, and Node). While I don’t actually use these technologies in my current job, I was able to apply many of the concepts I learned to Ruby and Rails. On the other hand, Ruby on Rails (which most other coding bootcamp type programs teach) is very opinionated and I imagine it is harder to go from it to something like Express where you end up having to do a lot more of the work manually. I also always found it to get help when I was stuck on a workshop or a project, either from a fellow student, a teaching fellow (former students who are teaching assistants of sorts), or an instructor.
Areas for improvement:
–Curriculum: I don’t think MongoDB or the Mongoose ORM which are taught at Fullstack are widely used enough to make them worthwhile to teach. On the other hand, almost every Fullstack graduate I know uses SQL and relational databases (there are a few who use NoSQL databases but a very small minority), and Fullstack only spends about 2 days teaching SQL. I luckily had used SQL before coming to Fullstack but I definitely think this is one thing the curriculum needs to focus on much more.
— Instructors: When Fullstack first started, the co-​founders David and Nimit taught students frequently. As the program has grown, this has decreased significantly which is fine but I think the quality of instruction has also gone down. Fullstack has hired many instructors who are either former students or have little to no industry experience. While being a seasoned software engineer does not necessarily mean you will be a good instructor, I do think it is good to be taught by people who have more perspective. One of the reasons I chose to attend Fullstack was the quality of instruction, and I question whether the quality has stayed consistent (I do not think so).
— Helping grads get jobs: Hiring Day is not what it is made out to be. Some people do find jobs from it, but many companies who attend are not interested in people without experience (several told me this). Additionally, I was not impressed by the companies that attended– most were extremely small and provided little to no mentorship. The companies that did sound promising did not have any real interest in hiring Fullstack grads. Fullstack also advertises a 97% hiring rate which I seriously question– it is a rate calculated after removing a lot of «ineligible» graduates. That all being said, the alumni network of Fullstack is quite strong and is a good way to help you find a job. Just do not put a ton of faith in getting a job from hiring day.
I am definitely happy I attended Fullstack and it helped me find a job that I completely love. However, the various areas for improvement I described above and my overall experience are closer to 4 stars than five.

My Background: Undergraduate degree in Economics, MBA in Finance. Left my job as a Management Consultant within the Financial Services industry to attend Fullstack Academy. I had very little prior coding experience.
Founders: David and Nimit are great guys. Both extremely knowledgable about coding and the industry in general. No matter how well the program seemed to be running, they were always looking for feedback and ways to improve the program. Fullstack Academy will just continue to get better over time with them in charge.
Curriculum: Overall very well structured and always improving. First half of the course typically consisted of instructor led lessons, followed by paired programming exercises. Throughout all exercises instructors were available to provide guidance. The second half of the curriculum consisted of two team projects, a 3 day Hackathon, and hiring day. There was also time spent during the second half of the course to help prepare for interviews.
Instructors: I was very impressed by the professionalism and knowledge of the instructors. Every instructor clearly had a passion for coding/​teaching (one even described working at Fullstack as his «dream job». When smart people are doing something they are passionate about, they do an amazing job.
Students: The only commonality was everyones passion to code. Incredibility eclectic group of individuals who were all amazing in different ways. One day you would be working with someone who used to be an Investment Banker, and the next day you were working with someone who was a past stunt actor for the Call of Duty video game (those are factual backgrounds). You will make great friends and you will be surrounded by people who are all working together to help each other succeed.
Outcome: I accepted a full-​time Software Engineering position about a month after graduating. I went on a number of interviews (some direct outcomes from hiring day some not). Overall, I received excellent feedback on my coding challenges as part of the interview process at various companies and I always felt as if I was well prepared.
Summary: Exactly as advertised. You come into a great program with awesome people (instructors and students) and you leave with an in-​demand skill that allows you to do something you love.

I had such a great experience at Fullstack that I just had to leave a comment.
Before Fullstack
Like many students that went through Fullstack, I came from an entirely different career path (Civil Engineering) non-​related to programming. After mustering the courage to make a career change, I did my research on how I could best transition to a new career in programming and came across programming bootcamps.
I was very skeptical at first because these bootcamps offered short programs (ranging between 3 – 6 months) for a substantial amount of money (~$ 12 000 — $ 15 000). Furthermore, there were also a lot of bootcamps available, so it was tough deciding which one was right for me. I dug deeper and reached out to graduates from many bootcamps such as Fullstack Academy, Flatiron School and DEV Bootcamp. To me, I found the most responsive people were the ones from Fullstack. Some of the major questions that I asked them were:
1. How quickly were they able to find jobs after graduating?
2. Did they feel like they were ready for the workforce after completing the program?
3. Did they feel like their experience was worth the time and money?
I’ve received very positive feedback. The students I’ve spoken with had many interviews lined up the week after Fullstack and most found jobs ranging between 2 weeks to 2 months. Even more surprisingly, they all stated that they loved their experience at Fullstack and some have even mentioned that «it was the best career decision they’ve made in their life».
During Fullstack
As the program is split into 3 parts: 6 weeks of lectures/​workshops (Junior Phase), 1 week for break, and 6 weeks for project phase (Senior Phase).
In the first 6 weeks, we had our work cut out for us. Although the workload was heavy, I felt that Fullstack did a great job scheduling and planning it in a way where the material didn’t seem too rushed. We spent a lot of our time learning from JavaScript Fundamentals, Data Structures and Algorithms, Server Side JS (Node, Express), databases (MongoDB, some SQL), Front End Js (Angular), Promises, OAUTH and the list continues… What I loved most about my experience in the junior phase was that all the workshops were done in pairs. This taught me how to adapt to other people’s coding styles, which will be very common in the work force. It also taught me how to code as part of a team, which can be very different than if you were to code individually. By the end of the junior phase I would have worked with most people at least once, which made it very comfortable working in groups leading into the Senior Phase.
In the last 6 weeks, this was entirely project based. There was a lot less hand holding from the teaching staff, which gave teams the freedom of how to complete their projects and divide up their work. It was in this phase where I learned the most because I started to see how the entire tech stack fell in place, and what I learned from the first 6 weeks started to make a lot more sense. However, this only came through hours of hard work and debugging which is the learning process all students inevitably will go through. The teaching staff and teaching assistants (Fellows) were very quick in providing help when you are completely stuck with a problem, and did a great job in guiding you towards a solution rather than just simply telling you what to do. Also during this phase, Fullstack helps with your career preparation such as resume building, cleaning up your LinkedIn and Github Profile, interview preparation, whiteboarding sessions, as well as providing a hiring day where many companies come out to see your capstone projects and interview with you. Shanna, who led all this career preparation, has been extremely approachable for career-​related questions or advice that I had.
After Fullstack
After graduating, I was fortunate enough to land many interviews within my first week out, some of which came from the hiring day event. Even more fortunately, I accepted a job offer within 3 weeks of graduating. A large part of this success I owe to Fullstack’s continued help in which they called «Fullstack Flight». Shanna was integral in helping us by providing us resources for preparing for interviews with coding challenges, and questions, networking and job application advice, and being accessible whenever we had any questions, even when it came down to salary negotiation!
As a side note, Fullstack does an excellent job creating a friendly, personal and down-​to-​Earth environment from planning weekly events for people to mingle, mentor groups and more. From the Fullstack staff to students, everyone was extremely friendly and open to conversation. I never had any difficulty reaching out to anyone for coding help, not even David or Nimit given their busy schedule managing Fullstack. I personally feel that it was because of this aspect of Fullstack that turned it from a good experience to an amazing one. A million thanks to the entire Fullstack team!

I have recently graduated from Fullstack Academy and I can honestly say that I was completely satisfied. The instructors David and Nimit are brilliant and genuinely care about their students.
If I had to think of a con, it would be the difficulty of the program. The students that you are surrounded by are all incredibly intelligent and have gone to schools like Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, CalTech, and Stanford… and it is easy to get overwhelmed with the course-​load. However, the instructors went out of their way to make sure I was comfortable with the material.
I am now interviewing with firms across the country and I can definitely say that I feel fully prepared.

As opposed to the majority of students who attended Fullstack Academy; I arrived with a CS degree and a couple of years work experience under my belt. Even so, Fullstack was a great decision for me. The greatest assets were definitely the people and the environment.
First of all, the lead instructors David and Nimit are the smartest engineers I have ever met. They were not only capable of solving any issue that I encountered but were also entirely able to communicate the issue and solution to me in ways that I could understand. While this means that I was able to complete projects with extremely experienced mentors, it also meant that students with more experience were able to gain just as much if not more from Fullstack than the students entering with less knowledge.
Second, with all of the students arriving eager to learn, there is an environment of curiosity and exploration that doesn’t exist almost anywhere else. The students are gaining the technical skills necessary to understand and use some of the newest and coolest technologies while at the same time, they have yet to become jaded and dismissive of emerging technologies.
Fullstack increased my value to prospective companies and made me a better and more curious coder. My only issue, is that I cannot attend again.
Thank you David and Nimit!

I went to school for accounting and worked ~2 years in public accounting in a Big 4 firm before deciding I wanted to drop everything and transition into a more interesting career. I was a member of the June 2014 cohort, subsequently stayed on as a teaching fellow following graduation, and I am now working as an engineer at a great company in the city.
Given that my main goal was to change careers, it’s interesting for me to be able to look back on the experience at the Academy now that I’m employed as an engineer around 6 months after leaving my previous job. Like others who have posted their reviews, I would say going through this program is likely the most rewarding experience of my life, both professionally and personally. I think going through the program, what you’re really paying for is the access to high quality instruction and also the positive, but intense learning environment that is necessary to learning this skill. The school is led by two really intelligent founders who have a contagious passion for learning and teaching, and the highly selective admission process allows you to be surrounded by a diverse, intelligent, and driven student body with a common goal of helping each other get better. I highly recommend Fullstack Academy.

Skepticism is understandable. The bootcamp value proposition does seem too good to be true – and indeed, many bootcamps are overstating their claims about how much value they bring to students.
But I’m a Fullstack alumni, and I firmly recommend its program unequivocally – it’s been one of the most high-​impact, positive learning experiences in my life. I’m currently working as a junior software engineer at
, the largest American organization dedicated to youth and social change. I can confidently say that Fullstack has thoroughly prepared me for my current position – I was able to make high quality contributions to my codebase almost immediately. I’ve known more than a few students coming out of bootcamps – General Assembly, Dev Bootcamp, the Flatiron School, App Academy, among others – in the New York City area, and Fullstack absolutely has one of the best-​run bootcamps in New York.
New bootcamps open every week or so, and the supply side of the market’s quickly getting saturated. In many ways, the services offered by bootcamps are pretty fungible – in today’s current dev labor market, ~$ 12.5k of tuition and three months of intense Rails study and a few projects will most likely get you hired, regardless of which bootcamp you came out of.
The challenge, then, to bootcamps is to differentiate themselves through the quality of its instruction. Fullstack’s cofounders – Nimit Maru and David Yang – are pretty obviously dedicated to improving curriculum quality as their first priority. (More so, then say, scaling up to multiple campuses or increasing the throughput of students.)
It’s important to be a skeptic when evaluating the bootcamp space. Talk to students, learn of their experiences and outcomes, check out the campuses, talk to instructors. But it’s hard to go wrong with Fullstack – it’s one of the highest quality bootcamp learning experiences in New York.

A year ago, I was laid off from my previous job not under the best circumstances and now I am working as a Software Engineer at a promising startup making more than twice the amount I did at my previous job. I would say that qualifies as having a pretty good year and a lot of it is due to Fullstack Academy.
After my layoff, I knew that I wanted to get into tech and learn coding so I tried to teach it to myself using tools like CodeAcademy, CodeSchool, TreeHouse, various tutorials I found here and there. But I knew that I needed a bit of guidance because the biggest thing holding me back was that I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
To be honest, I got accepted into quite a few bootcamps including DevBootcamp, General Assembly, and App Academy and the only reason I chose Fullstack was that it started the earliest and I figured the earlier I joined the earlier I would get a job. But I am lucky that I did. Fullstack Academy was great in guiding me and helping me learn the basics of Web Development. And it was truly an environment where you got out as much as you put in.
And I would like to think I put in quite a few hours (I spent close to 80 hours a week at Fullstack) and I learned more than I ever did in a span of 12 weeks. And the best part about it was that I was learning by doing.
I agree with everything that the glowing reviews have said here about David and Nimit. Nimit is probably the most patient human being I’ve ever seen when dealing with sleepless-​crazed people trying to learn to code, while David is one of the most skilled debuggers and knowledgable fullstack developer that I’ve met. They genuinely care about your success and how to make your experience the best.
But the thing with any of these bootcamps is really the amount of effort you keep exerting after you leave Fullstack. It’s been about 5 months since I’ve left Fullstack and I would say I am probably lightyears better as a developer than I was then. But I really can’t say that I would not get to where I am without the jolt star that Fullstack gave me.
I also wrote a much longer review about Fullstack in my blog, if you care to read:

Prior to attending FullStack, I spent over a year and a half learning web development independently through the usual suspects of free and paid online channels. However, despite all the invested time, I still felt woefully unprepared to move beyond ‘hobbyist’ mode and into production-​grade development. I applied to FullStack with that intention — to become a professional grade developer and synthesize all the concepts I had learned online and in my undergrad electrical engineering days (many many many moons ago).
It’s a big investment of time and money, but well worth it – in saved opportunity cost (of not having to learn concepts in isolation), high quality of instruction (the lead instructors are fantastic!), and network of other students. I came into the school with a decent amount of prior experience compared to some of the other students, and still felt that I couldn’t learn enough. You learn things that there is no way you could learn on your own — the latest technologies, deployment, working with other developers in a simulated production environment. Plus, you have a whole classroom of potential hackathon partners! You basically learn how to learn, and once you have a solid foundation of web development principles, you’re on the path after graduation to continue to learn on your own and find a job, which many of my fellow students did quite quickly post-​graduation.
I highly recommend FullStack (and learning to code in general!) to anyone — it will pay off in spades in any field you are currently in or decide to enter in the future.

I found the world of code bootcamps enticing and suspect with their promise of «12 weeks from amateur to pro.» Given that they all pretty much make this claim alongside the assurance you’ll be learning the latest in web development, some research was in order.
My three criteria in finding the best fit were:
1. The curriculum truly had to be of the moment. This meant learning the MEAN stack.
2. The pace and scope had to be geared towards someone that’s more than a beginner.
3. The people running the place had to be great teachers, not just great developers.
After reading numerous reviews, reaching out to alumni, and speaking with school reps, Fullstack became the clear choice. The knowledge, connections, and opportunities I’ve gained from the experience well exceeded my expectations, but it’s a get-​what-​you-​give situation. If you put in the time/​effort to master the material, David, Nimit, and the rest of the team are more than supportive.
In short, Fullstack was one of the best professional decisions I’ve ever made. I think anyone considering a code bootcamp ought to give them a serious look.

I’m confident that everyone who attended Fullstack Academy has mostly good things to say about it. In fact, most of them would probably claim that it was the «best decision of their life.» It may seem like hyperbole, but personally, it was one of the best decisions of my life.
You’ll find more details on the program layout from the other reviews so I’ll continue with my overall review and thoughts.
In terms of cost and time invested, Fullstack Academy was one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my life. I learned and did more in those 13 weeks than in any other 13 week period.
— The class size is kept small (around 20 students) so enough attention is given to everyone.
— David and Nimit are amazing instructors, mentors, and engineers. They’re extremely passionate about teaching and helping you succeed too.
— The TAs are all super smart, knowledgable, and helpful.
— The curriculum is well-​thought-​out and designed. It has a focus on the JavaScript (MEAN) stack so there’s less language context-​switching (as opposed to other bootcamps that use say Rails). This way you can become extremely proficient with one language yet also focus on fundamentals and concepts. It was awesome to see how far everyone in the class had progressed by the end of the program.
— Projects are super fun and you’re pretty much free to do whatever you want, with any language, libraries, frameworks, technologies, etc. I made a Wafels & Dinges locator, a chat-​roulette battle Tetris game, and a prototype mobile app for a company (which my team and I got paid for). I also participated in and won my first hackathon with two other classmates.
You’ll learn how to learn but you should be a perpetual learner — the journey has only just begun by the time you graduate. If you put in the effort, David, Nimit and the rest of the staff will do everything they can to help you succeed. You’ll make new friends and professional connections. You’ll gain confidence in your abilities as a software engineer.
Oh yeah, like me and most of my classmates, you’ll probably land some cool job opportunities too.

I really enjoyed my time at Fullstack Academy. It gave me the skillset and confidence to land a dream job at a growing startup! Here are my pro’s and con’s of my time at Fullstack.
Pros:
* David and Nimit are both amazing teachers. Their teaching styles and backgrounds complement each other and provide diverse perspectives on the course material. They’ve known each other for years and have experience teaching together.
* The TA’s are all very smart and willing to help whenever you need them.
* The curriculum is well designed and logically progresses from foundations to theories to individual technologies to complete projects (which tie all prior topics together).
* Every single student in my cohort reached something called «escape velocity», or the ability to quickly teach yourself new technologies as needed.
Cons:
* In my cohort we had one guest lecturer for a few days who was very knowledgeable but not a good teacher.
* Fullstack Academy is a newer school so their brand is limited, however those who have heard of it are usually very impressed.
Advice to Management:
* Be careful to maintain the integrity of the program as you grow: this’ll be hard but you can do it!
* Make sure that guest lecturers are knowledgeable and good teacher.

I was in the Fullstack Spring 2014 class and it was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. Web development has always been something that has interested me, so I decided to quit my job to go to a bootcamp. I applied to quite a few bootcamps but during my interview when I spoke with Nimit for the first time (one of the co-​founders/​lead instructors) I knew that Fullstack Academy was the one for me. When class started, I met David (the other co-​founder/​lead instructor) and immediately knew I made the right decision. You can’t find better instructors when it comes to learning development because these two know their shit. Not only are they great teachers with reputable Software Engineer resumes, but they are great guys that you end up becoming good friends with. I highly recommend Fullstack Academy to anyone considering a bootcamp.

Going through Fullstack was one of the most empowering and liberating experiences of my life – academic, professional, or otherwise. I’d never heard of a learning environment like this before, and I’d certainly never had the pleasure of being a part of one. My classmates, as diverse a group as any, were smart, capable, motivated, and most importantly generous – you’ll find no shortage of new friends eager to help you squash bugs when you (inevitably) run into them. By the time I left Fullstack, I felt like I’d fast-​tracked my way into an elite professional network of ridiculously skilled developers. You will learn many of the latest and most in-​demand web development technologies during the course of your 13 weeks with David, Nimit, and the rest of Fullstack’s warm and highly capable staff.
I graduated Fullstack confident in my abilities as a software developer. Within four weeks, I accepted a competitive front-​end position at a startup here in New York, and I couldn’t be happier.
Deciding whether a bootcamp is right for you is obviously an important choice – for one thing, they’re not cheap. But my final bit of wisdom is that you should pick your bootcamp (should you decide to attend one) based not on the technologies you’ll be learning, but instead on the quality of the instructors and your fellow students. There’s nowhere I would have rather enrolled than Fullstack.

I am a recent graduate of Fullstack Academy and choosing to go there was one of the best decisions I have made. I decided I wanted to change careers and pursue a career in coding and the tech industry. Once doing so, I applied to 11 web immersive bootcamps and was accepted into 7 of them. I had a tough decision but I am so glad that I chose Fullstack Academy and if I had to make that decision again, then I would still pick Fullstack in a heartbeat.
David and Nimit, the two co-​founders, are both very passionate and patient teachers. They want you to succeed and are there to help guide you along your way as you navigate the curriculum. The curriculum is top-​notch, plus you will get to learn some of the most cutting edge technologies in order to build your tool belt so you can tackle any challenge you want. While I was there, Fullstack hired Zeke to be another instructor who is just as good as David and Nimit.
Some may say that a bootcamp is expensive and some may disagree. However, if you consider the price along with the time the course takes then a bootcamp is a great way to jumpstart your career. Fullstack Academy in my opinion is the best bootcamp out there and I have and will continue to recommend this bootcamp to friends who are considering this path.
If you have any questions about Fullstack Academy and my experience then please feel free to reach out to me.

I just finished the immersive 13 week MEAN stack web development program at Fullstack Academy of Code. Fullstack was the most challenging and satisfying professional experience of my life. Seriously. It was harder than a master’s program in econ and much more fulfilling than any job I’ve ever had. You not only tap into all you need to become a good coder, but also learn a ton about best practices and interviewing. I worked with very smart, motivated and creative classmates. And it’s an awesome community — people help each other troubleshoot, share learning hacks and refer each other for jobs. A week out, I have had a few first round interviews and am pursuing a number of solid leads.
I have a longer review at:
. But check out key points below:
** Build real apps. During the final six weeks, I built and deployed three fullstack apps — with database, server code and an interactive front-​end based on Angular. Js or jQuery.
** Learn a timely language. Unlike many immersives, Fullstack teaches fullstack JavaScript. This was a big selling point for me and I see a very strong market for JavaScript developers.
** Amazing staff. The founders and instructors are not only expert coders, but also professionals who have founded startups and led teams at Yahoo and Gilt Groupe
** High attention to job skills. Expect to get grilled on algorithmic whiteboard problems, to refactor your Github and to learn to pursue actionable leads on coding jobs.